Labor History Today: LHT producer and host Chris Garlock toured the Reuther Library Archives last week with archivist and Tales from the Reuther Library host Dan Golodner; we'll share that tour in an upcoming episode of LHT. Meanwhile, here's one from our own archives...
The legal and civil rights legacy of George W. Crockett Jr., from the Tales from the Reuther Library podcast. Peter Hammer describes the life and legacy of Crockett, a Black lawyer who fought racism and defended constitutional rights in landmark cases from the 1940s through the 1960s. Hammer is an A. Alfred Taubman Endowed Chair in the Wayne State University Law School and director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights.

Originally aired October 16, 2022. Labor History Today is produced by the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Today’s show edited by Patrick Dixon and engineered by Chris Garlock.

On Labor History Today: A Virginia road and a century-old song reveal how workers carry solidarity across generations.

Anthony Dominiczak of the Labor Memory Project takes us along Gravel Lick Road in Castlewood, Virginia, where a family memorial and an abandoned coal plant connect the Harlan County Coal War, the Pittston strike and a more recent fight over a landfill.

Then, marking Joe Hill’s 147th birthday, we share an episode from Solidarity Works, the United Steelworkers podcast. Chelsea Engle explores the immigrant worker, IWW organizer and songwriter whose songs still speak to working people today.

Plus, Rick Smith, with Labor History in 2:00.

Hosted by Chris Garlock. Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

Explore more labor history and the Labor Landmarks Map at laborheritage.org.

Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

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On Labor History Today: An automobile museum full of cars—but where are the workers who built them? Retired autoworker and union leader Mark Strolle helped answer that question with “Assembled in Lansing,” a new permanent exhibit at Michigan’s R.E. Olds Transportation Museum.

In this conversation with Chris Garlock, a shorter version of which originally aired on the Labor Heritage Power Hour, Strolle traces Lansing’s labor history through sit-down strikes, the successful one-day Lansing Labor Holiday, and the union contracts that helped generations of workers buy homes, send their children to college and retire with dignity.

He also shares his own experiences from 16 years on the assembly line: the physical toll, the unpredictable layoffs and the union community that helped workers weather both. And he connects that history to today’s challenges, from deindustrialization to AI and automation.

Plus, on Labor History in 2:00, Rick Smith remembers Woody Guthrie, the Dust Bowl troubadour whose songs spoke to working people’s struggles.

Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

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On Labor History Today: What can labor history teach us about the present—and the possibility of change? In this episode, we share excerpts from the relaunch of the Working History podcast. Beth English talks with historians Sarah McNamara, Julie Greene, Eileen Boris, and Mae Ngai about the many kinds of work and workers that belong in labor history, from immigrant and domestic workers to the people who built the Panama Canal. Plus, Rick Smith tells the story of Shays’ Rebellion on Labor History in 2:00.

Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

On this week’s Labor History Today: Delta pilots trace the 1894 Pullman Strike’s connections to Labor Day and today’s airline labor law; more than 400,000 unionists march on Washington for 1981’s Solidarity Day; and Latin American tunnel workers wage a five-year fight against wage discrimination in Vancouver. Plus, Youngstown remembers the devastating steel-mill shutdown known as Black Monday.
Sources: Engage: The Podcast For Delta Pilots; On The Line: Stories of BC Workers; Labor History in 2:00
Music: Rails of Rage (Pullman Strike, 1894) - Bridget Roos

Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

On this week’s Labor History Today, we explore how working people preserve the history that official markers, museums and tours too often leave out.

Every Labor Day, union members and community activists gather at Ralph Chaplin’s gravesite in Tacoma, Washington, to sing “Solidarity Forever” and honor the Wobbly poet, writer and artist who created labor’s enduring anthem. Vance Lelli and Nathe Lawver of the Pierce County Central Labor Council share the story of the annual commemoration—and explain why Chaplin’s words still resonate more than a century later.

Then we travel to Ybor City, Tampa’s historic cigar-manufacturing district, where the familiar tourist story of “bread, cigars and chickens” obscures a radical legacy of immigrant workers, strikes, socialism and antifascist organizing. Labor Memory Project producer Anthony Dominiczak talks with Tampa organizers Roger Ezra Butterfield and Manny Ramirez about their working-class history tour—and their effort to secure recognition for Ybor City’s former Labor Temple.

Plus, on Labor History in 2:00: New York City’s Union Square becomes a National Historic Landmark.

Produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Labor Radio Podcast Network.

Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

On this week’s Labor History Today: Activist and artist Austin Sauerbrei talks about his debut graphic novel Trouble! at Coal Creek, which brings to life the 1890s miners’ uprising in Tennessee, where striking workers and Black prisoners found common cause against exploitation. It’s a moving call for solidarity, told in powerful words and images. Austin talked with our colleague Robert Lindgren, who hosts and produces Labor Exchange, the excellent radio show that airs weekly on KGNU Community Radio in Boulder, Colorado.
Originally released 9/7/25

Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

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On this week’s Labor History Today: John Dick and Dave Elsila of the Michigan Labor History Society take Chris Garlock and Elise Bryant on a tour of Transcending, Detroit’s spectacular monument to working people and the achievements of organized labor. Plus, a musical tribute to Dolly Parton and her songs of work, family and working-class life. Labor History in 2:00 marks the Battle of Blair Mountain and FDR’s 1935 effort to make the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share.
CLICK HERE to watch a video of our tour of Transcending.
Music: Detroit City, 9 to 5, Coat of Many Colors, Daddy's Working Boots, In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad) & Working Girl

Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

On this week’s Labor History Today: The IWW’s Little Red Songbook was created to “fan the flames of discontent”—and its songs have carried solidarity into workplaces, union halls, picket lines and jail cells ever since.

To mark the 117th anniversary of its first publication, listeners share their favorite songs from the legendary collection: “We Have Fed You All for a Thousand Years,” “Mr. Block,” “The Red Flag,” “The Preacher and the Slave” and “Dump the Bosses Off Your Back.” We also hear “Ain’t Done Nothing If You Ain’t Been Called a Red,” now proposed for the forthcoming 39th edition.

Plus, Labor History in Two explores the birth of the Little Red Songbook in Spokane in 1909 and the arrival of the first ship carrying captive Africans to colonial Virginia in 1619.

Featuring Judy Ancel, Tom Hoffman, Michael Kyriakakis, Robert Lindgren and Saul Schniderman, with music by Utah Phillips, Faith Petric, Carsie Blanton, Billy Bragg, the Tyneside People’s Choir, Pete Seeger and more.

Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

On this week’s Labor History Today: Richard Trumka traces the history of labor art from the coalfields of Harlan County and the Flint sit-down strike to the Pittston mineworkers’ strike. Speaking at the Labor Heritage Foundation’s Great Labor Arts Exchange in June 2009, the future AFL-CIO president explains how songs, murals, films and stories preserve workers’ struggles and carry solidarity from one generation to the next. Trumka was elected AFL-CIO president on September 16, 2009, and served until his death on August 5, 2021.
Plus, Labor History in Two looks back at how anti-communist hysteria was used in 1938 to divide workers and undermine the growing CIO.
Music: Which Side Are You On? by George Mann, Elise Bryant and Florence Reece.

Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

On this week’s Labor History Today: Dave Zirin discusses his new book, The People's Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn, exploring the historian's influence on generations of activists—and even on Hollywood.

Then, marking the August 7 birthday of labor organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, producer Anthony Dominiczak looks back at the life of the legendary "Rebel Girl" and the fight over her historical legacy.

Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]

Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

#LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory