A new mural celebrates Wobblies union leader Ben Fletcher, a rare Black labor official in his time

Mural Arts unveiled a large mural near the Delaware River to remember Ben Fletcher and his union, IWW's Local 8, on Saturday.The memory of Philadelphia union leader Ben Fletcher rose anew on Saturday, celebrated on the waterfront where he enabled others to envision and attain a better life.

The union was leftist and militant, and Local 8, comprised of Philadelphia longshoremen, was the largest and most powerful IWW branch in the Mid-Atlantic. It dominated waterfront labor relations in one of the nation’s biggest ports during and after the war, according to historian Peter Cole, who has written widely on the subject.a professor and graduate director at Western Illinois University

The IWW was committed to racial equality, and Local 8 was its most racially inclusive branch, Cole wrote. The local had the largest contingent of African Americans in the IWW and, in Fletcher, its most significant Black leader. Improving race relations was among Fletcher’s top priorities, a means of promoting working-class solidarity. IWW dockworkers sponsored anti-racist forums to try to block employers from divide-and-rule tactics, Fletcher’s biography says.

Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)

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