This Wednesday marks the 128th anniversary of the Lattimer Massacre, when 19 striking coal miners, most of whom were Eastern European immigrants, were shot in the back and killed by a Luzerne County Sheriff and his 100-member posse.
It was the deadliest attack against workers in US history, but it was mostly forgotten in the decades following.
This is something I have been fascinated with since I heard the story while sitting inside Philadelphia’s First Unitarian Church over a decade ago. Now, I am really glad to be sharing this bit of history with you, especially for those who haven’t heard it.
For this article, I talked to Paul Shackel, an anthropology professor from the University of Maryland, and we discussed the parallels between then and now and the nativist forces immigrant communities in Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal region dealt with during that time.
One of the things that attracted Shackel to the Lattimer Massacre, which left him dumbfounded, was how it disappeared from public memory and was overlooked by famous historians such as Howard Zinn.
“There are a lot of parallels between what happened in the 1880s and 1890s, where there was a lot of anti-immigration laws being passed, and we see the same fervor today where the Trump administration is very much about making it difficult for the new immigrants to come to this country to thrive and participate in a new and developing economy,” Shackel said in an interview.
Please, I encourage everyone to take a few minutes to read this important piece of forgotten labor history.
