I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night alive as you and me

1915 USA: After a controversial trial believed by many to be a miscarriage of justice, IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) labor organizer, folk-poet and songwriter, Joe Hill (Joseph Hillstrom), was killed by state firing squad in Utah. Hill has become the subject of numerous songs, plays, and books, and some of his songs have been available continuously in the IWW's Little Red Song Book, now in at least its 36th edition.

Despite an international movement to save him that reached as far as Australia, Utah authorities and copper bosses had Joe Hill executed for murder, but many say it was for his organizing with the IWW.

Hill was convicted of killing a grocer and his son, even though the bullets were not from Hill's revolver and no one identified him as the murderer. His last words:

"Don't mourn, organize!"

Categories: usa, radical-history, labor-history, history, biography, music