E74: Ben Fletcher, part 2

Working Class History

Society & Culture, Education, History

5.0 • 813 Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2023

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Concluding part of a double podcast episode about Ben Fletcher, a very important but little-known dock worker and labour organiser in the US with the Industrial Workers of the World union.
In these episodes, we speak with historian Peter Cole, author and editor of Ben Fletcher: The Life And Times Of A Black Wobbly. We also hear words written by Fletcher, voiced by fellow Wobbly, Alki.
In part 2 we learn about Fletcher’s imprisonment, later life, and the demise of Local 8.
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Full information, acknowledgements, sources and a transcript are on the webpage for this episode: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e73-ben-fletcher/
Acknowledgements

Thanks to our patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands, Jamison D. Saltsman and Fernando Lopez Ojeda.
Words of Ben Fletcher voiced by Alki. Check out his YouTube channel here, or follow him on Twitter here.
Episode graphic: Ben Fletcher in 1918. Courtesy US National Archives and Records Administration/Wikimedia Commons.
Theme music: “Solidarity (Forever)”, written by Ralph Chaplin, performed by The Nightwatchman, Tom Morello. Buy or stream it here.
Edited by Louise Barry

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the second part of a double podcast episode on the life and activism of Ben Fletcher.
0:07.5	If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, I'd go back and listen to that first.
0:26.6	Solidarity forever, solidarity forever, Solidarity forever, solidarity forever,
0:30.6	For the union makes us strong
0:34.6	When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run,
0:39.3	there can be no greater power anywhere beneath the sun.
0:43.3	Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
0:46.3	but the union makes us strong.
0:50.3	Solidarity forever! Solidarity forever, solidarity forever, solidarity forever, with the leadership of the
1:02.8	Union makes up.
1:04.9	Where we left off last time, local eight of the industrial workers of the World Union had
1:08.8	successfully organized workers at the Port of Philadelphia, with the leadership of Black Dock worker and organizer Ben Fletcher.
1:17.0	Soon after their first successful strike, across the Atlantic in Europe, major upheaval
1:22.4	was about to begin.
1:24.6	World War I, of course, began in Europe in 1914, even though the United States didn't declare war until April of 1917.
1:32.5	But the IWW, as were many other left organizations in the United States and other countries, critical of the war from the outset.
1:40.8	That proved important because the federal government later made use of the IWW's
1:47.3	pre-war criticisms of the U.S. in its wartime trial. However, during the war, U.S. shipping
1:55.5	actually will benefit because American ships are sending off food, military supplies and other things to Britain and France,
2:05.0	even though technically America is neutral.
2:07.8	During the war also, the United States ports on the Atlantic coast are booming.
2:13.7	Yeah.
	...

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