An Incredibly Incomplete List of Historical Happenings Along Our Route to the US Social Forum

Please note that this brief history is largely the outcome of hours of “googling” on the web and is likely to have some errors and is missing a great deal of important historical events and people. I hope that you’ll play a role in correcting those errors and adding to the history by discussing what you read here with other riders on this bus and sharing your stories. Hope you enjoy the ride.

Wisconsin

Milwaukee—
∗ 1865 Local 125 of the United Molders Union formed—one of the 1st modern trade unions in the country
∗ 1867 Shoemakers form the Knights of St. Crispen growing to over 50,000 members becoming the largest union in the country until its collapse in the panic of 1873
∗ 1886 the Bayview Massacre— during the struggle for the 8 hour day workers hold a general strike closing down most of the industrial plants for the first 5 days in May. During the march on the Bayview Rolling mills militia fired into the crowd killing seven. This happened one day after the famed Haymarket Affair in Chicago
∗ The Wisconsin State Federation of Labor was formed with a convention in 1893 in Milwaukee with goals calling for abolition of child labor, workplace safety and health protections, the eight-hour day, workers compensation, an end of "company stores" and requirement to pay wages in cash, not company script.
∗ 1897 - Formation of Socialist Party in Milwaukee, forming basis for much progressive action in City and State of Wisconsin
∗ 1939-1947 - Strikes at Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co. in West Allis become national symbols of struggle for shop floor rights and debate over role of communism in unions
∗ 1948-1960 Frank Ziedler, last in the string of 12 Socialist Mayors of Milwaukee
∗ 1981 Wisconsin becomes the 1st state to pass a state-wide gay rights bill
Illinois

Chicago
∗ March 13th 1773 Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a Black merchant, founds Chicago
∗ Chicago is the home of the first planned industrial town of Pullman which was created by George Pullman owner of the Pullman Palace Car Company. In 1894 workers as they saw their wages and hours fall. June 26, 1894 the fledging American Railroad Union (ARU) provided key support to striking workers by refusing to handle trains carrying Pullman cars. Within days more that 124,000 workers joined the effort. Effectively closing down much of the rail traffic in the country. In response, President Cleveland sent in federal troops and crushed the strike by mid July.
∗ 1886—May 3rd, police attack strikers at the McCormick Reaper factory killing at least 2. Newspaper editor August Spies responds by issuing a flyer encouraging people to attend a rally the following evening at Haymarket Square. As police advanced on the rally a bomb was tossed killing eight officers. Police fired on the crowd killing at least 4 and wounding many more. Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Louis Lingg, Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe, and Michael Schwab were convicted. Parsons, Spies, Engel, and Fischer died on the gallows. Lingg committed suicide. Fielden, Neebe, and Schwab were sentenced to prison and were pardoned in 1893. Graves of the matyrs and a memorial are found in Forest Home Cemetary
∗ 1889 Jane Adams and Ellen Gates Starr open Hull House
∗ June 27th 1905—Mother Jones, Big Bill Heywood, Eugene V. Debs, Daniel DeLeon, and Fr. Thomas Haggerty are among those who, frustrated with the craft union approach of the AFL, gather in Chicago to form the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) more commonly known as the Wobblies. Branches of the IWW are still active in Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and in many other communities across the US and the world.
∗ 1925 The Society for Human Rights in Chicago becomes the earliest known gay rights organization
∗ 1942 Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) formed in Chicago
∗ 1943 CORE stages its first sit in at a Chicago restaurant
∗ July 12th 1951 Governor Adalai Stevenson calls out the National Guard after a mob of 3,500 try to stop a Black family from moving into Cicero
∗ 1961 Illinois becomes the first state to decriminalize homosexual acts
∗ February 23rd 1966 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. meets with the honorable Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam
∗ April 24th 1967 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and peaceful protestors heckled and attacked in Cicero
∗ 1968 Democratic National Convention
∗ 1969 Days of Rage
∗ December 4th 1969 police invade the home of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton killing Hampton and Mark Clark and injuring others. Police claim self defense, but later investigations prove that the Panther had not resisted in any way.
∗ 1970 about 200 people take to the streets in Chicago in a gay rights rally

Indiana

Gary
∗ 1800’s as many as 50 Potawatomi villages exist in NW Indiana. Most are removed by the arrival of new settlers
∗ Founded as a corporate town by US Steel in 1906 and named after Elbert H. Gary, chairman of US Steel (US Steel changed its name to USX corporation in 1986 and was broken into United States Steel Corporation and Marathon Oil in 2002)
∗ 1919 a general strike was called against the steel industry in an attempt to end the 12 hour day. The strike was crushed by 1920.
∗ The steel industry brought with it rapid growth. Many African Americans moved to Gary for employment, but a quota system allowed the workforce to be no more than 15% African American. African Americans and later Mexican workers were kept segregated from the larger community and forced to live in “the Patch”
∗ The Great Depression caused a drop in steel production down to 15% of capacity by 1932. Union organizing grew in Gary because of the Depression. Between 1935 and 1939 wages for steel workers rose 27%.
∗ 1945 a prolonged strike at Froebel high school calls for the removal of Black students
∗ 1949 the Indiana state legislature bans segregation of public schools
∗ 1959 a 116 day strike at US Steel closed down 90% of steel production at not only US Steel, but also of its competitors
∗ 1967 Richard Hatcher becomes one of the African American mayors of a major US city
∗ 1968 race riots

Indianapolis
∗ 1901 founding of the Socialist Party of the United States
∗ 1890 United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) formed
∗ 1903 International Brotherhood of Teamsters establishes its national headquarters in Indianapolis with Cornelius Stein as its president
∗ 1852 becomes home to Local 1 of the National Typographical Union
∗ 1914 500 women together to create the Union Cooperative Store
∗ Home of Mary Donovan Hapgood corresponding secretary for the Saco-Vanzetti defense team. Mary was the 1st woman to run for Governor in Indiana when she ran on the Socialist ticket in 1940. Mary was also active in the founding years of the Council of Industrial Organization (CIO), helped found the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, and remained active into her 80’s in the 1960’s peace movement and the presidential campaigns of Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern.
∗ Powers Hapgood (husband f Mary Donovan Hapgood) turned on his background of privilege to commit to the working class. He wrote of his experiences working in the coal mines in publications like the Nation. He played a key role in organizing the UMWA until he was ousted in an internal political battle after which he became active in the Socialist Party. He ran for governor in 1932. After reconciling with John L. Lewis, Powers became the regional director of the CIO in 1935 a post he held until shortly before his death in 1949.

Kentucky

∗ 1680s small pox or another European disease appears in Kentucky killing more than 75% of the Native people of the area
∗ 1776 Molly Logan is the first Black woman to arrive in Kentucky
∗ 1782 Monk Estill becomes the first freed slave in Kentucky
∗ 1838 Cherokee people on the Trail of Tears pass through Kentucky on the march to Oklahoma after being removed from their homelands by the federal government

Louisville
∗ August 6th, 1885 Bloody Monday—election riots break out around rivalry between the Democrats and the Know-Nothing Party (the Know-Nothings were a secretive anti-immigration party)
∗ Sept 24th 1883 National Black Convention held in Louisville

∗ November 5th 1917 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Buchanan v. Warley) strikes down the Louisville ordinance mandating that Whites and Blacks live in separate areas
∗ July 31st 1921 Civil Rights Activist Whitney M. Young, Jr born in Lincoln Ridge
∗ September 10th 1956 Louisville schools integrated
∗ May 27th, 1968 Crowds protesting the reinstatement of a White police officer who had beaten a Black man become increasingly angry as rumors spread that Stokely Carmichael’s flight into town is being delayed by Whites. 700 National Guard are called in, 472 arrests made, and 2 African American teenagers are killed.

Tennessee

Nashville
∗ June 8th 1861 Tennessee secedes from the union
∗ April 24th 1867 first national meeting of the KKK held in Nashville
∗ June 5th 1905 African Americans stage highly successful protest of segregation of streetcars. The protestors then went on to start their own street car company which operated for 2 years.
∗ August 18th 1920 Tennessee ratifies the 19th amendment which becomes law on August 26th ending a 72 year fight for women’s (White women’s) suffrage
∗ January 14th 1940 Julian Bond, Civil Rights Leader, born
∗ September 9th 1957 Hattie Cotton Elementary School bombed
∗ February 1960 lunch counter sit-ins begin in Nashville (following sit-ins begun in Greensboro NC several weeks earlier)
∗ May 17th 1961 second Freedom Ride begins

Monteagle
∗ 1932 Highlander Folk School founded in Grundy County
∗ 1934 1st Black speaker at Highlander
∗ 1944 United Auto Workers (UAW) attend the first fully integrated workshop at Highlander
∗ 1953 Highlander changes its focus from labor to civil rights
∗ 1961 Highlander forced to close by the State of Tennessee, reopens shortly after in Knoxville

Chattanooga
∗ 1867 — The First Congregationalist Church of Chattanooga becomes the first church in the South to welcome both Black and White members
∗ 1948—Chattanooga becomes the 1st major southern city to have Black police officers
∗ 1962 Chattanooga and Hamilton County schools desegregated

Georgia

Chicamauga
∗ Late 18th century the Chickamawgee Confederacy formed by Dragging Canoe with people from the Cherokee, Choctaw and Creek nations to battle the White invasion. It lasted about 20 years.

Atlanta
∗ 1906 race riots 21 dead, city under martial law
∗ January 15th, 1929 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. born
∗ May 13-14 1960 1st Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) meeting held
∗ October 19, 1960 Dr. King is sentenced to 4 months on the chain gang after being arrested with 35 others at a sit-in. Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy risks losing southern White votes by pressing for King’s release. Kennedy is elected by a narrow margin after African Americans turn out to the polls to support him.
∗ April 9th 1968 Dr. King is buried
∗ 1973 Maynard Jackson becomes the first African American elected Mayor of a major southern city