The raids and deportations have begun. On the 6 o'clock news, we see fellow human beings shackled and treated like the quote unquote animals Donald Trump accuses them of being. Herded into military transport planes, shipped off to countries south of the border, where so many of them fled murderous gangs. This demonizing of immigrants has a long and ugly history in our country. And on today's show, we bring you one of those moments.
The bath riots on the Santa Fe Bridge between Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas in late January 1917. This segment originally ran back in January 2019 and unfortunately, unfortunately, It needs no updating. We've also got two segments of labor history in two. One about sitting down, the other about sitting in. Given the current administration's attacks on workers, these tactics might be instructive. I'm Chris Garlock, and this is Labor History Today.
I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in Two. On this day in labor history, the year was 1937. That day marked a pivotal moment in the continuing Flint sit down strike. The nationwide strike against GM started in Flint, Michigan in late December. By late January, UAW organizers agreed that nearby Chevy engine plant number 4 had to be shut down. It was a massive facility. It employed 4, 000 workers on two shifts. The plant superintendent had been firing union activists.
Armed guards patrolled every inch of the facility to prevent a sit down. Union organizers knew there were company spies in their ranks. They planned the takeover by staging distracting job actions at nearby Chevy plants number 9 and then number 6. This would draw the guards away from plant number 4. And so, on this day, just as the day's shift was ending, workers sat down at Chevy Plant No. 9. The company guards were ready to launch an attack. They began beating and gassing the sit downers.
The Women's Emergency Brigade smashed plant windows to dissipate the gas. The diversion worked. Guards 4 unattended. Workers then turned off all the machines and barricaded themselves in. The plant guards tried to re enter and were met with pistons, connector rods, and fire hoses. The Women's Emergency Brigade gathered outside the plant and locked arms. UAW organizer Joe Sayan announced, quote, We want the whole world to understand what we are fighting for.
We are fighting for freedom and life and liberty. This is our great opportunity. What if we should be defeated? What if we should be killed? We have only one life. That's all we can lose, and we might as well die like heroes than like slaves. For more information, go to laborhistoryin2. com, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter at laborhistoryin2. This is Elise Bryant from the Labor Heritage Power Hour.
We're proud to be part of the Labor Radio podcast network with more than 200 Labor radio shows and podcasts from across the country and around the world. The Labor Radio Podcast Network where working people speak. Find [email protected]. We're going to kick off the show with a fascinating story brought to my attention by songwriter and musician Joe DiFilippo. Joe wrote the song we opened the show with, Carmelita, performed by the R. J. Phillips Band.
It's about Carmelita Torres, known as the Latina Rosa Parks, and the so called Bath Riots on the U. S. Mexico border in 1917. As you'll see, The story has some uncanny echoes today. That morning was no different from the rest. Said your prayers, drank your coffee and got dressed. You did not plan to be a page in history.
No, no, no, no, no. Carmelita Torres was a 17 year old Mexican maid on her way to work early in the morning of January 28th, 1917, at the Santa Fe Bridge between Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas. Inspectors attempted to remove the young Mexican domestic workers from their trolley and submit to a disinfection process. Carmelita's refusal sparked what became known as the Bath Riots, and that story is fascinating.
But the back story is little known in the U. S., and links directly to Donald Trump's demands today for a wall on the Mexican border.
Between 1915 and 1917, typhus, which was sometimes reported as typhoid fever, spread from Mexico City to the provinces, though the public health service officer for El Paso admitted there was little danger to the American citizens of that border city, El Paso's mayor, Thomas Calloway Lee Jr., sent telegrams to U. S. senators in Washington demanding a quarantine to stem the tide of, quote unquote, dirty, lousy, destitute Mexicans who he said would spread typhus into El Paso.
Dr. B. J. Lloyd, El Paso's public health service officer, opposed a quarantine, but suggested opening delousing plants. U. S. officials quickly adopted a policy of sanitizing Mexican immigrants at a disinfecting station in El Paso. The policy initially applied to all Mexicans entering the United States at El Paso, but it soon spread all along the U. S. Mexico border. These days we're used to hand sanitizers everywhere. I saw one in a bank recently. They're ubiquitous and innocent seeming.
This was not that. Men and women were separated, with any children accompanying the women into separate buildings, where they were stripped of all clothing and valuables. The clothing and valuables were steamed, while items like shoes, hats, or belts, which might be damaged by steam, were exposed to cyanogen gas. Attendants examined the nude migrants for lice. If lice were found, men's hair was clipped close to the head, and the clippings were burned.
Women's hair was doused in a mixture of vinegar and kerosene, wrapped in a towel, and left on the hair for at least 30 minutes. If reinspection indicated all nits had not been removed, the process was repeated. Once attendance declared the lice test had been passed, the naked people were gathered in a bathing area and sprayed with a liquid soap made of soap chips and kerosene oil.
After collecting their sanitized clothing and dressing, the migrants were evaluated by a foreman, vaccinated, and given a certificate that they had completed the procedure. From the disinfecting area, they then entered the Immigration and Naturalization Service building for processing. Now, just like today, people went back and forth across the U. S. Mexico border every day. Many of them, like Carmelita and her fellow passengers on the trolley, domestic workers heading to their jobs in El Paso.
When the border inspectors ordered the workers off the trolley that January morning in 1917, Carmelita Torres refused. She'd heard reports that nude women were being photographed while in the baths. Reports had also circulated that bathers might be set on fire, as it happened previous year when gasoline baths at the El Paso City Jail had resulted in the death of 28 inmates when a cigarette came out of their mouth. Ignited bathers.
Carmelita requested permission to enter the U. S. without submitting to bathing and was refused. She then demanded a refund of her fare. And when that was refused as well, she convinced the other women on the trolley to protest. The women began shouting and hurling stones at health and immigration officials, sentries, and civilians who had gathered to watch the disturbance, and the crowd grew to several thousand. Headed for El Paso, another house to clean.
The agents, they detained you, a girl of seventeen. No respect did they show, you came from Mexico. Oh, oh, oh, Camelita. Come a leader, you said no on the bridge that day. They tried to disinfect you, take your clothes away. You said, no. Refuse to obey. The rioting continued the next day, January 29th, when the rioters were dispersed from the bridge by the Mexican cavalry.
But with most workers refusing to come to work in El Paso, business owners and households who were without laborers consulted with the Chamber of Commerce, and officials clarified that those who were not infected could be passed without having to bathe, and that certificates were valid for a week. Notices were also posted in Juarez to advise that the inspectors in El Paso would accept health certificates issued by Mexican health inspectors.
The Immigration Act of 1917 passed just days after the riot and imposed barriers for Mexican laborers entering the United States. For the first time in history, workers were required to pass literacy tests, pay a head tax, and were forbidden to perform contract labor. Business owners in the Southwest pressed Congress to exempt Mexican workers from contract labor restrictions and head taxes.
After the U. S. entered World War I, businessmen were able to lift the 1917 immigration terms for Mexican workers, and the exemption lasted until 1921. However, the Bathing and Fumigations, which later used insecticides and DDT continued into the 1950s, they tried to disinfect you. Kamelita, you said no, refused to obey. Oh, Kamelita. Oh, Kamelita. Oh, Kamelita. I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in Two. This day in labor history, the year was 1960.
That was the day that four black freshman students from the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina sat down to make a stand for justice. Ezell Blair, Jr. Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richman visited a whites only lunch counter at the Woolworth's store in Greensboro, North Carolina. They were determined to challenge the racial discrimination of the Jim Crow South. They had planned their actions ahead of time, arranging for media coverage.
The A& T Four took their seats at the counter, ordering coffee and a slice of cherry pie. Soon, police arrived to eject the four black patrons. They refused to give up their seats. They stayed until the counter closed, returning the next day with more supporters. The sit in had been a successful strategy of the U. S. labor movement in the 1930s. It was a powerful tactic to build solidarity, garner public attention, and bring about change.
Members of the Congress of Racial Equality had also used the sit in during their organizing for civil rights in the 1940s. The Greensboro action sparked an unprecedented wave of sit ins for civil rights. Mass mobilizations for sit ins swept the South. That year, thousands of black students participated in sit ins or marched in support of the action. These black students faced insults, violence, and 1, 500 were arrested.
Their actions brought national attention to southern segregation and helped to set in motion the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 2010, the AFL CIO held a federal hearing. 50th anniversary commemoration with the three living participants of the Greensboro sit in. AFL CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker told the men, We thank you for the vision, the faith, for being crazy enough to believe you could change America and make it better for us.
Thanks for listening to Labor History Today. This is what's called a passion project, which just means that no one's paid to produce it. Everyone involved does it because of their passion for labor history. For the importance of remembering the struggles of our past, the losses, as well as the wins. Since you're listening now, you probably already subscribed to Labor History Today. Thank you so much. Because we have no sponsors, more subscribers doesn't provide any financial reward.
It just means that more people are arming themselves with knowledge of the history of workers struggle and resistance. LaborHistory. org But there's probably someone in your life, maybe a colleague at work, or someone in your family, a friend perhaps, who'd be interested in these stories, too. If so, we'd really appreciate it if you could share the show with them. It's our own version of one on one organizing.
Labor History in Two is a partnership between the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show. And thanks again to Joe DiFilippo for tipping us off to the story about the 1917 Bath Riots. Wikipedia's entry on the subject is also excellent, and David Dorado Romo's 2006 book, Ringside Seat to a Revolution, brought the story back to the attention of the public and Chicano scholars. This week's labor music was Carmelita written by Joe DiFilippo and performed by the R. J. Phillips Band.
Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. And you can keep up with all the latest labor arts news, subscribe to the Labor Heritage Foundation's weekly newsletter. It's free. At Labor heritage.org, the Labor History Today team includes Ben Blake, Leon Fink, Sherry Lincoln, Joe McCarton, Evan Pap, Jessica Pozak, and Alan AK for labor history today. This has been Chris Scarla.
Thanks for listening. Keep making history and we'll see you next time.