CKUT Labor Radio | Historian Peter Cole on IWW’s black leader Ben Fletcher, Local 8 and South Africa
Listen to CKUT Labor Radio 12 minutes interview with Peter Cole, or listen to the whole one hour show.
February was Black History Month. For that reason, members of the Montreal IWW helped CKUT Labor Radio‘s host David Tacium to talk with history professor at Western Illinois University, Mr Peter Cole. Mr Cole is the author of “Ben Fletcher: The Life and Writings of a Black Wobbly” about the IWW’s most famous black leader Ben Fletcher. Mr Cole also wrote a book called Wobblies on the Waterfront Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia about the IWW branch Ben Fletcher was involved with : the Longshoremen Union “Local 8” in Philadelphia in 1913.
During the interview, they also talk about the influence of the IWW in organizing black people in South African, a subject Mr Cole is studying now with the aim of writing a next book.
Peter Cole’s two books are available at the Montreal anarchist library L’insoumise on St-Laurent Street. The chapter 4 of Wobblies on the Waterfront, “War on the waterfront”, is also online here.
Read short presentation of Local8 and Ben Fletcher…