Let’s remember what Labor Day isreallyabout.
1.Labor Day’s origins are shrouded in blood.
Why did they want to avoid this?
Also…remember that strike I mentioned on May 1?
It didn’t end well.
The US wanted to avoid commemorating this event and emboldening workers to fight even harder for their rights.
2.The Texas Revolution isoften sanitizedin history books, particularly in Texas.
Mexico had outlawed the practice, which upset Texans, whose main industry was cotton.
The supposedly “brave” fighters died essentially defending slavery.
This greatly impacted the Native Americans, who relied on the buffalo for food and hides.
One Sioux chief fled with a group of Lakota, heading for another reservation in the state.
Troops found them, arrested the chief, and began to confiscate weapons.
Only 25 American soldiers were killed, mostly from friendly fire.
- This was not the case.
Two-thirds were women and children, and many of the rest were older adults.
Residents, who had only days to leave their homes and businesses, lost $400 million in property.
Anyone with even 1/16 of Japanese heritage had to go.
Two-thirds of the interned peoplewerefull American citizens who had been born in the US.
(It’s unclear if they actually were.)
The US Government didn’t apologize until 1988.
They then paid out $20,000 in reparations to each surviving internment victim.
6.The contributions of Black soldiers in the Revolutionary War are almost invisible in most American education.
And yet, we rarely learn about them, and few were recognized in any way at all.
The onlyreparationsthat have been paid out over American slavery have gone to enslavers.
Countries that did accept Jewish refugees includedChinaandthe Philippines.
The children often dealt with abuse, forced physical labor, and poor conditions.
They did not know that they were being experimented on.
The experiments were not for any grand purpose, either.
This did aid in creating a vaccine.
Many of these inmates were illiterate.
He partnered with Johnson & Johnson and Dow Chemical Corporation.
Kligman alsoran testson women at the House of Correction in Philadelphia, funded by UPenn.
15.Speaking of prisoners, did you know that there isnominimum wage for prison workers?
Oh, and prisonershaveto pay for their room and board out of their wages.
16.Some workersharvest cropson former plantations, and some evenpick cotton.
It’s worth noting, of course, that Black Americansaredisproportionally incarcerated.
Chain gangs also aren’t as antiquated as you think Alabama brought thembackfor a year in 1995.
17.An oft-forgotten part of US History involves eugenics and sterilizing people.
Patients did not always know what was being done to them or give consent, and others were coerced.
This didn’t just happen back in the day, either.
Between 2006-2010, almost 150 women in California prisons were sterilized.
18.This wasn’t some fringe movement, either.
Fake social media accounts were used to sow doubt and spread misinformation about China’s COVID-19 vaccine.
