The East Side Freedom Library invites you to our monthly Labor History Reading Group.

Tuesday, November 17, 2020, 7-8:30PM

Register here to receive the invitation to this Zoom meeting.

Activists today are increasingly working at the intersections of race, class, and gender. Activist scholars, particularly labor historians, have been exploring the past both to understand the social forces and experiences which have shaped the present and to unearth examples of creative organizing from which we can learn. The Industrial Workers of the World, popularly known as “the Wobblies,” was an imaginative and inspiring labor organization in the first two decades of the 20th century. Members continued to have an impact on the labor movement in the 1920s-1930s-1940s, and the organization’s ideas have continued to inspire generations of activists.

Peter Cole is an activist scholar who has researched and written about important elements of the Wobblies’ experiences, particularly dockworkers for whom diversity, race, and racism were central issues. A year ago, Peter brought his book Dockworker Power to an enthusiastic audience at ESFL. He has just published an exciting new book, a biography of African American dockworker, Ben Fletcher. Peter has offered us access to this essay, “Philadelphia’s Lords of the Docks: Interracial Unionism Wobbly Style,” for our November Labor History Reading Group. Here is a link to the essay. If you have difficult downloading it, please email us at [email protected] and we will email it to you. Peter will be joining us by Zoom to take part in our conversation.

Free and open to all

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