Your are welcome to join this year’s Derry Radical Bookfair as we introduce the virtual book launch of Peter Cole’s Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly on Saturday, January 30th at 4pm (Ireland Standard Time) hosted by the Derry Radical Bookfair.
Peter will present a background to his amazing new book on Ben Fletcher, an African American who helped lead the IWW’s most militant and effective interracial branch, epitomized the union’s brand of anti-capitalism and anti-racism.
Fletcher (1890−1949) was a tremendously important and well-loved member of the IWW during its heyday, the first quarter of the 20th century. A brilliant union organizer and a humorous orator, Fletcher helped found and lead Local 8 of the IWW’s Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union. When founded in 1913, this union was a third African American, a third Irish and Irish American, and a third other European immigrants. Despite being hated by the bosses and redbaited by the government, Local 8 controlled the waterfront for almost a decade.
Peter Cole is a Professor of History at Western Illinois University (United States) and a Research Associate in the Society, Work and Development Program at the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). He is the author of Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive Era Philadelphia and the award-winning Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area. He also is the founder and co-director of the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project (CRR19).
Please join us on what will be the first European book launch of his latest book followed by a Q&A.