British soldiers, quartered in the homes of colonists, took the jobs of working people when jobs were scarce. On this date, grievances of ropemakers against the soldiers led to a fight. Soldiers shot down Crispus Attucks, a black colonist, then others, in what became known as the Boston Massacre. Attucks is considered the first casualty in the American Revolution. – 1770
Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) was born on this date in Zamosc, Poland. Together with Karl Liebknecht, she helped found the radical Spartacus League in 1916. After the Spartacist uprising in Berlin, they were both arrested and murdered by German soldiers. – 1871
The first group of black “exodusters” arrived in St. Louis aboard the steamer Colorado on their way to Kansas, which was then considered the “promised land” for jobs. Many were fleeing harsh sharecropper contracts, pass laws, imprisonment, and racist violence. Tennessee cabinetmaker, “Pap” Singleton, who called himself the Father of the Colored Exodus, encouraged the migration by printing handbills. A steamboat strike later slowed the migration, reducing the exodus to a trickle by 1881. – 1879
Members of the Industrial Workers of the World, (IWW, Wobblies) went on trial in Everett, Washington for being the victims of an assault by a government sanctioned mob (sheriff-led vigilantes). – 1917
The United Shoe Workers of America merged with the Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers Union. – 1979
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