TODAY'S GAY WISDOM
Harry Hay and the American Labor Movement
In 1934, Harry
Hay attended the legendary Longshoreman's Strike in San Francisco, known
as the San Francisco General Strike, to perform agit-prop theatre with
his lover, actor Will Geer. During one of their performances, bullets
rang out as the National Guard opened fire on the workers. Several
workers were killed in that melee, but more would be killed before the
government's crackdown on the strike ended. The strike culminated with a
funeral march on Market Street, San Francisco's main street, which was
the largest public demonstration to take place in its day.
Harry became
active in the Communist Party the previous year, drawn to it through his
relationship with actor Will Geer. (Geer would go on to entertain
millions weekly as Grandpa Walton on the television series The Waltons.)
Like many artists and intellectuals of the time, Harry & Geer were
drawn to the Communist Party because they witnessed the economic
devastation of America's Great Depression that began in 1929. Millions
were out of work, starving and homeless, and economic recovery would not
occur until America entered the Second World War in 1941.
Union organizing
was often brutally suppressed during this the first half of the
twentieth century, in fact, some were outlawed. Harry's Communist Party
Section Organizer, Miriam Sherman "saw countless numbers of my friends
beaten and clubbed on picket lines," and thought she would die on the
barricades. But such fears did not stop countless organizers like Harry
who went out to fight for those who had no rights. According to Frank
Pestana, a labor organizer and lawyer from the period, "The objectives
of the Communist Party were objectives that have been realized today and
are part of what we live with. They were fighting for workmen's comp,
job security, medical care, all the things that we know and have now.
Social security was a dream that they were pushing."
In 1935 Harry and
Geer went to the San Joaquin Valley to organize migratory workers. Like
the United Farm Workers, headed by Caesar Chavez three decades later,
they fought for fair wages, decent housing conditions, health care and
education for children. Harry also became involved with the Hollywood
Film and Photo League. Over the course of the next three years Harry
worked on a variety of progressive causes including EPIC, Upton
Sinclair's End Poverty in California campaign, Hollywood Anti-Nazi
League and Workers Alliance of America.
In 1938 Harry met
his wife, Anita Platsky, on the picket lines of a dockworkers strike.
As tireless activists, they documented the poor housing conditions in
Los Angeles for the Communist Party newspaper People's World. Through
the Second World War, Harry remained active in many political causes
including the Theater Arts Committee for Peace and Democracy, Russian
War Relief, and the New Theater League.
Harry continued
his labor activism until his death in 2002, sometimes working with and
speaking to gay and lesbian labor groups. In 2001 he was awarded a
lifetime membership in the Industrial Workers of the World.
