History isn't made by kings and politicians, it is made by us.
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First episode of the Working Class Literature podcast, about the life and work of radical hobo author T-Bone Slim. A prolific columnist for the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union in the United States, he was also a poet and songwriter as well as a barge captain working on the New York waterfront.
Continue reading “WCL E01: T-Bone Slim – the laureate of the logging camps”
One of the Working Class History team has started a new sister podcast to ours, taking a radical look at fiction and culture. Check out this short audio introduction. Continue reading “More information about Working Class Literature”
Negro Matapacos (“Black Cop-Killer”) was a famous stray dog from thestreets of Santiago who joined student protests across the city from 2010, and in particular during the 2011 movement for free education. Continue reading “Negro Matapacos: Chile’s “riot dog””
In this podcast episode, historian Joey DeFrancesco tells the story of the first factory strike in US history when in 1824, young women and girls working in the mills in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, organised themselves and walked out, winning better conditions. Joey also explains how the development of capitalist industry in the north was dependent on the labour of enslaved people in the south.
Continue reading “E32: The Pawtucket mill strike”
30 July was the 5th anniversary of the start of the Working Class History project. So we launched a birthday appeal to try to make WCH sustainable in the long-term. Now more than ever, we think it’s vitally important to learn the lessons of our history, so we can organise and win victories in the present. Continue reading “Working Class History turns 5: fundraising appeal”
Following on from the success of the Working Class History podcast and social media pages, we recently decided to start a new sister project: Working Class Literature. Continue reading “Introducing Working Class Literature”
As protests have swept Hong Kong in the last few weeks, we begin an occasional series on the British Empire with a double episode on a previous wave of demonstrations, riots, strikes and bombings in the city, then a British colony. We speak with three people who were there about what happened, and learn new revelations about one of Hong Kong’s most notorious unsolved murders – of radio commentator Lam Bun. Continue reading “E30-31: The Hong Kong riots, 1967”
Our latest podcast miniseries this Pride month is about Lesbians & Gays Support the Miners, a small group of LGBTQ people in London who began to raise money for striking workers in the Welsh valleys during the great miners’ strike of 1984-5. Unknown to them at the time, they would end up transforming both communities, and Britain as a whole. Continue reading “E27-29: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners”
Summer 2019 marks 50 years since the iconic rebellion against the police raid of the Stonewall Inn in New York City. The LGBTQ patrons and locals, many of them people of colour, and most of them working class, fought back against the police in 6 days of rioting. Then they organised, revolutionising the LGBTQ rights movement, and sparking Pride. Continue reading “E25-26: The Stonewall riots and Pride at 50”
John from WCH appeared in a personal capacity on the Rev Left Radio podcast, for the first episode in a series they are producing called “in dialogue with anarchism”. They have a constructive and friendly discussion about anarchism and Marxism, their similarities and differences. Continue reading ““In dialogue with anarchism”: WCH on Rev Left Radio”