Today in Labor History—March 5

Engraving of the Boston Massacre by Paul Revere (from Wikipedia)

March 5, 1770 – The Boston Massacre took place on this date in 1770. As British soldiers quartered in colonists’ homes started taking jobs from local workers, the rope makers started provoking British soldiers, who fired at and killed Crispus Attucks, a multiethnic colonist. They went on to kill 4 others. Attucks is considered the first casualty in the American Revolution. (From Workday Minnesota)

Barricade During Spartacist Uprising (from Wikipedia)

 March 5, 1871 – Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) was born on this date in Zamosc, Poland. Together with Karl Liebknecht, she helped found the radical Spartacus League in 1916. After the Spartacist uprising in Berlin, they were both arrested and murdered by German soldiers. (From the Daily Bleed)

Exoduster Handbill (from Center for Teaching American History)

 March 5, 1879 – The first group of black “exodusters” arrived in St. Louis aboard the steamer Colorado on their way to Kansas, which was then considered the “promised land” for jobs. Many were fleeing harsh sharecropper contracts, pass laws, imprisonment and racist violence.
Tennessee cabinetmaker, "Pap" Singleton, who called himself the Father of the Colored Exodus, encouraged the migration by printing handbills. A steamboat strike later slowed the migration, reducing the exodus to a trickle by 1881. (From the Daily Bleed)

March 5, 1917 – Members of the Industrial Workers of the World, (IWW, Wobblies) went on trial in Everett, Washington for being the victims of an assault by a  government sanctioned mob (sheriff-led vigilantes). (From the Daily Bleed)