Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly

by Peter Cole

This book tells the story of one of the greatest heroes of the American working class movement. In the early 20th century, when many U.S. unions disgracefully excluded black and Asian workers, the Industrial Workers of the World warmly welcomed people of color, in keeping with the Wobbly emphasis on class solidarity and the An Injury to One is an Injury to All!
The great African American Wobbly organizer, Benjamin Fletcher (1890-1949), was noted for his brilliant organizing ability and imaginative on-the-job strategies, as well as for his courage, humor, and excellent as a soapbox orator. Not surprisingly, he was one of the IWW's most admired and best loved figures. Along with a biographical sketch of Fletcher, reminiscences by fellow workers who knew him well, and an impressive selection of Fletcher's own writings and speeches, Peter Cole also chronicles the ups and downs of the Philadelphia waterfront union in which Fletcher played such a leading Local 8 of the IWW's Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union.

Genres: History, Labor, Biography, Nonfiction, Politics, Race, United States

149 pages, Paperback

First published December 21, 2006

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great introductory essay by Peter Cole kick this collection off. The rest of the contents are writings by or about Fletcher ranging from the mundane to discussions of race, labor and union politics. Major down side is the hard to read lay out by the publisher, Charles Kerr, which makes the appear to have been published decades ago. Fletcher is sadly little known as a historical figure even though his standing was in 1910's nearly equal to A. Philip Randolph. Randolph was actually close to and very supportive of Fletcher earlier in his life as well.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Best

I had never heard of Benjamin Fletcher before I read this book and I am glad I did. I was somewhat knowledgeable about the Industrial Workers of the World but this book filled in many of the gaps. While it does a great job analyzing and describing the Wobbly era, it also keeps Ben Fletcher in the foreground of the picture. Unfortunately we don't have a lot of documentation of Fletcher's early life, Cole makes the most of what he has. This book only whets my appetite for more about the Wobbles. Workers of the world, unite!

[Benjamin Fasching-Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the 60 page biographical essay at the start, I thought, OK, so now it's over 200 pages of primary sources that tell the same story? I ended up actually enjoying that a great deal, to go back over it all, slowly and carefully, looking at these documents and really getting a feel for the time when Fletcher's union controlled the Philadelphia docks.

[Jasper Conner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book using biography and primary source documents to explore the important life of Ben Fletcher, the most prominent Black member of the radical union, the Industrial Workers of the World. I have assigned this book for a course on US Labor History and found that my students really enjoyed it. The prose is easily read, while the content of this one man's life touches on important historical topics like early 20th century union struggles, racism in the North, and radical social movements. Peter Cole's introduction explores how Fletcher and other Wobblies, members of the IWW, organized across ethnic and racial lines on the docks of Philadelphia to build real working class power for about a decade in one of the most important US ports of the era. The primary sources allow students to think about how radical union organizers of the day wrote about the pressing matters of the working class movement. Instructors will find that the book is great assigning, but also serves as a great source for document analysis assignments.

[Michael P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really good biography of the IWW labor activist Ben Fletcher that relies mainly on his own writings / speeches and primary documents concerning him. This book is well worth reading if you are interested in labor history, radical history, or Philadelphia history.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good read on the largely forgotten African-American rebel who became a lifelong member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and powerful speaker, organizer, writer, and activist in the cause of not only black liberation by liberation for all working classes. The book is organized is about a third biography, and then last two thirds lay out all the evidence that Cole found, almost giving the appearance of giving a researcher all the tools to do followup work since they don't have to reinterrogate the evidence Cole found about Fletcher.

Ben Fletcher grew up in South Philly's Point Breeze neighborhood, and got involved in the IWW in the 1910, when he was 20. He became a key part of organizing the Local 8 union that came to dominate the docks in a crossracial union. The IWW sent him to organize workers in other places, like Baltimore, the Chesapeake Bay, and Boston. He's eventually part of the mass raids that imprisoned many Wobblies, when he accused Judge Landis of having terrible grammar and giving out "too long sentences". After some time in prison, he is released and rejoins the dockworker union as it falls apart, under attack from both the shipowners, rival unions, and even Communists who want to eliminate their leftist rivals. Fletcher remained apart of the IWW even as it became a shell of itself, hanging onto its basic values of bringing all races together under a common barrier as the best way to black liberation. Fletcher sort of drifts around, and ends up in New York City, but can't do quite as much as in his youth after a stroke. He dies in 1949.

This book, while short and the primary source material reads very quickly, is key to understanding how the IWW was able to build the multiracial union of Local 8, and why it ended up crumbling. It is a shame that Ben Fletcher is not spoken about more often, but then again, his personality seemed to favor giving others the credit whenever possible and deflecting tension through a really sharp sense of humor (even taking on white supremacists who'd come to heckle his speech in Jim Crow Virginia with a really pointed joke.) His friends remembered him well, speaking about how he reached people through powerful speaking and inspiration, even when he wasn't treated all that well. Ben Fletcher deserves to be remembered for a life well lived in his time.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

It starts with a 62-page introduction, which is all the biography we get of the central figure. It's like an extended Wikipedia entry. The remaining 247 pages are articles, speeches, and letters by or about Fletcher, often quite fleetingly. Though interesting as documents of the time, it makes me feel like the book is inappropriately titled, as it suggests a biography. Ben Fletcher is more like the inspiration and muse of a larger story about organized Blacks in the early 20th century; and since there is so little actual biographical information about him, this larger story could have been told while maintaining his undeniable central presence. As a collection of important documents, I'm really glad they're preserved here. As a biography of Ben Fletcher, it's a one hour documentary from a penny-pinching producer.