The Frank Boyd Award to Greg Poferl

Born in Kansas in 1881, Frank Boyd moved to Saint Paul in 1904 and went to work as a railroad porter for the Pullman Company, then the largest employer of African American men in the United States. Boyd became one of the leading organizers of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), a union that saw the struggle for higher wages, shorter hours, benefits, and a grievance procedure as inseparable from the struggle for civil rights, political voice, self-respect, and dignity. When he was fired in the late 1920s for his organizing efforts, Boyd went to work at the Armour Meat-Packing Plant in South Saint Paul and he organized packinghouse workers as well as Pullman porters. He also served as a Deacon at Pilgrim Baptist Church and an executive committee member in the St. Paul Democratic Farmer Labor Party. In 1973, eleven years after his death, Boyd’s memory was honored with naming of a park on Selby Avenue “Boyd Park” and the installation of a beautiful bust. 

Like Frank Boyd, Greg Poferl has given his life to struggles for justice, from the U.S. Postal Service and global labor solidarity to education and the mentorship of young people. After he retired as a National Business Agent in the American Postal Workers Union, he became a high school teacher, and, after he retired from that work, he became our volunteer custodian and a National History Day mentor here at ESFL. Greg embodies Frank Boyd’s commitment to solidarity and justice.

The Eva McDonald Valesh Award to Rose Roach

In 1888, a St. Paul Globe exposé of women’s working conditions penned by “Eva Gay” launched the career of Eva McDonald Valesh, a young writer. Her articles revealed the long hours, unhealthy conditions, and low wages faced by women who worked in a local garment factory, and, when the women went on strike less than a month later, McDonald’s article was credited with setting off the protest. She continued writing for the Globe for more than a year, going undercover as a factory worker, a domestic worker, and a store clerk. She became a star in the Minnesota labor movement as a speaker, a journalist and editor, speaking across the state in support of the Knights of Labor and the movement for an eight-hour workday, and she served as State Lecturer of the Farmers’ Alliance. In 1888, McDonald became the first woman to run for the Minneapolis School Board. She became labor editor for the St. Paul Globe and then a labor columnist for the Minneapolis Tribune, before moving to New York City in 1896 to become communications director for the national American Federation of Labor under Samuel Gompers. In 2002, Minnesota labor historian Elizabeth Faue published Writing the Wrongs: Eva Valesh and the Rise of Labor Journalism, keeping her story alive for ensuing generations.

Like Eva McDonald Valesh, Rose Roach has devoted her life to the labor movement.  She grew up in Saint Paul, the daughter of a union brewer at Schmidt’s Brewery, and graduated from Metro State University. She moved to California where she became a field director for the California State Employees Association and began her commitment to making healthcare available to all. Rose returned to Minnesota and held a series of staff positions for the Minnesota School Employees Association, including Executive Director, before she was chosen Executive Director of the Minnesota Nurses Association in 2014. From that position she not only organized and advocated for nurses but also educated the wider public about our need for single-payer healthcare. She also helped get the East Side Freedom Library off the ground and has continued to support our work in the labor movement. Earlier this year, Rose retired from MNA and immediately became Executive Director of Healthcare for All Minnesota.

The Joe Karth Award to Jamie Fitzpatrick

Joe Karth was born in New Brighton in 1922, the grandson of German immigrants.  He attended public schools and the University of Nebraska, interrupting his education during the Second World War to serve in the U.S. Army. Upon his discharge he went to work at 3M in Saint Paul, where he became an activist in the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union, and served as an international representative from 1947 to 1958. While he was respected for his shop-floor presence, Karth also looked beyond the plant and the local union to make progressive change. He advocated for government regulation of the emerging nuclear industry and for global peace. In 1950 as a candidate of the Democratic Farmer Labor Party, Karth was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives, where he served for eight years. In 1958, he was elected to the U.S. Congress and served until 1977. He was a strong voice for workers’ rights in Congress, a builder of unions’ presence in East Side politics, and an advocate for safety and peace from our neighborhood to the wider world.

Jamie Fitzpatrick has had a full life as a worker and activist in Minnesota’s public sector.  A graduate of the University of Minnesota, for many years he worked as a Workforce Program Developer at the Minnesota Department of Economic Development (DEED), and then as a Planning Analyst for Hennepin County. At all times and in all places, Jamie was a union activist, eventually serving as state Treasurer for the Minnesota Association of Public Employees (MAPE). Since ESFL organized a Labor Advisory Committee, Jamie has served as its chairperson, recruiting other participants, establishing agendas, building relationships between ESFL and the labor movement.

Solidarity Awards to UFCW 1189, Minnesota Nurses Association, and IBEW 292

Our mission at the East Side Freedom Library is “to inspire solidarity, work for justice, and advocate for equity for all.” Our kinship with the labor movement is grounded in our recognition that unions are the most important grassroots organizations which promote the same mission. We see ourselves standing on the shoulders of unions who made Minnesota labor history, such as: the American Railway Union, which took on James J. Hill and other railroad oligarchs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; the Industrial Workers of the World and the Western Federation of Miners, who took on Andrew Carnegie, Oliver Mining, and U.S. Steel on the Iron Range in the early 20th century; the Independent Union of All Workers who spread out from the Hormel plant in Austin in the 1930s to organize packinghouse workers, retail workers, and manufacturing workers across the Midwest, laying a foundation for the United Packinghouse Workers of America; and Teamsters Local 574 who made Minneapolis a union town in the 1930s and prompted the passage of the National Labor Relations Act and the establishment of the CIO.

In our nine years of existence, ESFL has enjoyed the support of many unions as we have renovated our building, developed educational programs for union members and for our neighbors about the roles of unions in American history, built a collection of labor history books among the best in the country, convened panel discussions with union leaders and activists, brought labor historians and other authors of books about workers and unions into conversation with our community, co-sponsored an annual Union Job Fair, and promoted solidarity with unions engaged in struggles. We could not do this work for unions if we did have the support of unions. Today we want to recognize three Twin Cities unions who have been consistent and generous in their support of ESFL since our establishment: United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189; the Minnesota Nurses Association; and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 292. We appreciate their support, and the support of so many other unions, and we stand in solidarity with all of you.