Reply #1: 1886-the Bay View Incident. [View All]

[Jackpine Radical]

Bay View Tragedy
125th Anniversary of Bay View Tragedy highlights struggles

Ceremony marks Wisconsin’s most historic labor incident

The Commemoration of the 125th Anniversary of the Bay View Tragedy takes on heightened significance this year as the State of Wisconsin is in the midst of an upheaval of activity surrounding the rights of working people and their unions. (For downloadable flyer, click here.)

The event is to be held at 4 p.m., Sunday, May 1, 2011 at the Bay View Rolling Mills State Historical marker site at S. Superior St. and E. Russell Ave., on Milwaukee’s lakefront. It commemorates the tragedy of May 5, 1886 when the State Militia shot into some 1,500 workers marching in an 8-hour-day rally and killed seven in front of the old Bay View Rolling Mills, then Milwaukee’s largest manufacturing plant.

The large demonstrations of workers and supporters in Madison and elsewhere this year seeking to protect long-won rights for collective bargaining and worker benefits will likely be referenced by the speakers and presentations at the ceremony which has become a tradition over the last 25 years.

Harvey Kaye, Rosenberg Professor of Democracy and Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and the author of Thomas Paine and the Promise of America, will speak.

The program will also include a re-enactment of the May 5, 1886 event, featuring Actor Daniel Mooney and others reading from speeches of the period, accompanied by players of the Milwaukee Public Theatre dressed in period costumes, supported by puppets.

Larry Penn, folksinger and retired Teamster, will perform several songs, including his own, “Ghosts of Bay View,” and “Solidarity Forever.”

http://www.wisconsinlaborhistory.org/?page_id=45