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Today in labor history: Remembering Florence Reece
http://peoplesworld.org/today-in-labor-history-remembering-florence-reece/Florence Reece, born April 12, 1900, died August 3, 1986. She was an American social activist, poet, and folksong writer, born in Sharps Chapel, Tennessee, the daughter and wife of coal miners.
Reece will be forever known for the song, "Which Side Are You On?" written in 1931 during the "Harlan County War" strike by the United Mine Workers of America and the National Miners Union in which her husband, Sam Reece, was an organizer.
''Which Side Are You On?'' became an anthem for the labor movement. Borrowing from the melody of an old hymn,' Mrs. Reece wrote the union song in 1931 while bullets literally flew through the walls of her home. Sheriff J.H. Blair was searching for her husband and led his gang of thugs on a violent rampage, beating and murdering union leaders.
There is a video on the link of her singing the song, but I like this video too from "Harlan County, USA" (which if you haven't seen it, please do. I think it is one of the starkest portraits of class struggle in the United States ever captured on film.)