Great Southwest Railroad Strike (1886)

Mon Mar 01, 1886

Image: An illustration from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. The caption reads "The great railway strike--attempt to start a freight train, under a guard of United States marshals, at East St. Louis, Illinois." [Wikipedia]

On this day in 1886, the Great Southwest Railroad Strike began, involving 200,000 workers throughout the U.S. After months of protest in which six were killed by police, the strike failed, leading to the collapse of the Knights of Labor.

The strike began when an agreement between the Knights of Labor and Union Pacific to give notice and investigate all firings was violated - a Knight named Charles A. Hall in Marshall, Texas was fired for attending a union meeting on company time. In response, District Assembly #101 of the Knights called a strike.

Within a week, more than 200,000 workers were on strike throughout Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and Texas, paralyzing railway lines with both inaction and sabotage.

At least nine people were killed in conflicts between police and crowds of striking workers. On April 9th in East St. Louis, eight deputies guarding a freight train shot into a crowd of strikers, killing six bystanders. The crowd responded by setting the rail yards on fire.

After two months of protest, the strike was called off on May 4th without the workers winning their demands. The failure of the strike led directly to the collapse of the Knights of Labor and the rise of the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

• Date: 1886-03-01
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.historyisaweapon.com.
• Tags: #Labor, #Protests.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org