Organize: Honoring Howard Zinn

Joe Hill, born in Sweden, emigrated to the United States in 1902, where he became a migrant laborer. When he was a dockworker in California, Hill joined the Industrial Workers of the World, the IWW. He traveled widely, writing political songs, making speeches and organizing workers under the IWW banner. In 1915, while working in a mine in Utah, he was accused of murder in a dubious case that became an international cause célèbre. Just prior to his execution, he wrote to Bill Haywood, an IWW leader, saying, ” Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize.” Joe Hill was a legend in his time and after, much like the great historian Howard Zinn who passed away in early 2010 at the age of 87. Zinn wrote about Joe Hill and the IWW in his masterwork, “A People’s History of the United States.”