Free Speech Fight Commemoration
Posted on | June 6, 2011 | No Comments
San Diego is planning on a big commemoration for next year’s 100th anniversary of the IWW free speech fight.
Jan. 8, 2012, will mark the 100th anniversary of the San Diego City Council’s passage of an ordinance banning public speeches in a six-block area, including the Downtown area known as “Soapbox Row,” in an alleged effort to hamper the Industrial Workers of the World’s ability to recruit members. Thousands of IWW “Wobblies” flooded into San Diego to resist the ordinance; they were met with police brutality and vigilantism, which reached a horrifying crescendo with the alleged abduction, torture and tar-and-feathering of renowned anarchist Emma Goldman’s partner, Ben Reitman. (That’s according to multiple accounts, including Goldman’s memoir, the Journal of San Diego Historyand research compiled by Jim Miller in the book Under the Perfect Sun.)
Read the rest here.
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