I wonder now if they were explicitly only fighting for white labor rights. Settlers does a great job showing how the vast majority of historical labor movements in the u.s. essentially sabotaged themselves by organizing along explicitly racial lines, excluding black workers, and then ultimately blaming them when they got wrecked from the inside by capitalist deal making.
I'm sure people were racist as fuck in 1920 but I think a big factor is that Milwaukee didn't get Black migration until much later than the rest of the North, in like the 60's and 70's
Used to be an important hotbed for American Socialists, too.
:deeper-sadness:
Milwaukee is a city of contrasts.
I wonder now if they were explicitly only fighting for white labor rights. Settlers does a great job showing how the vast majority of historical labor movements in the u.s. essentially sabotaged themselves by organizing along explicitly racial lines, excluding black workers, and then ultimately blaming them when they got wrecked from the inside by capitalist deal making.
I'm sure people were racist as fuck in 1920 but I think a big factor is that Milwaukee didn't get Black migration until much later than the rest of the North, in like the 60's and 70's
IDK to be honest, though it would not surprise me.
I have a Frank Zeidler biography laying around somewhere I could read and learn a little more about it.