Today is Sunday, July 5th, 2020.

On this day in 1934, police opened fire

on the longshoremen striking at the Embarcadero in San Francisco, California.

The men were protesting for better wages and working conditions, but the violent assault left over a hundred wounded and two dead, and the day became

known as Bloody Thursday.

Welcome to today in True Crime, a parcast original. Today we're covering Bloody Thursday.

That morning, the International Longshoremen's Association strike

escalated when the police took violent action against the protesters at Rincon Hill.

Let's go back to San Francisco on July 5th, 1934,

Bloody Thursday.

Each day men would arrive at the Embarcadero, San Francisco's port around 8 a.m. to compete for a day's work.

They'd gather, begging to be chosen by the Doc's hiring boss just so that they could feed their

families that night.

They'd return the next morning with the same uncertainty.

But it had been more than two months

since 12,000 longshoremen stationed along 2,000 miles of the Western coastline had walked out on their duties,

refusing to partake in this barbaric system any longer. Now there was no one to dock the ships, unload

the incoming cargo, or pack the ships for export. This put commerce at a standstill and things only got worse when the sailors, firemen, cooks, stewards, and other marine workers joined the longshoremen behind the picket line. The press had called these strikers

vultures and claimed they were feeding on the unfortunate situation and the

impoverished people of their city, the Central Labor Council. and the refused to go back to work until their demands were met.

They wanted to raise the rate from 85 cents to $1 an hour

for a guaranteed six hour day five times a week. Today that would be a raise from about $15 to $19 an hour.

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