Rebel Girl

“Yes, her hands may be hardened from labor

And her dress may not be very fine

But a heart in her bosom is beating

That is true to her class and her kind

And the grafters in terror are trembling

When her spite and defiance she’ll hurl

For the only and thoroughbred lady

Is the Rebel Girl”

Joe Hill, “Rebel Girl” (1915)

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1890-1964), eulogized by Wobbly troubadour Joe Hill and called the “East Side Joan of Arc” by novelist Theodore Dreiser, joined the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), journeyed out West in 1907 to organize miners, and two years later took part in the Spokane, Washington, Free Speech movement, the subject of Jess Walter’s 2020 novel “The Cold Millions.” She chained herself to a lamp post to delay being taken to jail and accused the police chief of turning the women’s prison into a brothel by forcing arrested prostitutes to engage in sex. Though just 19 when she took part in the Spokane demonstrations, the “Rebel Girl” had gotten married and was seven months pregnant. Walter quotes her as declaring, “I fell in love with my country – its rivers, prairies, forests, mountains, cities, and people . . . . It could be a paradise on earth if it belonged to the people, not to a small owning class.”

Other real characters that appear in “The Lost Millions” include socialist lawyer Fred Moore (whom Flynn named her son after and who later defended anarchist martyrs Sacco and Vanzetti), James Walsh (who led an “overalls brigade” on a 2,500 journey east to Chicago to attend the 1906 IWW convention), and Frank Little (later dragged through the streets of Butte, Montana, and lynched). Elizabeth Gurley Flynn went on to be a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union and supported the March 7, 1932 Detroit hunger march of auto workers that ended with Dearborn police and Ford security guards firing upon demonstrators, killing a half dozen and injuring 60 others. While living in Portland, she spoke out in support of the 1934 Western Longshoremen’s Strike. In 1936 she joined the Communist Party, spent two years in prison during the Red Scare, and died during a visit to the Soviet Union, where she received a state funeral attended by 25,000 people.

March 7 is not only the anniversary of the Detroit hunger march but also of “Bloody Sunday” when in 1965 Alabama troopers mercilessly beat peaceful demonstrators attempting to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the way from Selma to Montgomery. This week also marks the one-year anniversary of when the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in panic selling on Wall Street, the hoarding of sanitizer, toilet paper, and other consumer items, and recognition that a potentially deadly virus had reached our shores and nearly every part of the country. Though the increasing distribution of vaccines has raised hopes that things will eventually come under control, still nearly 2,000 people are dying daily, and several Republican governors are making “neanderthal” decisions (President Joe Biden’s word) that disregard admonitions by health officials to wear masks and practice social distancing, especially in indoor facilities. In Boise, Idaho, some idiots even held a mask burning ceremony.