“ONE DAY IN JULY”
A Street Festival for the Working Class
“Remembering 1934--When Minneapolis Became a Union Town”
Saturday, July 25, 7th Av N & 3rd St N, Minneapolis Warehouse District
Union activists’ “One Day in July” street festival will highlight union courage, culture and sacrifices through music and history
Youthful supporters of the struggles of union labor will gather again at a
street festival and concert they are calling a “counter-Aquatennial” in
the Minneapolis Warehouse District on Saturday, July 25 to commemorate the
75th anniversary of the historic 1934 Teamster strikes.
Headlining the event is famed Minneapolis Hip Hop artist Brother Ali,
joined by other volunteer local performers including rapper El Guante,
City on the Make, The 2 Tone Runts, Ellis, The Brass Kings, Mike Crenshaw
and Best Bitch in Show as well as speakers from a number of labor
struggles and social movements.
The festival site at 7th Ave N and 3rd St N is one block away from an
intersection where Minneapolis police gunned down 67 strikers on Friday
July 20, 1934. Two strikers died of their wounds.
“We will never forget the sacrifices the strikers made,” says Jim McGuire,
coordinator of the festival and a union shop steward. “After the strike
was won, Minneapolis became one of the strongest union cities in the
country. We have been benefiting ever since.
“We call our One Day In July celebration the ‘counter-Aquatennial,’
McGuire says. “The Minneapolis Aquatennial was created in 1940 by business
interests concerned about the tens of thousands of working people who
flocked to annual summer picnics organized by the Teamsters union, heard
pro-labor speeches and celebrated union culture. At ‘One Day in July,’ we
take back our working class history, culture and traditions.”
Over 1,000 attended the first One Day In July celebration in 2004 on the
70th anniversary of the Teamster labor battles. Also headlined by Brother
Ali, City Pages named it “Best Street Festival of 2004.”
Organizers expect a larger attendance this summer as a devastating
economic crisis creates a renewed interest in unions on the part of
younger workers.
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For more information please go to http://www.onedayinjuly.org
To donate to our efforts (please do!) go to
http://onedayinjuly.org/donate.html
For immediate release-June 2009
For more information contact Jim McGuire (612) 378 1973,
seamus@pro-ns.net or log on to http://www.onedayinjuly.org.
Congratulations to Minneapolis union members.
ReplyDeleteGood to hear that some places are smart enough to keep aware that without a Union to protect the worker, the worker is totally at the mercy of the sharks called business.
Sadly, labor unions have been dying a slow death across this country ever since Reagan. Working people today have no real power. They are told by their employers(or the government) they are lucky to have a job at all and should be thrilled to take huge pay cuts just to keep those jobs. After all, American workers can easily be replaced by cheap foreign labor, right? The unions have been forced to accept concessions for years now. It's all about "the man" and his bottom line.
ReplyDeleteI'd like nothing more than to see a revival of the labor movements that started it all. Minneapolis sounds like they may be in the forefront.. Thank you Minn AND Power to the people !