Saoirse

On this day, 10 July 1917 the Jerome deportation took place in Arizona, when dozens of members of the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union were deported to break a miners' strike. Mine bosses, local officials and the AFL-affiliated International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, which was scabbing on the strike, had organised a crew of 250 vigilantes. The vigilantes then raided the IWW office and stole its files, patrolled the streets, raided picket lines and kidnapped over 100 workers. A mine manager then worked with AFL union officials to examine each abducted worker and identify IWW members from the stolen union records. Between 63 and 67 workers were then identified as particular troublemakers, loaded onto a cattle car and taken 20 miles away before they were to be released. But other towns further down the line also dispatched armed guards to arrest IWW members and force the others to keep travelling further away. Learn more about the IWW in our podcast series: https://workingclasshistory.com/tag/iww/

On this day, 9 July 1917, in New York City, anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, were sentenced to serve two years in prison, to pay fines of $10,000 each, and to be subsequently deported to Russia for violating conscription law during World War I. The pair had previously formed a No-Conscription League, and agitated against the war. They defended themselves at trial, and used the opportunity to talk about their political ideas. Before they considered the verdict, the judge then told the jury: "In the conduct of this case, the defendants have shown remarkable ability. An ability which might have been utilised for the great benefit of this country, had they seen fit to employ themselves in behalf of it rather than against it. In this country of ours we regard as enemies those who advocate the abolition of our government and those who counsel disobedience to our laws by those of minds less strong. American liberty was won by the forefathers, it was maintained by the civil war, and today there are the thousands who have already gone, or are getting ready to go, to foreign lands to represent their country in the battle for liberty." He then instructed the jury that "whether the defendants are right or wrong can have no bearing on the verdict. The duty of the jury is merely to weigh the evidence presented as to the innocence or guilt of the defendants of the crime as charged." With their sentencing, US Marshal McCarthy stated: "This marks the beginning of the end of Anarchism in New York." We have works by Goldman, and items celebrating her life, here in our online store: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/emma-goldman

On this day, 8 July 1972 Palestinian novelist and communist Ghassan Kanafani was killed along with his teenage niece, Lamees Najim, in a bomb attack in Beirut in an act for which the Israeli intelligence service Mossad claimed responsibility. Kanafani had been forced to flee his home following the 1948 Nakba (the ethnic cleansing which accompanied the creation of the state of Israel), and live as a refugee in Syria. He began writing fiction, much of which looked at the lives of Palestinians under Israeli occupation. He stated: “My political position springs from my being a novelist. In so far as I am concerned, politics and the novel are an indivisible case and I can categorically state that I became politically committed because I am a novelist, not the opposite". He subsequently joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. His obituary in the Lebanon Daily Star described him as "a commando who never fired a gun, whose weapon was a ball-point pen, and his arena the newspaper pages." Learn more about Palestinian history in these books: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/palestine