This is a reworking of a diary I posted last year for Labor Day. I am also posting it at Street Prophets and Associated Content.
In these days when Labor Day is generally marked by barbeques and sales, it is easy to forget that the holiday was first celebrated in the throes of the labor movement. It was meant to honor workers and their rights to organize and have a day of leisure to spend with their families. These rights were slowly being won, but not without sacrifice and blood.
The first Labor Day in the US was celebrated in 1882 in New York City, with a parade from City Hall to Union Square. The day was Tuesday, September 5, and the march was organized by the Central Labor Union. The idea has been attributed to two labor organizers, Peter Maguire who was one of the founders of the AFL, or Matthew Maguire, who at the time was Secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York City. The following year, another parade was held on September 5; in 1884 it was moved to the first Monday in September. A movement began for legislation to make the day official, at first as a state holiday in several states. In 1886, a General Strike eventually led to the establishment of the 8-hour work day. The first state to make Labor Day a holiday was Oregon, on February 21, 1887.
Attempts to make it a federal holiday were unsuccessful. Then in 1894 the Pullman car workers went on strike in Chicago, effectively shutting down rail traffic out of the city. On July 4 (ironically) President Cleveland sent in the Army which violently broke up the strike. The leaders, including Eugene V. Debs, were arrested. But during the strike, the nation's attention became drawn to labor, and on June 28, 1894 Congress passed Labor Day into law. There was some controversy about when the holiday should be, with the international unions wanting May 1, which in Europe was becoming Labor's celebration. President Cleveland was one of the voices against this, and the first Monday in September prevailed.
Last year much attention was given to the fact that the Democratic National Convention, which would be nominating the first African-American to run for the Presidency from a major party, coincided with the anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The Convention had a ceremony honoring Martin Luther King, who is the best known organizer of the March, but the idea came from A. Philip Randolph, international president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, vice president of the AFL-CIO, and the elder statesman of the civil rights movement. John Lewis spoke at the convention's tribute to Dr. King. He also spoke at the original march, as the chairman of SNCC, the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee. His first written speech was too militant for the organizers, and partly because of his respect for Randolph, he gave a toned-down version of the speech. Either one might be called the "Wake up America" speech.
The labor movement continues, with Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta organizing the United Farm Workers in the 1960's and 1970's, and the Service Workers' International Union more recently. When Ronald Reagan broke the Air Traffic Controllers' strike, he marked a government shift away from supportive labor policies that still continues. Congress is considering legislation to make organizing easier. Unionized workers are only a small percentage of all workers today. The labor movement is not a piece of our history, it still goes on.
So this year let us mark Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer, as we mark Memorial Day, its unofficial beginning - remembering fallen heroes.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
http://www.history.com/...
And for links to both of John Lewis' speeches:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...