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October 12 - Miners Day
On this day in labor history, the year was 1899. That was the day union miners in Mt. Olive, Illinois began commemorating Miners Day.
Every year thousands came into town for a parade, music and speeches. Mt. Olive was the site of the only union-owned cemetery in the United States, established by UMWA local 728, in the aftermath of the Virden massacre.
A year before to the day, striking miners had been killed in a shoot out with company guards attempting to herd scabs into the mines in Virden, Illinois. But, as Mother Jones’ biographer, Eliot Gorn notes, the “train never unloaded its cargo and…
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