Today in Labor History April 14, 1935: The Black Sunday dust storm swept across the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles. This was one of the worst storms of the Dust Bowl. 4 years later, on this same date, John Steinbeck published his classic working-class novel, The Grapes of Wrath, about Dust Bowl refugees in California.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #dustbowl #GreatDepression #JohnSteinbeck #GrapesOfWrath #refugees #poverty #fiction #books #author #writer #Oklahoma #texas

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Attached: 1 image Today in Labor History April 14, 1935: The Black Sunday dust storm swept across the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles. This was one of the worst storms of the Dust Bowl.

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Today in Labor History April 10, 1919: Mexican troops ambushed and assassinated Emiliano Zapata, revolutionary indigenous and peasant leader. Zapata’s Rebel Army of the South played a major role in the overthrow of the dictator, Porfirio Diaz, defeating the federal army in the Battle of Cuautla in 1911. Also in 1911, Zapata began implementing the Plan de Ayala, redistributing land in the regions controlled by his army to peasant farmers. However, when former revolutionary Madero took over, he disavowed the Zapatistas, calling them simple bandits. He implemented a scorched earth policy, burning villages and imprisoning survivors in forced labor camps, in his quest to hunt down Zapata. Madero’s successor, Venustiano Carranza, continued his scorched earth policies and finally succeeded in killing Zapata in 1919.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #mexico #Revolution #zapata #indigenous #rebel

Today in Labor History March 21, 1960: South African police opened fire on peaceful black protesters, killing 69 and wounding 180 in the Sharpeville massacre. Many were shot in the back as they fled. Thousands had been out protesting the hated pass laws, when they decided to march on the police station. The town of Sharpeville had high unemployment and poverty. Its residents had been forcibly moved there from the neighboring town of Topville in 1958. Passbooks were used by the Apartheid regime to control the movement of black residents and to enforce segregation.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #apartheid #racism #SouthAfrica #Sharpeville #massacre #unemployment #poverty #BlackMastadon