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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  • TerminalEncounter [she/her]
    ·
    2 months ago

    I think helping people move due to climate change is a reasonable project. A lot of people moved to Florida because housing was cheaper, some moved because they liked the chud De Santis political stuff, some moved because it's just nicer weather innit? For those who moved because housing was cheaper, hopefully shelter can be provided in more favorable areas.

    I think there's some resilience style architecture they could do to make hurricanes more survivable and make flooding/rising tides better off. All over the carribean, they build with cinder blocks, and those handle storms quite handily. Cuba has remarkable storm resilience structures and infrastructure, including just beaurocratic infrastructure - and they're poor af and can't just move to Norcal.

    As a project a handful of people could actually mount, honestly it's probably all we can do to provide moving assistance and shelter elsewhere nearby or very far away (like a hexbear mutual aid bat phone where you're willing to house another member for a short term during the hurricane and the recovery and maybe some cash to help the evacuee).

    As a project that's actionable at a national/state level, yes there's a lot more that could be done. Regulations on building materials (no more stick built frames), nationalizing insurance so people can actually get it at a reasonable rate and they can actually get a payout after a disaster, decarbonizing so less extreme weather events happen in the future longer term, rewilding so carbon can be pumped back into the earth via plants (possibly BECCS too), on top of shelters and people who can check on you and get you to one, movement assistance for people seeking to leave due to disaster etc.

      • TerminalEncounter [she/her]
        ·
        2 months ago

        No, I don't think we can do large scale projects without seizing power so in my heart, they're not feasible under this economic paradigm even with a relatively progressive even FDR-scale effort - so I think we agree on short and medium term feasibility.

        I think helping relocation efforts is nice and comes from a good place. But to me, it reminds me too much of things like the Trail of Tears just done with a far softer hand and carrot instead of stick. I don't think relocation can happen equitably without building hurricane/natural disaster resilience in Florida