Saoirse

On this day, 19 July 1936, in response to a right-wing coup by general Francisco Franco, workers across Spain took up arms and launched one of the most far-reaching social revolutions in history. The ensuing civil war pitted the working class against the Spanish capitalists, who were backed by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. In the revolutionary areas, anarchist and socialist workers and peasants took over workplaces and land and began to run them collectively. Thousands of mostly working-class people came from all over the world to aid the workers of Spain. One of them was British socialist author George Orwell, who described the scene in Barcelona: "It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties… Every shop and café had an inscription saying that it had been collectivised… Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said ‘Señor’ or ‘Don’ or even ‘Usted’". Western democracies, including Britain and France, abandoned the republic and enforced a blockade on Spain which stopped the flow of aid and weapons to the anti-fascists. Meanwhile, Italy and Germany openly flouted the ban, and the US oil giant Texaco supplied the nationalists with oil and other supplies without even demanding payment, while stopping any supplies to the republic. Ultimately, after nearly three years of bitter and bloody warfare, the nationalists, with their superior weaponry and equipment, were victorious. In podcast episodes 39-40, we give an overview of the events: https://workingclasshistory.com/2020/06/17/e39-the-spanish-civil-war-an-introduction/ To support our work, join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/workingclasshistory

On this day, 18 July 1969, Black Panthers held a conference in Oakland alongside the predominantly white anti-racist Young Patriots Organisation and Puerto Rican street gang-turned-radical group the Young Lords. A KPIX news report described the event as an “unconventional convention” which was nevertheless “well-organised and orderly”, and explained that the Panthers’ motivation in holding it was to emphasise “class struggle” and “revolutionary unity”. The Young Patriots were a group of poor, mostly Appalachian migrants in Chicago. Although they opposed racism, they originally wore Confederate flags, which they believed were a symbol of rebellion. Leading Panther Fred Hampton played a key role in building links with them and other white working-class youth, until he was assassinated by police. In his speech, William "Preacherman" Fesperman of the Young Patriots, argued for armed self-defence against police brutality: "A gun on the side of a pig means two things: it means racism and it means capitalism and the gun on the side of a revolutionary, on the side of the people, means solidarity and socialism." Later, the Young Patriots abandoned the Confederate flag symbol as an irredeemable symbol of white supremacy. As former-Patriot Hy Thurman explained to Redneck Revolt: “As we grew politically and respected the Black Panthers and the Young Lords we determined that there was no place in the movement or the world for the Confederate flag. It symbolises a period of time when our Black brothers and sisters were mere property to be sold or destroyed at the white man's convenience. And that the Confederate flag was created to serve as a symbol of plantation owners to perpetuate slavocracy.” Learn more about the Panthers in these books by former members: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/black-panthers