Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (August 7, 1890 – September 5, 1964) was a labor leader, activist, and feminist who played a leading role in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Flynn was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union and a visible proponent of women's rights, birth control, and women's suffrage. Late in life, she became chairperson of the American Communist Party. Flynn died in the course of a visit to the Soviet Union, where she was accorded a state funeral.
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[edit] Origins
Gurley was born in Concord, New Hampshire in 1890. The family moved to New York in 1900, and Flynn was educated at the local public schools. Her parents introduced her to socialism. When she was only 16 she gave her first speech, "What Socialism Will Do for Women", at the Harlem Socialist Club. As a result of her political activities, Flynn was expelled from high school.
[edit] Activist career
In 1907, Flynn became a full-time organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World. Over the next few years she organised campaigns among garment workers in Pennsylvania, silk weavers in New Jersey, restaurant workers in New York, miners in Minnesota, Missoula, Montana, and Spokane, Washington; and textile workers in Massachusetts. During this period, author Theodore Dreiser described her as "an East Side Joan of Arc".
In 1909, Flynn participated in a free speech fight in Spokane, in which she chained herself to a lamppost in order to delay her arrest. She later accused the police of using the jail as a brothel, an accusation that prompted them to try to confiscate all copies of the Industrial Worker reporting the charge.
Flynn was arrested 10 times during this period, but was never convicted of any criminal activity. It was a plea bargain, on the other hand, that resulted in Flynn's expulsion from the IWW in 1916, along with fellow organizer Joe Ettor. Three Minnesota miners had been arrested on murder charges when a gunman by the name of Myron came to the residence of one of the miners and was killed. Three IWW organizers were also charged with the murder. Head of the IWW's organizing committee, Bill Haywood seemed confident that Judge Hilton, who had successfully defended George Pettibone when he and Haywood were on trial in Idaho, could win the case for the miners.
It didn't happen that way — the main organizers on the scene accepted an arrangement by which the other organizers were allowed to go free, but the three miners, none of whom spoke English fluently, faced time in prison. There was also a mixup in the sentencing; a prior agreement for one year in prison was somehow changed in the courtroom to a sentence of five to 20 years. Haywood held Flynn and Ettor responsible for allowing the miners to plead guilty to charges they probably didn't understand.[1]
A founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 1920, Flynn was active in the campaign against the conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti. Flynn was particularly concerned with women's rights, supporting birth control and women's suffrage. Flynn also criticized the leadership of trade unions for being male dominated and not reflecting the needs of women.
Between 1926 and 1936, Flynn lived in southwest Portland, Oregon with birth control activist and Wobbly Dr. Marie Equi. Though Flynn was in poor health most of her time in Portland, she was an active and vocal supporter of the 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike.[2] In 1936, Flynn joined the U.S. Communist Party and wrote a feminist column for its journal, the Daily Worker. Two years later, she was elected to the national committee. Her membership in the Party led to her ouster from the board of the ACLU in 1940.[3]
During the the Second World War she played an important role in the campaign for equal economic opportunity and pay for women and the establishment of day care centres for working mothers. In 1942, Flynn ran for U.S. Congress at large in New York and received 50,000 votes, not winning.
In July 1948, 12 leaders of the Communist Party were arrested and accused of violating the Smith Act by advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government by force and violence. Flynn launched a campaign for their release, but in June 1951, was herself arrested in the second wave of arrests and prosecuted under the Smith Act.
After a nine-month trial, she was found guilty and served two years in the women's penitentiary at Alderson, West Virginia. She later wrote an account of her prison experiences in The Alderson Story: My Life as a Political Prisoner.
[edit] Later years and legacy
After her release from prison, Flynn resumed her activities for leftist and Communist causes. She became national chairperson of the Communist Party of the United States in 1961. She made several visits to the Soviet Union and died while there on September 5, 1964. The Soviet government gave her a state funeral in Red Square with over 25,000 people attending. In accordance with her wishes, Flynn's remains were flown to the United States for burial in Chicago's Waldheim Cemetery, near the graves of Eugene Dennis, Bill Haywood and the Haymarket Riot Martyrs.
Flynn's influence as an activist was far-reaching, and her exploits were commemorated in a popular ballad. The song "Rebel Girl" was written by Joe Hill in honor of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
Quotes:
"History has a long-range perspective. It ultimately passes stern judgment on tyrants and vindicates those who fought, suffered, were imprisoned, and died for human freedom, against political oppression and economic slavery."
"We believe that the class struggle existing in society is expressed in the economic power of the master on the one side and the growing economic power of the workers on the other side meeting in open battle now and again, but meeting in continual daily conflict over which shall have the larger share of labor's product and the ultimate ownership of the means of life."
[edit] Notes
- ^ The Autobiography of Big Bill Haywood, 1929, pp. 291 ppbk.
- ^ The Portland Red Guide, 2007, p. 98
- ^ Roger Baldwin: Founder, American Civil Liberties Union
[edit] References
- Fraad Baxandall, Rosalyn (1987). Words on Fire: The Life and Writing of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Rutgers Univ Pr. ISBN 0-8135-1241-7.
- Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley (1963). The Alderson Story: My Life As a Political Prisoner. International Publishers. ISBN 0-7178-0002-4.
[edit] Further reading
- Camp, Helen C. Iron In Her Soul: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and the American Left. Pullman, Washington: Washington State University Press, 1995. ISBN 978-0-87422-105-3 (hardbound) ISBN 978-0-87422-106-0 (paperback)
