Labor Hero Joe Hill Focus of Chicago Forum

Labor and human rights activists haven’t forgotten Joe Hill, and for decades they’ve held out hope he'll one day be exonerated of a crime they say he did not commit.

Hill, a songwriting member of the radical International Workers of the World, was tried, convicted and put to death by firing squad in Utah in 1914 for killing a local grocer. Some say it was association with the group, also known as the Wobblies, that doomed him.

That execution may have taken place nearly a century ago, but the issues that Hill fought and died for remain part of today's America.

William Adler, author of a new book that brings to light evidence that might yet clear Hill’s name, will talk about similarities between the struggles of workers in Hill’s time and those of today during a forum scheduled for 10 a.m. Sunday at Third Unitarian Church, 310 N. Mayfield Ave., on Chicago’s far west side.

Bucky Halker, a historian, songwriter, collector and performer, will lead the audience in singing labor songs.

The church's forum is a weekly, public discussion that takes place before the 11 a.m. service, said Sue Lodgen, a River Forest resident a member of the committee that sets them up.

“We use the forums as a vehicle for educating our congregation on social justice and international issues. And in this case this relates to issues of the past,” she said. “And it’s something new about the old.”

Adler’s book, The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon the first full-scale biography of Hill, was recently featured in a New York Times article.

A native of Sweden, Hill came to the United States when he was 23. An itinerant laborer, he joined the IWW in Oregon.

In Hill’s day, anyone looking to organize unions, push for labor reform or spark a revolution struck fear and loathing among the powerful in the country, Adler said. Disenfranchised workers were pressing for their rights to unionize. Class warfare and a gap between the rich and poor only galvanized the tense atmosphere.

Despite the gradual gains of the labor movement, workers today continue fighting to retain their rights to collective bargaining, Adler said.

“Labor unions and workers are still struggling now; the very right to organize is in jeopardy. States like Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and elsewhere have stripped away collective bargaining rights,” Adler said during a recent interview from his home in Denver, Colo.

Adler said there continue to be parallels drawn as well to the controversial issue of wrongful conviction and capital punishment. Hill’s trial and subsequent made international news and ignited controversy. Supporters seeking to overturn his conviction and commute his sentence included labor leaders, the daughter of the former president of the Mormon Church, AFL president Samuel Gompers, the Swedish minister to the United States and President Woodrow Wilson.

While Hill might have become a venerated martyr of labor, he is also known as the union’s preeminent songwriter of tunes like "There is Power in a Union." Those tunes will be his legacy, Adler said. "People cannot talk about Joe Hill without talking about his music. There is a direct line between Hill, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and the like.

“Joe Hill and the IWW did so much to popularize the use of music in protests. It’s hard not to find a protest where music hasn’t been used, whether it is in a sit-in, civil rights marches or the anti-nuclear movement. They all took the use of music from the IWW.  His songs were the voice of direct action.He had an eventful life and even more eventful death," Adler said.