Related Directory Categories
- Free Speech (98)
- Censorship (58)
- Internet (25)
- Artistic Expression (16)
- Uniforms (13)
- Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (8)
- Free Speech (1)
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Free speech fights
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) engaged in free speech fights during the period from approximately 1907 to 1916. The Wobblies, as the IWW members were called, relied upon free speech, which in the United States was guaranteed by the First Amendment, to enable them to communicate the concept of One Big Union to other workers. In communities where the authorities saw their interests in avoiding the development of unions, the practice of soapboxing was frequently restricted by ordinance or by police harassment. The IWW employed the tactics of flooding the area of a free speech fight with fooloose rebels who would challenge the authorities by flouting the ordinance, intentionally getting arrested in great numbers. With the jails full and a seemingly endless stream of union activists arriving by boxcar and highway, the local communities frequently rescinded their prohibitions on free speech, or came to some other accommodation.
A particularly brutal free speech fight between the IWW and its allies, and large groups of vigilantes supported by the authorities in San Diego was unique in that the IWW did not have a specific organizing campaign at stake.
Other free speech fights have included the struggle at Berkeley, California in the 1960s.
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