***Labor's Untold Story- Remember The Heroic Gastonia Textile Strike Of 1929

Click below to link to Weisbord Archives for information on the bloody class war Gastonia Strike of 1929. Vera Buch Weisbord was involved in that struggle so has some special insights whatever her (and husband Albert's) later political perspectives. (See James P. Cannon Internet Archives for the early 1930s on this question).

http://www.weisbord.org/Gastonia.htm

Every Month IS Labor History Month

This Commentary is part of a series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!

As a first run through, and in some cases until I can get enough other sources in order to make a decent presentation, I will start with short entries on each topic that I will eventually go into greater detail about. Or, better yet, take my suggested topic and run with it yourself.

From The Bob Feldman 68 Blog- "Ben Davis" (Black Communist Councilman From New York City)

Click on the headline to link to a Bob Feldman 68 post for his protest song, Ben Davis

Ben Davis

My name it is Ben Davis and I’m in a prison cell
In Terre Haute, Indiana, that’s where I’m forced to dwell
In a segregated section of the penitentiary
And while I’m locked in solitary, I write my life story.

“I grew up in Jim Crow, Georgia and became a people’s lawyer
I defended Angelo Herndon when he organized workers
They wished to execute him for uniting Black and white
To march to the county courthouse and demand `jobs or relief.’

“For defending the free speech rights of a 19-year-old communist
They threatened me with `contempt of court’ and to lynch me by the neck
Inspired by Angelo’s testimony, his Party I did join
And four years after his rigged trial, the verdict was overturned.

“I worked to build the Party and moved up to Harlem
I rented an apartment and owned no stocks and bonds
I found myself elected in 1943
To serve the working people in the Council of New York City.

“I fought discrimination by Metropolitan Life
And demanded that the major leagues cease to be lily-white
I fought against the fare increase and protected rent control
And denounced police brutality and applied the housing code.

“They could not defeat me at the polls in two elections
So they spent a lot of money to change the regulations
Then in July of 1948, while writing in my home,
Six FBI agents did appear and dragged me from Harlem.

“Although I was elected by the people of New York
They threw me in a prison and charged me in their court
An unconstitutional Smith Act, they used to imprison me
And expelled me from the Council in the name of `democracy.’

“Locked inside this prison by Truman, the `Democrat',
I received a 5-year sentence, just because I’m a communist
Along with other comrades, I’m jailed for my beliefs
And this book I write in prison, they vow they won’t release.

“Yes, my name it is Ben Davis and I’m in a prison cell
In Terre Haute, Indiana, that’s where I’m forced to dwell
In a segregated section of the penitentiary
And while I’m locked in solitary, I write my life story.”

To listen to this song, you can go to following music site link:

http://www.last.fm/music/Bob+A.+Feldman/More+Biographical+Folk+Songs/Ben+Davis

The Ben Davis biographical protest folk song lyrics were written a few years ago, after I read the book Communist Councilman From Harlem: Autobiographical Notes Written in a Federal Penitentiary by Benjamin Davis, and are sung to the traditional Scottish folk song tune of “Come, All Ye Tramps and Hawkers”. Prior to Ben Davis’s release from prison the manuscript of his autobiography was seized by U.S. prison authorities and kept by the Bureau of Prisons until after Ben Davis’s death in 1964—before the autobiographical manuscript was finally allowed by U.S. government officials to be published in 1969 by International Publishers.

To listen to some of the other protest folk songs that I’ve written since the late 1960s, you can check out the “Columbia Songs for a Democratic Society” music site at the following link:

http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Dave McCarn's "Cotton Mill Colic"

Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of a performance of Dave McCarn's "Cotton Mill Colic".

In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.

COTTON MILL COLIC
(DAVE McCARN) (1926)

Any copyrighted material on these pages is used in "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s)


McCarn wrote this song in 1926. Released on record in August 1930, it was soon being sung by striking Piedmont mill workers. It was collected by Alan Lomax in 1939 and appeared in FOLKSONGS OF NORTH AMERICA and OUR SINGING COUNTRY. It's recording history is long and includes versions by Lester Pete Bivins (Decca), the Blue Sky Boys (Capitol) and both Pete & Mike Seeger (Folkways). Probably it is McCarn's best composition; revealing with wry humour the often grim situation of the millhand unable to get straight financially.
Mike Paris, liner notes for "Singers of the Piedmont," Folk Variety/Bear Family Records 15505. 1970s.


Recorded May 19, 1930, Memphis, TN (Vi 40274).
Lyrics as reprinted in liner notes for "Singers of the Piedmont," Folk Variety/Bear Family Records 15505, 1970s.


When you buy clothes on easy terms,
Collectors treat you like measly worms.
One dollar down, then Lord knows,
If you can't make a payment, they'll take your clothes.
When you go to bed you can't sleep,
You owe so much at the end of the week.
No use to colic, they're all that way,
Pecking at your door till they get your pay.
I'm a-gonna starve, and everybody will,
'Cause you can't make a living at a cotton mill.
When you go to work you work like the devil,
At the end of the week you're not on the level.
Payday comes, you pay your rent,
When you get through you've notgot a cent
To buy fat-back meat, pinto beans,
Now and then you get turnip greens.
No use to colic, we're all that way,
Can't get the money to move away.
I'm a-gonna starve, and everybody will,
'Cause you can't make a living at a cotton mill.

Twelve dollars a week is all we get,
How in the heck can we live on that?
I've got a wife and fourteen kids,
We all have to sleep on two bedsteads.
Patches on my britches, holes in my hat,
Ain't had a shave, my wife got fat.
No use to colic, everyday at noon,
The kids get to crying in a different tune.
I'm a-gonna starve, and everybody will,
'Cause you can't make a living at a cotton mill.

They run a few days and then they stand,
Just to keep down the working man.
We can't make it, we never will,
As long as we stay at a lousy mill.
The poor are getting poorer, the rich are getting richer,
If you don't starve, I'm a son of a gun.
No use to colic, no use to rave,
We'll never rest till we're in our grave.
I'm a-gonna starve, and everybody will,
'Cause you can't make a living at a cotton mill.

*An Inside Look At The Great Gastonia Textile Strike Of 1929-From The Pen Of Communist Organizer Vera Weisbord

Click on title to link to article from the Albert and Vera Weisbord Internet Archives by then American Communist Party organizer Vera Weisbord about the heroic Gastonia textile strike of 1929. This, my friends, was the class war at its rawest in the anti-labor America "Jim Crow" South of the late 1920s. As the 1973 "Norma Rae" film about organizing in the late 1960s and today's struggles to organize places like Smithfield in the South testify to things are not that much changed for labor now.