Today in Labor History February 12th, 2025

 

John L Lewis

Lady Jane Grey, who had claimed the throne of England for nine days, and her husband, Guildford Dudley, were beheaded after being condemned for high treason - 1554

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was born in a log cabin in Hardin (now LaRue) County, Kentucky - 1809

Abolitionist Frederick Douglass born into slavery near Easton, Md - 1818

Labor leader John L. Lewis was born in Cleveland, Iowa to Welsh immigrant parents. Lewis began working as a miner when he was a teenager, worked as a mine workers’ organizer for the American Federation of Labor, and went on to serve the president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) for 40 years. A firm believer in industrial unionism, he pulled the UAW from the American Federation of Labor (and punched out Carpenter’s Union President William Hutcheson in the process) when the AFL refused to endorse industrial unionism. Lewis formed the predecessor organization to what would become the Congress of Industrial Organizations. They organized millions of unskilled, mass production workers into unions in the 1930s and 1940s. – 1880

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded in New York City - 1909

On Feb. 12, 1999, the Senate voted to acquit President Bill Clinton in his impeachment trial of charges of perjury and obstruction of justice - 1999

Mexico’s most notorious drug lord, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, was convicted in New York of running an industrial-scale drug smuggling operation, murder and money laundering. (Guzman is currently serving a life sentence at the federal supermax prison facility in Florence, Colorado.) - 2019