On this day in 1898, the Battle of Virden began when armed members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) surrounded a train full of strikebreakers and exchanged fire with company guards. 13 people were killed, dozens more wounded.

After a local chapter of the UMW began striking at a mine in Virden, Illinois, the Chicago-Virden Coal Company hired black strikebreakers from Birmingham, Alabama and shipped them to Virden by train.

The company hired armed detectives or security guards to accompany the strikebreakers, and an armed conflict broke out when armed miners surrounded the train as it arrived in town. A total of four detectives and seven striking mine workers were killed, with five guards, thirty miners, and an unrecorded number of strikebreakers wounded.

After this incident, Illinois Governor John Tanner ordered the National Guard to prevent any more strikebreakers from coming into the state by force. The next month, the Chicago-Virden Coal Company relented and allowed the unionization of its workers.

“When the last call comes for me to take my final rest, will the miners see that I get a resting place in the same clay that shelters the miners who gave up their lives on the hills of Virden, Illinois…They are responsible for Illinois being the best organized labor state in America.”

Mother Jones

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  • WhyEssEff [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    13-year old me was a rabid dog who should have been beaten to death with a stick, holy shit. why the fuck were you logging hentai onto your MAL. the one tied to your (prior) generalized username. what the fuck was wrong with you lea-sweat

    i’m purging my old list and repurposing it but jesus fuckign christ there is so much goonslop an d isekai what the hell i hate past me

  • heggs_bayer [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    I was listening to an old Citations Needed episode about thought terminating enemy epithets and heard that the term “hand-picked successor” started being used to refer to Maduro since he was Chavez’s vice president. Now I’m going to start referring to K-dolf Hitler as Genocide Joe’s handpicked successor.

  • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    I am so tired

    My dad picked today to do extremely loud hammer-wall-smashing work on house and I’m broken and can’t keep a “normal” sleep schedule, also insomnia from new ADHD meds

    Fuck sleep, abolish sleep, may this vyvance revive me

  • Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    My org has nominated me for leader of the Nationalists Caucus. It’s a more “rough” group of people who are leftist but come from a pretty hard background. Many of them dropping out of high school or lower to help their families. They then become swayed by leftism through left-nationalism.

    It’s the biggest caucus of the org and I’m honestly flattered about the nomination. Whether or not I get the position is another story.

  • SoylentSnake [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    self conscious that i came off unserious on my PSL call deeper-sadness like idk they wanted me to have more organizing experience or to ask more questions or have a firmer grounding in theory or ideas about praxis or something. they did give me a resource for a way to start getting involved soon though, maybe it’s in my head. sometimes worry my sensitive/anxious temperament would just make me a liability in an organizing context too though deeper-sadness

  • thelastaxolotl [he/him]@hexbear.netOPM
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    2 days ago

    You can tell how Disco Elysium nerds are a majority in this site with the amount of DE posts that started the moment the news of the 2 new za/um successors dropped kitsuragi-dance dubois-dance

  • Grownbravy [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 day ago

    getting through my film backlog, then started thinking it’s time to re-up, i see the local photography store is closing for a week after wednesday, but worse, my preferred filmstock isn’t available and might not be in stock until after they reopen.

    I wanna shoot 400 speed film rn deeper-sadness