Joseph Hillstrom (1879-1915) came to the United States from Sweden in 1902, drifted for a time, then joined the radical Industrial Workers of the World in 1910.
The IWW was known as the “Wobblies.” They opposed the AFL, which refused to organize unskilled labor.
Joe Hill was an organizer for the IWW. He was arrested in 1914 on murder charges and convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence.
After exhausting his appeals, he was killed by a firing squad in November 1915. The day before his execution, he sent a telegram to Big Bill Haywood, the leader of the IWW, saying, “Don’t waste any time mourning. Organize.”
He became a legendary figure. Alfred Hayes wrote this song about Joe Hill, sung by Pete Seeger.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And in fact, Joe never died. We can pick up this story again in this film about a zinc miners strike in New Mexico in 1951. “Salt of the Earth”
This is the full movie, and has a good accompanying text, describing the context of the strike, and of the film.
“The film was called subversive and blacklisted because the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers sponsored it and many blacklisted Hollywood professionals helped produce it. “
A scan of Joe Hill’s own last will and testament from wikipedia: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Joe_Hill_will.pdf
This poem was set to music by Ethel Raim, who, I believe, recorded it on LP with the Pennywhistlers in the 1970s, and there is also a very beautiful recording of it by former librarian of congress, folklorist Joe Hickerson (unfortunately not on Youtube so far as I know). If you want to learn to sing it yourself, there is a midi file of Ethel’s beautiful tune on Digital traditions: http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiJOHIWILL;ttJOHIWILL.html
I participated in a commemoration of MLK’s March on Washington on Saturday in Peekskill, NY. Pete Seeger showed up in the audience and was asked to come down to the podium to say a few words about Martin. He remembered his fiery writing skills.
As Pete made his way back to his seat, I reached out and handed him a song I wrote, which I carry with me to occasions where I might meet activists. It is a long shot but I hope someday soon, he might sing it in his own inimitable way. Here it is. (Although the title might make one want to sing it to Pete’s tune of “Where have all the flowers gone?,” it actually sings best to an Irish jig type of rhythm.) If you really study the labor movement, you will find that we have always been fighting the billionaires and their Wall Street bankers. Nothing has changed. Except us. We are allowing them to distract us with TV, Hollywood, iphones, and alcoholic beverages. Where’s the fight?
Where Has All The Money Gone?
They say we have no money,
I say, where did it go?
The pockets of hedge fund managers
continue to overflow.
We cannot balance the budget,
Goldman’s debts are still on the books.
We need a Pecora Commission
to jail those banker crooks!
They want to blame the unions
that help workers get a fair deal.
Fifty years of human rights
gone in a midnight repeal.
Take Medicare from older folks.
Leave them out in the cold to die,
while bankers line their pockets
and we believe the lie.
They say we have no money,
I say, where did it go?
The pockets of hedge fund managers
continue to overflow.
We must reinstate Glass Steagall.
It’s the only thing to do.
Take back the bail out money
and ram a New Deal through.
FDR was smarter
than Obama any day.
We don’t believe in change any more.
Bring back the WPA.
Unemployment and foreclosure
won’t keep America strong.
For congress and the president
to do nothing about it is wrong.
Glass Steagall’s in the House now.
Call your reps and let them know.
If they like it where they’re sitting
we expect their vote to show.
The people’s patience has run out.
Congress knows that for a fact.
Vote for H.R. 129 —
Reinstate the Glass Steagall Act!
Until this Act is passed,
we must call them every day.
We won’t put up with austerity —
call (202) 224-3121 today.
They say we have no money,
I say, where did it go?
The pockets of hedge fund managers
continue to overflow.
Have you sent this to Senator Elizabeth Warren?
Elizabeth Warren has already introduced legislation to reinstate Glass Steagall in the Senate. I prefer S.985, “Return to Prudent Banking Act of 2013,” the bill that Tom Harkin has introduced because it is identical to HR 129 in the House. Since the bills are identical, when they pass, they do not have to waste time resolving differences which is when a lot of shenanigans occur; the bill can go straight to the president’s desk. We have an unprecedented opportunity to defeat Diane’s “billionaire’s boys club” by demanding the reinstatement of Glass Steagall. If we break up the banks, and end the derivatives gambling casino buoyed up by taxpayer bail outs, we stop the power brokers from privatizing our schools and bankrupting our cities, like Detroit, and stealing the pensions from city workers, and starting another brutal, bloody, useless, horrific (as opposed to a the bloodless strategic strike they want to make us believe in) attack on a nation that is not a threat to the U.S. Glass Steagall would be the beginning of a new New Deal. It would send a crippling message to the thieves on Wall Street — You’re done.
Diane,
I know that your readership includes people from several generations. Thank you for introducing the history of the fight for unions to a younger generation or at the very least, reminding us all of those struggles.
I believe a great place to start is with the music. From Woody Guthrie to Pete Seeger, there was a body of work that started with songs about union that then morphed into songs about civil rights. Our musical talent pool out there should sing covers of those songs and write a few more. Those tunes are still in our collective memory I bet.
Yes, I agree, Diane. There is so much official union bashing these days that many young people have no notion what life was like before we had unions, but they are about to learn abut that, for the unions in the United States have been decimated. One has to look no further than the teachers unions’ playing footsie with the education deformers.
I meant,
Yes, I agree. Thank you, Diane!
Here is a link to Phil Ochs song about Joe Hill. http://www.metrolyrics.com/joe-hill-lyrics-phil-ochs.html
Here is Joan Baez singing “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night”…..
Speaking of Utah, here’s a heartwarmer. Really.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/money/56788935-79/labor-workers-organizing-utah.html.csp
It is par for the course in Utah. We don’t execute labor leaders now, but unions are sure vilified here.
And now that Diane has us all listening online… don’t miss Paul Robeson’s extra-moving version of Joe Hill at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Kxq9uFDes&list=RD11_f2J4ceCikI — what a voice!
Well, since we’re going all the way, let’s share the song we sing to open every meeting of CORE here in Chicago. Solidarity Forever. Here is the URL for the version sung by Pete Seeger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYiKdJoSsb8
If anyone wants the words, here they are, too (below).
A lot of the strength of the Chicago resistance comes from the strength of the Chicago Teachers Union since CORE won in June 2010. And just in case the ruling class missed it, we won again in May 2013 by with a vote of 80 percent on May 17.
But to keep the historical record clear, Rahm Emanuel’s first act as mayor was to take away the four percent raise earned by Chicago teachers and other school workers in June 2011, literally the month after his inauguration and at the first meeting of his appointed Board of Education (which at that time included Penny Pritzker among the seven privatizers and union busters on Chicago’s appointed school board).
In other words, Rahm’s Board attacked Chicago teachers and unions two months before Rahm told CTU President Karen Lewis, “Fuck you, Lewis.”
At that time (August 2011), Rahm believed that the union would never get the 75 percent vote of the union membership required by law to authorize a strike. But by June 2012. As Stand for Children chieftain Jonah Edelman bragged (at the Aspen Ideas Festival in June 2011) Stand for Children had outsmarted Chicago teachers by getting the law changed to require a 75 percent vote of the union’s membership in order to authorize a strike.
Or so they thought.
The Chicago Teachers Strike of 2012 is now a part of our shared history, and we should enjoy this Labor Day in part by celebrating that strike. And by singing the song we sing at CORE as we stay organized to keep the union strong.
Maybe singing this song every meeting (which is at least once a month) helped.
SOLIDARITY FOREVER! By Ralph H. Chaplin
(Tune: “John Brown’s Body”, “Battle Hymn of the Republic”)
Below are the four ‘main’ verses of the union song “Solidarity Forever”. Two other verses from the “original” have been deleted. These below are the ones usually sung. The original was first published in the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) “Little Red Song Book”. A favorite You Tube rendition of the song is sung by Pete Seeger with illustrations from the early history of the union movement in the USA, including general strikes and many of the most famous figures in the history of American labor The URL is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYiKdJoSsb8.
SOLIDARITY FOREVER
When the Union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun.
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one?
But the Union makes us strong.
CHORUS
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
For the Union makes us strong.
It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade.
Dug the mines and built the workshops; endless miles of railroad laid.
Now we stand, outcast and starving, ‘mid the wonders we have made;
But the Union makes us strong. (Chorus)
They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn.
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power; gain our freedom when we learn
That the Union makes us strong. (Chorus)
In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold;
Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousandfold.
We can bring to birth the new world from the ashes of the old,
For the Union makes us strong. (Chorus)
Thank you, all of you, for giving me goosebumps as I read the comments. Yes, look where time has taken us, a nation careening out of control, as in an oversize vehicle driven by a very drunk driver. For one brought up on Pete Seeger, I feel hope as your writing brings it back, Alive as you or me. We do need to bring it back………
Please refer to the following weekly on excess and inequality, if you want further information on where the careening has taken us.
http://toomuchonline.org/tmweekly.html