BIOGRAPHY
Richard Davis - Union Organizer, Rendville, Ohio
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Kathy Irwin said
This man is quite famous in Labor History. He was the first Black organizer for the International United Mine Workers. He was quite literate and wrote elegant pieces for the UMW Journal which can be read online. He was targeted by coal mine owners and nearly starved to death for his union work. Please learn as much about him as you can.
Kathy Irwin said
In a letter to the United Mine Workers Journal 1898, Richard L. Davis wrote:
“I would advise that we organize against corporate greed, organize against the fellow who through trickery and corrupt legislation, seeks to live and grow fat from the sweat and blood of his fellow man. It is these human parasites that we should strive to exterminate, not by blood or bullets, but by the ballot”
(http://www.umwa.org/history/hist1.shtml ).
Richard Davis sounds like a founding member of Occupy Wall Street, doesn’t he?