Selected Upcoming Events

TEACHERS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE (Chicago)                                                                    http://teachersforjustice.org/     teachersforjustice@hotmail.com                                                   UPCOMING TSJ EVENTS:

January 15, 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM
ItAG Kickoff Night  (ItAGs are Inquiry to Action Groups that investigate a particular area of education and develop a practical activity based on the inquiry. See website — link on the right sidebar — for ItAGs that will be launched and more info)
Decima Musa
1900 S Loomis
Meet the facilitators and other ItAG participants

January 16  11AM – 1PM
First TSJ meeting of 2010
UIC College of Education
1040 W. Harrison, Room 3008 (Harrison & Morgan), Blue Line UIC stop
Discussion/analysis of Renaissance 2010, national significance,  and TSJ’s position
Planning actions, projects, events and how to get involved

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January 16, Vigil for immigrants rights in Logan Square.  Click on this link for a flyer with information on this event, in PDF format, Spanish and English:January Prayer Vigil Flyer

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Jan. 16, 2010 FULL CITIZENSHIP AND FULL EMPLOYMENT
For FULL EQUALITY!

Celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with hundreds of your brothers and sisters as we call for good jobs and immigrant worker rights!

Community members, congressmen, and elected officials, labor leaders, faith leaders will honor of the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by affirming our commitment to rebuild our cities. Full and fair employment and fair immigration reform are necessary components of working communities.

We need to join together to demand an economy that honors all work and workers.

Saturday, January 16th

1:30-2:30 P.M. (Seating begins at 1:00pm)

First Baptist Congregational Church

1613 W. Washington

Endorsed by Northside Action for Justice, Chicago Jobs with Justice, IL Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Rainbow PUSH, South Austin Coalition, IL AFL-CIO and other groups.

Contact:
info@actionforjustice.org

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January 18 -  Public Workers March for Jobs (See link to CORE website in sidebar at right  for more information)

MLK Day March for Public Service Jobs

CTA management is threatening to lay off 1,000 bus drivers on February 7th. CPS plans to close or turnaround another 25-30 schools, displacing hundreds of teachers, PSRPs, and career service workers.  With unemployment at a 30 year high and families more dependent on food stamps and medicaid than ever, caseworkers have unworkable caseloads of up to 2200 families.

CORE is endorsing a Martin Luther King Day March by Public Workers Unite! at 11AM on January 18th.  The march will start at CTA Headquarters  at 567 W. Lake and continue on to the Board of Education before ending at the State of Illinois Building.   Come out to fight the rampant privatization in this city and defend public services and public service jobs.

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Janaury 27, 2010  Discussion and book signing with Garry Wills

Garry Wills – Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State

Wed, 01/27/2010 – 6:00pm

In Bomb Power, Garry Wills reveals how the atomic bomb transformed our nation down to its deepest constitutional roots-by dramatically increasing the power of the modern presidency and redefining the government as a national security state-in ways still felt today. A masterful reckoning from one of America’s preeminent historians, Bomb Power draws a direct line from the Manhattan Project to the usurpations of George W. Bush.

The invention of the atomic bomb was a triumph of official secrecy and military discipline-the project was covertly funded at the behest of the president and, despite its massive scale, never discovered by Congress or the press. This concealment was perhaps to be expected in wartime, but Wills persuasively argues that the Manhattan Project then became a model for the covert operations and overt authority that have defined American government in the nuclear era. The wartime emergency put in place during World War II extended into the Cold War and finally the war on terror, leaving us in a state of continuous war alert for sixty-eight years and counting.

The bomb forever changed the institution of the presidency since only the president controls “the button” and, by extension, the fate of the world. Wills underscores how radical a break this was from the division of powers established by our founding fathers and how it in turn has enfeebled Congress and the courts. The bomb also placed new emphasis on the president’s military role, creating a cult around the commander in chief. The tendency of modern presidents to flaunt military airs, Wills points out, is entirely a postbomb phenomenon. Finally, the Manhattan Project inspired the vast secretive apparatus of the national security state, including intelligence agencies such as the CIA and NSA, which remain largely unaccountable to Congress and the American people.

Wills recounts how, following World War II, presidential power increased decade by decade until reaching its stunning apogee with the Bush administration. Both provocative and illuminating, Bomb Power casts the history of the postwar period in a new light and sounds an alarm about the continued threat to our Constitution.

Location:

Newberry Library
60 W. Walton Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610

Presented by Seminary Co-op Bookstores

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January 31  at Women and Children First Books

Louise Cainkar

Sun, 01/31/2010 – 4:30pm – 6:00pm

Louise Cainkar reads and discusses her new book:

Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience After 9/11 $35.00 ISBN-13: 9780871540485 (hard cover)

In Homeland Insecurity, Marquette University professor Cainkar argues that 9/11 did not create anti-Arab or anti-Muslim suspicion, but rather that socially constructed images and social and political exclusion existed long before these attacks, creating an environment in which post 9/11 misunderstanding, hostility, and racial profiling could thrive. Focusing on the Chicago Metropolitan area, Cainkar bases her research on of interviews and in-depth oral histories with native-born and immigrant Palestinians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Iraqis, Yemenis, Sudanese, Jordanians, and others.

Location: Women & Children First
5233 N. Clark St.
Chicago, Illinois 60640

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February 11, 2010 This is Athol Fugard winter in Chicago, with three excellent theatre groups performing three of Fugard’s very important plays.  TimeLine Theater is performing Master Harold and the Boys as a fund raiser for CORE, the Caucus Of Rank-and-file Educators. See the CORE link to the right for more details.

Master Harold and The Boys Fundraiser

Tickets are now available for Master Harold and the Boys at Timeline Theatre on February 11, 7:30 p.m.  This award-winning play which was banned in South Africa when it was first produced in 1982, is now being made into a film in that country.  The work of author Athol Fugard is distinguised for conveying strong political messages without being dogmatic.

There will also be a post performance discussion with the actors and the director on that evening for those who are interested in discussing the themes of the play. Tickets are $35.00 each.

Please contact coreteachers@gmail.com for tickets.

NOTE:   performances of the Fugard plays by these three Chicago theaters can be found at the FugardChicago website: http://www.fugardchicago2010.org/?utm_source=TimeLine_MHB&utm_medium=Website&utm_content=Title&utm_campaign=Fugard_Chicago_2010

Lawrence, 1912: Bread and Roses by Chris Mahin

Lawrence, 1912: Bread and Roses by Chris Mahin

An exhibit at the Lawrence Heritage State Park, commemorating the 1912 strike. Exhibits show the living and working conditions of the strikers.

[In a couple of years, we’ll be commemorating the 100^th anniversary of an extraordinary strike and victory. This article about the Lawrence, Massachusetts strike of 1912, adapted from a piece originally written four years ago for workers in one of the Midwest’s unions, embodies what the labor and arts festival has been “about.” Workers today are not strangers to the same issues that the workers of 1912 faced: gender discrimination, wage cuts, immigrant rights and many others. Many of the leaders of this historic battle were immigrant women workers, under the banner of Italian IWW organizers Joe Ettor and Arturo Giovanitti.

The needle trades today are much different from those years: very little clothing manufacturing remains in the United States today. But this is an article whose implications go far beyond the boundaries of the particular trade that was being organized at the time. The words of Ettor say it best: “What are my social views? I may be wrong but I contend that all the wealth in this country is the product of labor and that it belongs to labor. My views are the same as Giovannitti’s. We will give all that there is in us that that the workers may organize and in due time emancipate themselves, that the mills and workshops may become their property and for their benefit.” The implications of this for labor and for art are staggering. This is far more than artists depicting strikes, as Ralph Fasanella did for Lawrence; more than workers engaging in music or theater to dramatize the strike (Howard Zinn and others refer to this as the “Singing Strike”). Here are Chris Mahin’s words about this, the “Bread and Roses Strike”:

“One other feature of the Battle of Lawrence made it especially significant. It’s summed up in the famous slogan of the strike – “We want bread – and roses!” The textile workers who braved the Massachusetts winter in 1912 wanted more than a wage increase. They were inspired by a vision of a new society, one where the workers themselves ruled. In this society, every human being would have “bread” – a decent standard of living. They would also have “roses” – the chance to learn, to have access to art, music, and culture: a society which would allow the flowering of everyone’s talents, the full development of every human being.” – Lew Rosenbaum]

[Ralph Fasanella, an organizer for the United Electrical Workers, became an acclaimed artist who spent several years in Lawrence to prepare for a monumental series of canvasses depicting the 1912 strike.  The two posters shown below can be purchased from the Labor Heritage Foundation, Washington DC, by looking on their website at http://store.laborheritage.org/posters.aspx  --  LR]

The Battle of Lawrence, 1912: Textile workers’ victory contains lessons for today

“We want bread – and roses!”

Ralph Fasanella: Working the Night Shift, Lawrence 1912 (available from http://store.laborheritage.org/posters.aspx)

“Bayonets cannot weave cloth!”

“Better to starve fighting than to starve working!”

Almost a century ago, thousands of men, women, and children shouted those slogans – in many different languages — in the bitter cold of a Massachusetts winter. January 2010 marks the 98^th anniversary of one of the most important events in U.S. labor history: the Lawrence textile strike.

On January 12, 1912, thousands of workers walked out of the textile mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts and began a strike which lasted until March 24, 1912. At its height, the strike involved 23,000 workers.

Located in the Merrimack River Valley, about 30 miles north of Boston, Lawrence was a city of 86,000 people in 1912, and a great textile center. It outranked all other cities in the production of woolen and

Ralph Fasanella's Great Strike, Lawrence 1912, available as a poster from http://store.laborheritage.org/posters.aspx

worsted goods. The woolen and cotton mills of the city employed over 40,000 workers – about one-half of Lawrence’s population over the age of 14.

Most of the Lawrence textile workers were unskilled. Within a one-mile radius of the mill district, there lived 25 different nationalities, speaking 50 languages. By 1912, Italians, Poles, Russians, Syrians, and Lithuanians had replaced native-born Americans and western Europeans as the predominant groups in the mills. The largest single ethnic group in the city was Italian.

At the time of the strike, 44.6 percent of the textile workers in Lawrence were women. More than ten percent of the mill workers were under the age of 18.

Despite a heavy tariff protecting the woolen industry, the wages and living standards of textile workers had declined steadily since 1905.  The introduction of a two-loom system in the woolen industry and a corresponding speed-up in the cotton industry led to lay-offs, unemployment, and wage reductions. A federal government report showed that for a week in late November 1911, some 22,000 textile employees, including foremen, supervisors, and office workers, averaged about $8.76 for a full week’s work. This wage was totally inadequate, despite the fact that the average work week was 56 hours, and 21.6 percent of the workers worked more hours than that.

Militia threaten workers across a barricade, Lawrence textile strike, 1912

To make things worse, the cost of living was higher in Lawrence than in the rest of New England. The city was also one of the most congested in the United States, with many workers crowded into foul tenements.

The daily diet of most of the mill workers consisted of bread, molasses, and beans. Serving meat with a meal was very rare, often reserved for holidays. The inevitable result of all this was an unhealthy work force. Dr. Elizabeth Shapleigh, a Lawrence physician, wrote: “A considerable number of the boys and girls die within the first two or three years after beginning work. … [T]hirty-six out of every 100 of all the men and women who work in the mill die before or by the time they are 25.”

The immediate cause of the strike was a cut in pay for all workers which took place after a new state law went into effect on January 1, 1912. The law reduced the number of hours that women and children could work from 56 to 54.  The mill owners simply sped up the machines to guarantee they would get the same amount of production as before, and then cut the workers’ hours and wages.

On Thursday, January 11, 1912, some 1,750 weavers left their looms in the Everett Cotton Mill when they learned that they had received less money. They were joined by 100 spinners from the Arlington Mills. When the Italian workers of the Washington Mill left their jobs on the morning of Friday, January 12, the Battle of Lawrence was in full swing. By Saturday night, January 13, some 20,000 textile workers had left their machines. By Monday night, January 15, Lawrence had been transformed into an armed camp, with the police and militia guarding the mills through the night.

The Lawrence strike began as a spontaneous outburst, but the strikers quickly realized that they needed to organize themselves. At a mass meeting held on the afternoon of the strike’s first day, they voted to send a telegram to Joe Ettor, a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World, asking him to come to Lawrence to aid the strike. Ettor arrived in Lawrence the very next day, accompanied by his friend Arturo Giovannitti, the editor of Il Proletario and secretary of the Italian Socialist Federation.

Although only 27 years old, Joseph J. (“Smiling Joe”) Ettor was an experienced, militant leader of the IWW. He had worked with Western miners and migrant workers, and with the immigrant workers of the Eastern steel mills and shoe factories. Ettor could speak English, Italian, and Polish fluently, and could understand Hungarian and Yiddish.

Caruso (l), Ettor (c), and Giovannitti (r), IWW organizers. They were all arrested in the wake of the strike. This photo shows them seated and handcuffed together.

Under Ettor’s leadership, the strikers set up a highly structured but democratic form of organization in which every nationality of worker involved in the strike was represented. This structure played a decisive role in guaranteeing the strike’s outcome. A general strike committee was organized and a network of soup kitchens and food distribution stations were set up. The strikers voted to demand a 15 percent increase in wages, a 54-hour week, double pay for overtime, and abolition of the premium and bonus systems.

Despite the fact that the city and state authorities imposed a virtual state of martial law on Lawrence, the strikers remained undaunted. They pioneered innovative tactics, such as moving picket lines (in which thousands of workers marched through the mill district in an endless chain with signs or armbands reading “Don’t be a scab!”); mass marches on sidewalks; and sending thousands of people to browse in stores without buying anything. They organized numerous parades to keep their own spirits up and keep their cause in the public eye.

The agents of the mill owners struck back. When the police and militia tried to halt a parade of about 1,000 strikers on January 29, a bystander, Annie LoPezzo, was shot dead. Despite the fact that neither Ettor or Giovannitti had been present at the demonstration, they were both arrested the next day. They were charged with being accessories before the fact to the murder because they had supposedly incited the “riot” which led to the shooting. That same day, an 18-year-old Syrian striker, John Ramy, was killed by a bayonet thrust into his back as he attempted to flee from advancing soldiers.

In early February, the strikers began sending their children out of the city to live temporarily with strike supporters. The city authorities vowed to stop this practice, and on February 24, a group of mothers and their children were clubbed and beaten at the train station by cops. This act horrified the country, and swung the general public over to the side of the strikers.

Concerned that the growing outrage over the conditions in Lawrence might lead to public support for lowering the woolen tariff, the mill owners began to look for a way to end the strike. First the largest employer, the American Woolen Company, came to an agreement. Then the others followed. The workers won most of their demands. By March 24, the strike was officially declared over and the general strike committee disbanded. It was a tremendous victory – but not the end of the battle.

On September 30, 1912, the murder trial of Ettor and Giovannitti began. It lasted 58 days. The defendants were kept in metal cages in the courtroom while the trial was in session. The prosecution accused Ettor and Giovannitti of inciting the strikers to violence and murder. Witnesses proved that the

Protest against the trial of Ettor and Giovannitti, 1912

two were speaking to a meeting of workers several miles from the place where Annie LoPezzo was shot. Across the United States and the world, concerned people expressed outrage at the prosecution’s attempt to punish two leaders for their ideas.

Before the end of the trial, Ettor and Giovannitti asked for permission to address the court. Ettor challenged the jurors, declaring that if they were going to sentence Giovannitti and himself to death, the verdict should find them guilty of their real offense – their beliefs.

He said:

“What are my social views? I may be wrong but I contend that all the wealth in this country is the product of labor and that it belongs to labor. My views are the same as Giovannitti’s. We will give all that there is in us that the workers may organize and in due time emancipate themselves, that the mills and workshops may become their property and for their benefit. If we are set at liberty these shall still be our views. If you believe that we should not go out, and that view will place the responsibility full upon us, I ask you one favor, that Ettor and Giovannitti because of their ideas became murderers, and that in your verdict you will say plainly, we shall die for it. … I neither offer apology nor ask for a favor. I ask for justice.”

Giovannitti made an impassioned speech to the jury, the first time he had ever spoken publicly in English. His eloquence drew tears from the most jaded reporters present.

On November 25, the jury found the defendants not guilty. Pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom.

The Lawrence textile strike took place at the time when the mill owners lacked maneuvering room because they had to maintain public support for a high tariff on woolens. That was certainly a factor in the workers’ victory. So was the fact that the textile workers comprised such a large percentage of the population of Lawrence. But those factors do not change the reality that the victory at Lawrence was won by the bravery and intelligence of the workers themselves.

The victory at Lawrence disproved the vicious lie being circulated at the time by the leaders of the American Federation of Labor that immigrant workers could not be organized. It showed that immigrant workers and women workers would not only support strikes – if given the chance, they would gladly lead them, and lead them well. The strikers in Lawrence won their demands because they never let themselves be divided on ethnic or gender lines, because they were militant (and creative) in their tactics, and because they found a way to appeal to the conscience of the general public.

One other feature of the Battle of Lawrence made it especially significant. It’s summed up in the famous slogan of the strike – “We want bread – and roses!” The textile workers who braved the Massachusetts winter in 1912 wanted more than a wage increase. They were inspired by a vision of a new society, one where the workers themselves ruled. In this society, every human being would have “bread” – a decent standard of living. They would also have “roses” – the chance to learn, to have access to art, music, and culture; a society which would allow the flowering of everyone’s talents, the full development of every human being.

On this anniversary of the Lawrence textile strike, we should take courage from the bravery of the strikers, learn from their clever tactics, and dare to think as far ahead as they did. The Lawrence strikers believed deeply in the idea expressed so well in one of the verses in the labor song “Solidarity Forever.” That verse confidently proclaims, “We can build a new world from the ashes of the old.” Despite all the misery we see in the present, a new world is possible. The cynics of today are as wrong to deny the possibility of qualitative change as the AFL leaders in 1912 were to deny the possibility of organizing immigrant workers.  If all of us act with as much foresight and courage as did those who fought so well in Lawrence in 1912, the vision of those strikers can become reality, and we can win a world with both bread and roses for everyone.

Blair Mountain Scandal by Jeff Biggers

[Jeff Biggers writes about the  battlefield that commemorates one of labor's historic battles:  Blair Mountain.  Coal corporate interests have combined to enlist the aid of dead people to approve the removal of Blair mountaintop.  Surprise!  Coal corporate profits will climb when the coal lying beneath the surface is revealed!  This story was posted on Huffington Post.  Biggers is the author of The United States of Appalachia and the forthcoming Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland. – Lew Rosenbaum

Jeff Biggers

Author, forthcoming “Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland”

Posted: January 8, 2010 09:03 AM

Mountaintop Removal Mayhem: Blair Mtn Scandal (Feds See Dead People), Coal Profits Soar, EPA Disses Scientists

Who needs to go to the movie theatre to watch Avatar and the horrors of ruthless extraction companies when we have our own bizarre mountaintop removal policies at play. Check out the trailers for this week’s episodes:

UPDATE: 2pm EST: Great News for Black Mesa: The permit for the controversial Black Mesa Peabody strip mine in Arizona was vacated today by an Administrative Law Judge for the U.S. Department of the Interior. Wahleah Johns, co-director of Black Mesa Water Coalition and one of the petitioners in the appeal said, “As a community member of Black Mesa I am grateful for this decision. For 40 years our sacred homelands and people have borne the brunt of coal mining impacts, from relocation to depletion of our only drinking water source. This ruling is an important step towards restorative justice for Indigenous communities who have suffered at the hands of multinational companies like Peabody Energy.”

Blair Mountain Scandal: National Park Service and WV State Historic Preservation Officer See Dead People and Remove Historic Battlefield from Registry: This Friday, Jan. 8th, the Federal Register should post that the historic Blair Mountain Battlefield was removed from the National Register on December 30, 2009, despite the fact that TWO dead people are listed as landowning objectors!

(Note to Sen Robert Byrd: Your office needs to intervene in this outrageous scandal immediately.)

Scientists Diss Mountaintop Removal Policies: In a stunning new overview of the latest scientific studies, a group of leading scientists published a peer-reviewed paper this week in Science magazine that concludes: “Scientific evidence of the severe environmental and human impacts from mountaintop removal is strong and irrefutable. Its impacts are pervasive and long lasting and there is no evidence that any mitigation practices successfully reverse the damage it causes.” The authors’ warning: “Regulators should no longer ignore rigorous science.”

Whoops, EPA Regulators Ignore Science, Hands Out Massive MTR Permit, Claims 50% Reduction in Clean Water Act Crime is Progress: On the heels of a selenium expert testimony last year that the Mud River ecosystem faced “the brink of a major toxic event” from strip-mining discharges, the EPA opened the floodgates for the massive Hobet 45 mountaintop removal operation in West Virginia, which has already wiped out nearly 25 square miles. Hailing the blatant political compromise as an environmental victory, the EPA declared that only 15,000 linear feet–approximately three miles–of heathy stream channels would be destroyed–a smashing 50% reduction in Clean Water Act crimes.

The EPA declared it is “committed to working with all parties to ensure that our country’s energy, including coal based generation, is produced in a safe, healthier, and sustainable manner, and will “continue to rely on the best available science to evaluate mining projects…”

Sustainable coal? Best available science?

Didn’t the EPA even pay attention to Sen. Robert Byrd’s admonition last month: “The greatest threats to the future of coal do not come from possible constraints on mountaintop removal mining or other environmental regulations, but rather from rigid mindsets, depleting coal reserves, and the declining demand for coal as more power plants begin shifting to biomass and natural gas as a way to reduce emissions.”

Big Coal Profits Soar With Mountaintop Removal News: Two whoops and a holler after the EPA gave the green light for the misguided Clean Water Act permit for the massive mountaintop removal operation in West Virginia this week, Big Coal giants in St. Louis–Arch and Patriot–saw their stocks skyrocket! According to MarketWatch, Patriot stocks “set a new high water mark for the past year.” Thanks EPA! And just when utilities coal stockpiles have increased during the summer for the first time in 25 years, and out-of-state coal companies are slashing mining jobs and idling higher-cost mines to keep their stock holders happy in a period of slumping demand.

The Blair Mountain Scandal, though, just might be the most bizarre show in town this week. On December 30, 2009, the historic Blair Mountain Battlefield was removed from the National Register by the Interim Keeper of the National Register, Carol Shull, despite the fact that the WV State Historic Preservation Officer list of land-owning objectors admittedly included TWO DEAD PEOPLE and two life estate holders–all of whom should be disqualified.

Not quite admittedly: In an email inquiry on January 6th, WV SHPO Susan Pierce wrote: “We cannot confirm or deny that there are no deceased on the SHPO list dated May 21, 2009.”

Wow, this is a remarkable statement: If the SHPO, whose state mandate is to “identify, recognize, preserve and protect West Virginia’s prehistoric and historic structures and sites,” openly doesn’t even know who is an objector on the Blair Mountain list, outside of what she has been told by the coal companies, should her office be investigated for regulatory negligence?

And what about the National Park Service, and Interim Keeper of the National Register, Carol Shull–should they be investigated for regulatory violations?

Some history: Last spring, the Blair Mountain Battlefield was finally listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Blair Mountain is not simply the site of the most famous labor battle in the coal wars, or the place of the largest armed insurrection since the Civil War, when thousands of union coal miners and World War I veterans literally marched and fought to liberate coal camps in southwestern West Virginia held hostage to the whims of ruthless absentee coal companies in 1921. Blair Mountain represents an attitude that is as relevant today as it was in 1921; that the long-term jobs and safety and health of coal miners and coal mining communities must be placed above the profit interests of outside coal companies. The National Trust for Historic Preservation also proclaimed Blair Mountain as one of our nation’s most endangered historic sites.

In 2005, United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts declared:

“The UMWA has always believed the Blair Mountain battle site should be preserved, and I began publicly calling for it back in the 1980′s. We believe a monument should be erected at the site explaining what happened there, and that the road running through the site should be renamed Blizzard Highway, in honor of Bill Blizzard, the miners’ leader at Blair Mountain. We support preserving the land immediately around the battle site, because we believe it’s important for future generations to stand on that ground, and understand the importance of what happened there. This is also a personal issue for me and thousands of others from coal mining families who have relatives and ancestors who fought at Blair Mountain. What they did is a source of pride and inspiration to our families, and helps give us the strength to carry on their fight for justice. We will never forget it, nor should America.”

However, before the ink was dry on the National Registry, lawyers representing three out-of-state coal companies, including Massey Energy, somehow managed to round up new “objectors” to the Registry status, and asked the WV Division of Culture and History to issue a recount of the objectors vs. non-objectors. According to their own company report, “Jackson Kelly’s lawyers aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty…”

Now claiming there were more objectors than non-objectors among the landowners, West Virginia officials moved to have the historic battlefield delisted.

Enter Dr. Harvard Ayers, emeritus professor of archaeology and anthropology at Appalachian State University, and the Friends of Blair Mountain, who had personally identified 14 major battle sites in the area and nominated the battlefield for Registry recognition with historian Barbara Rassmussen.

During the SHPO comment period, Ayers hired a Charleston, WV real estate attorney, John Kennedy Bailey, who found that SHPO’s objector count had numerous inconsistencies. “Instead of 57 landowners including 30 objectors,” Ayers wrote, “we found that the numbers should be 61 landowners and only 25 legitimate objectors.” Ayers and his attorney submitted their findings–including the identification of two deceased listed as objectors, and two life estate holders (who are technically disqualified) within the comment period.

In April, a petition from a long list of some of the nation’s most prominent scholars, historians and archaeologists–including the president of the Society for Historical Archaeology, the former president of the American Historical Society, officers of the Appalachian Studies Association–made a direct appeal to WV Gov. Joe Manchin:

“The Blair Mountain Battlefield is a unique historic and cultural treasure that deserves recognition and protection… No doubt much remains to be discovered, and scholars must be able to continue to study this important chapter in American history..We are concerned that the recent attempt to delist Blair Mountain from the National Register may be a first step toward strip-mining the mountain for coal production, which will destroy the historic site. The National Park Service found that the battlefield is both significant and intact, and we believe it must be preserved for future generations.”

SHPO, unlike their collaboration with the coal company lawyers, refused to acknowledge Ayers’ findings until last fall, when the National Park Service insisted the SHPO review Ayers comments. SHPO forwarded Ayers and his attorney Bailey’s findings to a WV Assistant Attorney General who concluded in November: “While I have not reviewed Mr. Bailey’s work in depth, I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of his conclusions.”

Strangely enough, failing to dispute the presence of two deceased people and other inconsistencies on their own lists, the SHPO wrote in their final report to the National Park Service: “Mr. Bailey’s work does not provide enough information to provide an accurate assessment.”

SHPO kept to its original count of objectors, dead people and all.

Prof. Ayers concluded:

“For the last nine months, my attorney and I have been battling not one but two bureaucracies, the State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) of West Virginia, and the Keeper of the federal National Register of Historic Places of the National Park Service (NPS). It can be pretty frustrating as each agency says that the other is responsible for reviewing and evaluating your well-researched and timely property-owner data that would clearly overturn the NPS’s stated intention to de-list the Blair Mountain Battlefield. The sloppy property-owner work of the SHPO set the stage for my disenfranchisement, and the NPS refused to bother to take an objective look at the property owner data that my attorney and I gathered at the Logan County, West Virginia, courthouse.
I can’t believe the National Park Service would stand by letting the West Virginia SHPO turn in a list of property owners within the Battlefield when two of the 30 objectors are dead and gone, one for 27 years. Dead men don’t sign letters. Two others on the SHPO list of objectors are life-estate holders, a category the regulations do not recognize as an owner. Then there’s the matter of the 13 legitimate property owners within the Battlefield that the SHPO failed to identify with his superficial tax record research. Yet the federal NPS refuses to require the SHPO to review my criticisms or to closely review my data themselves when the SHPO refused to carry out its statutory duty.

Does the National Park Service really want to delist the most important historic battlefield in the coalfields, based on the non-existent objections of dead people?

And if so, has it violated any regulatory procedures?

Is there any national outrage at this Blair Mountain scandal from Cecil Roberts and the United Mines Workers?

Tell Interim Keeper of the National Register, Carol Shull, what you think.

CORE/GEM Education Summit January 9 — by Jim Vail in Substance News

[This report is taken from the Substance News site (see the sidebar to the right for the link to the site).  This is the most complete and frequently updated news source about public education, especially Chicago.  But it should be emphasized that Chicago public education activities will have a huge impact on the rest of the country.  By now it is clear that the Chicago plan has gone national, with Arne Duncan and Barak Obama; and that plan is carrying out the dismantling of public education in the US.  Chicago is also the place to watch for some of the responses to that plan:  CORE, the Caucus Of Rank-and-file Educators is leading a battle to contend for leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union; GEM (Grassroots Education Movement), which includes CORE and other organizations, is orchestrating the battle to take back the privatized space in Altgeld Gardens for a quality neighborhood public school; and other community activists and teachers.  The following story reports on the event held yesterday at Malcolm X College, an event that had more than 400 people in attendance, despite temperature in the mid teens.

Please go to the Substance News web site to see other articles showing how the CTU leadership is responding to the challenges independent caucuses by suppressing their rights to campaign for union leadership and by making bargains with the Board of Education. -- Lew Rosenbaum]

CORE hosts ‘Education Summit’ at Macolm X College January 9, 2010… CORE Education Summit introduces CORE candidates for May 21 CTU election

Jim Vail – January 10, 2010

Stop privatization! Stop Renaissance 2010! Support and defend Public Education! These fighting words rang loud and clear at CORE’s second annual Education Summit at Malcolm X College Saturday, January 9 took place in which about 400 teachers, community leaders, students and others interested in defending public education attended.

The CORE candidates for officers in the Chicago Teachers Union were introduced at the January 9, 2010 ‘Education Summit’ at Malcolm X College. Left to right: CORE presidential candidate Karen Lewis (King High School); vice presidential candidate Jackson Potter (Little Village High School of Social Justice); recording secretary candidate Michael Brunson (displace teacher, Aldridge Elementary School); Lois Ashford, who was elected trustee of the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund with CORE support on October 31 and introduced the group; and Kristine Mayle (Eberhart Elementary) for financial secretary. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.

Last year more than 500 people braved a blizzard to attend the event, many from schools that were slated to close for either low test scores or under-enrollment. But this year the Chicago Board of Education decided to not honor its promise to release the list of closing schools to the public on January 8 the day before the CORE event, perhaps to undermine the event. As the meeting began, CORE co-chairman Jackson Potter asked the crowd to consider the fact that CPS Chief Executive Officer Ron Huberman had deliberately delayed that announcement of the annual “Hit List” to diminish the impact of CORE’s summit. CORE (the Caucus Of Rank and file Educators) — a fighting caucus of teachers in the Chicago Teachers Union — organized in response to Mayor Richard Daley’s attack on public schools. CORE was instrumental in leading massive protests last year that resulted in six schools being taken off the closing list. Calls by Substance requesting either the 2010 Hit List or a list of all schools eligible for closing or turnaround based on current criteria were ignored. Schools CEO Ron Huberman delivered the criteria in a Power Point presentation at the December 16, 2009, Board of Education meeting, but refused to provide the public with a list of all elementary and high schools that could be closed under the latest (or more than a dozen) criteria that have been used in Chicago over the past nine years, said Substance editor George Schmidt. Substance estimates that 200 elementary schools and virtually all of the city’s remaining general high schools could be closed or subjected to “turnaround” under the new criteria.

The opening panel discussed several aspects of he fight back against Renaissance 2010 and in defense of public schools. Left to right: Kalina Mojica (Julian High School student); Marguerite Jacobs and Cheryl Johnson from the Committee for Safe Passage; Lily Gonzales (Peabody school); Lois Ashford (CORE); Pauline Lipman (Teachers for Social Justice); and Karen Lewis (CORE). Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.

On January 10, 2009, Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) President Marilyn Stewart and former CTU President Deborah Lynch were among the many who spoke out at the public education forum. This year they did not attend, perhaps because CORE took center stage in formally announcing their slate to compete in the CTU election in May against the UPC’s Stewart and PACT’s Lynch. Members of Lynch’s group were present but did not speak. No one from the CTU staff was present, but one of Marilyn Stewart’s top aides, Marc Wigler, asked at least one participant to let him know what was said during the event.

A roaring round of applause greeted the recently elected CORE slate which was introduced during the first panel. The slate consists of Karen Lewis (King High School teacher) for President; Jackson Potter (Little Village High School teacher) for Vice President; Michael Brunson (displaced teacher from Aldridge Elementary) for Recording Secretary; and Kristine Mayle (Eberhart Elementary) for Financial Secretary.

The opening panel discussion was chaired by Jitu Brown, of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO), one of the founding groups of GEM.

Karen Lewis, CORE’s candidate for president of the Chicago Teachers Union (King High School) spoke to the group. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.

The opening keynote panel included Lily Gonzalez from Peabody School. She thanked CORE and GEM for helping save their school on the near north side. Kellina Mojica, a Julian High School student in Chicago Youth Initiating Change (CYIC) who has been instrumental in fighting Ren 2010, talked about students’ roles. Lois Ashford, a recently elected Chicago Teacher’s Pension Fund trustee thanked CORE for helping to channel her anger after her previous school (Copernicus Elementary) was closed by Arne Duncan and placed in “turnaround.” Ashford told the crowd that “turnaround” forced her to become a displaced teacher, and that CORE helped her learn how to fight back rather than lose hope.

Pauline Lipman from Teachers for Social Justice noted that former Chicago schools chief and now Education Secretary Arne Duncan is promising federal funds to urban school districts like Detroit, but only if they adopt the Chicago reform model that has resulted in a spike in violence after schools were closed.

Cheryl Johnson and Marguerite Jacobs from the Committee for Safe Passage who have worked with GEM — a coalition of community organizations fighting Ren2010 and helped organize the event — to demand a public school in the Altgeld Gardens community.

CORE co-chairman and CTU presidential candidate Lewis noted in her official acceptance speech to the crowd that the snow last year and the cold this year did not stop the fighting spirit gathered in the room.

Part of the crowd at the opening of the January 9, 2010 ‘Education Summit’ at Malcolm X College in Chicago. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.

“Teaching is a privilege and learning is a right,” Lewis said, “and these guys [Mayor Daley and Chicago Board of Education which he controls] are taking away our privileges and our rights.”

She then noted that while she was speaking the city sent the “boot truck” to put the infamous “Denver Boot” on cars in the Malcolm X parking lot. When Substance editor George Schmidt and Substance Chief Technology Officer Dan Schmidt went out to take pictures, the truck disappeared. It didn’t return when it saw reporters still at the lot entrance.

After each panelist spoke for about two minutes, several people from the audience came to the microphone, some to thank CORE, state they were a displaced teacher or a victim of corruption and that they were ready to help and fight to defend public education. A contingent of community education leaders from Milwaukee attended to learn more on how to fight the current battle for mayoral control of the public schools.

The conference then broke up into five working groups. They were: Amplifying Student Voice in Schools; Taking Back Our Schools: Building a Fighting Teachers Union with the Community; Democratic Alternatives to Renaissance 2010: Lessons in Fighting Closures and Turnarounds with a Positive School Plan; Tests: The New Bully on the Block: How to Put Testing in its Place; and Strengthening and Empowering LSCs … Important Steps to Protect Public Education.

In the Democratic Alternatives to Renaissance 2010 workshop, three groups made presentations about their current community struggles to defend or demand a neighborhood public school accountable to the community. Brian Roa, a CORE teacher and member of the Save Senn High School Coalition, and a Senn student spoke briefly about their fight to save their commuity high school after the Rickover Naval Academy was set up inside against the wishes of the community. The next group, the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (or KOCO) made a presentation about how they organized to save Dyett High School. Dyett was originally a middle school that was forced to become a high school overnight as a result of the Renaissance Plan. The former neighborhood high school King was turned into a magnet selective school in a rapidly gentrifying area in the mid-south region, so the students who could not attend would go to Dyett, as well as students from Englewood High School that was also closed under the privatization plan that replaced Englewood with a charter school.

KOCO said a one-year process was then started by bringing together the community of parents, students, administrators and teachers together to work and deal with a difficult situation. They focused on overcoming the problems of students coming to school unprepared and dealing with discipline issues. They met regularly with late Board President Michael Scott and their alderman Toni Preckwinkle to make sure this was a community led process and not a set-up for failure. When Dyett began, they had a library with no books and lacked many other resources. Since then they have slowly acquired the necessary resources and work strongly with the feeder schools.

The last presentation at this workshop was the Altgeld Gardens Community who are demanding that a public neighborhood school that focuses on environmental justice be opened after its community school Carver was closed, forcing the students to travel five miles away into the volatile Fenger High School which was named a turnaround school last year and fired all its staff.

This resulted in the beating death of an honor student recorded on a student’s cell phone that was broadcast around the world.

“We started working with 20 kids in the community and asked what their wishes were for and some said they didn’t expect to live past 20,” said Jacobs. “So we have set up tutoring programs and poetry night so children can vent their anger in a positive way.”

Jacobs said the community also wants a local neighborhood public school that will be open to all students in the community, a unionized teaching staff and local school council — three things the recently approved Chicago International Charter School high school cannot provide. “We want a democratic process,” Cheryl Jackson said. “You should always have a neighborhood school in your community. We’re saying, give us back our public school.”

When the “Denver Boot” van arrived at the Malcolm X parking lot, some in the crowd noted that it was “like a scene out of ‘The Wire’. The boot was placed on several cars in the parking lot before two Substance reporters began taking pictures of the City of Chicago Department of Revenue in action. The van above then left and circled the block. When it returned, it was photographed again, then left, not to return. Substance photo by Dan Schmidt.

In the workshop to build a fighting teachers union, several teachers spoke out about the challenges teachers face and what needs to be done to address them.

Jose Morales, an advisor in the Aspira Charter Schools, said unlike when he was growing up and teachers were revered, today teachers get no respect.

“Every time you turn on the news there’s a story slamming teachers,” Morales said. “Our voices have gotten lost in the whole political process. You have to fight back.”

A former Fenger teacher noted that before Fenger became a “turnaround” the school had over 30% special education students, but no extra resources to deal with it.

A teacher at Chicago Discovery, one of Bowen High School’s four schools, said the small schools concept is not working there because they all have to fight over use of the cafeteria, gymnasium and auditorium. The school was not designed to be a small school and are suffering as a result.

Perhaps Nate Goldbaum, a CORE teacher at Whittier Elementary, summed up the spirit of the workshop and the overall conference in general with the following observation.

“This is a new time and we need a new union,” he said. “Teachers are the last of a major labor movement under attack and this is what we need to fight back.”

At the end of the conference, Jenn Johnson, a Lincoln Park High School teacher and member of the CORE steering committee, told Substance that approximately 400 people had signed in for the conference. 