Tidbits - January 4, 2011

1.Kay Tillow: Civil Rights, Union Organizing Mark Decades of
  Activism (by Berry Craig in AFL-CIO Now Blog)
2.The largest slave revolt in U.S. history is commemorated -
  check it out (Gerald Horne)
3.Re: Helen Thomas: Thrown to the Wolves (Ann; Isabel)
4.Jean Benson Wilkinson - Correction to posting
5.Re: Obama's Liberty Problem: Why Indefinite Detention by
  Executive Order Should Scare the Hell Out of People (John)
6.Correcting Elinor Bowles re: Restarting the Civil Rights
  Movement (Hal Davis)

==========

1. Kay Tillow: Civil Rights, Union Organizing Mark Decades of
Activism

by Berry Craig

AFL-CIO Now Blog
January 1, 2011

http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/01/01/kay-tillow-civil-rights-union-organizing-mark-decades-of-activism/

Kay Tillow, a veteran union activist from Louisville, can
inspire us all as we start the New Year. "Set a stout heart
to a steep hillside" is an old Scottish proverb that reminds
me of Tillow, who's executive director of the Nurses
Professional Organization. She and the NPO have spent 21
years battling to organize nurses who work for Louisville-
based Norton Healthcare, Kentucky's largest health care
system. Says Tillow:

    "The [National Labor Relations Board] has ruled in our
    favor time and again. But management has continued to
    threaten and intimidate nurses who want the union and
    we've never gotten recognition."

Even so, Tillow refuses to give up. "This is a human rights
issue to me."

Bill Londrigan, Kentucky State AFL-CIO president, is one of
Tillow's biggest fans.

    Kay has worked tirelessly on behalf of nurses who
    have had to fight one of the most anti-union health
    care corporations in the nation. She's a warrior for
    workers.

Well past retirement age, Tillow has been a union organizer
for going on 40 years.

    I can't imagine living if I weren't doing something
    to change things that are wrong.

Born in Paducah, Ky., and reared in nearby Metropolis, Ill.,
she started helping right wrongs when she was a student at
the University of Illinois. In 1963, Tillow took time out
from classes to join the fight for equal rights for African
Americans. She traveled south and signed up with the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

    Those were interesting times. The year before, I
    studied in Ghana where I met W.E.B. Du Bois. I
    confess I didn't know he was an American who had
    helped found the NAACP.

Tillow had joined the NAACP at her alma mater. "The civil
rights movement was just starting, the freedom riders. It
inspired a lot of us."

The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists terrorized,
beat up and even murdered civil rights volunteers like
Tillow.

    Was I afraid? How could you be afraid when everybody
    else around you was so courageous? They were willing
    to sacrifice everything, including their lives.

She fell in love and married Walter Tillow, another civil
rights worker. The couple ultimately became union activists.

    A lot of the injustice African Americans were
    suffering was economic injustice. Unions have always
    fought economic injustice. So it made sense for us
    to work within the union movement.

The Tillows became organizers for the United Electrical,
Radio and Machine Workers (UE) and Local 1199 of the
National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees. They
won some organizing drives, and lost others. "But we never
quit."

Although she's not a nurse, Tillow joined the NPO when it
was affiliated with the Machinists (IAM). The National
Nurses United (NNU) is NPO's current affiliation. She also
represents the NPO on the All Unions Committee for Single
Payer Health Care, for which she is still campaigning. As
she puts it: "Jesus healed and he did it for free."

Tillow helped organize an IAM local at Lourdes Hospital in
Paducah, though hospital management ultimately broke the
union. While the Lourdes union was short-lived, that
organizing drive is special to Tillow.

    Lourdes used to be old Riverside Hospital - the
    hospital where I was born.
    
[Berry Craig is a professor of history at the West Kentucky
Community and Technical College in Paducah, a member of AFT
Local 6010 and the author of "True Tales of Old-Time
Kentucky Politics: Bombast, Bourbon & Burgoo" and "Hidden
History of Kentucky in the Civil War."]

==========

2. The largest slave revolt in U.S. history is commemorated

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/01/the_largest_slave_revolt_in_us.html

Thought you would be interested in this item from nola.com

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/01/the_largest_slave_revolt_in_us.html

Gerald Horne

[Moderator's Note: Article by Littice Bacon-Blood, published
in the New Orleans The Times-Picayune]

==========

3. Re: Helen Thomas: Thrown to the Wolves

I appreciate your thoughtful remarks.  There should be a way
to salvage this woman's wonderful legacy.

Ann

===

Re: Helen Thomas:

Maybe the people can bestow an award, a plaque for this
courageous woman? I am sure there are a few in her field who
would join in honoring her.

Isabel

==========

4. Jean Benson Wilkinson - Correction to posting

I didn't write the eulogy of Jean Wilkinson -- Tony
Wilkinson, his sister Jo Wilkinson and Jean's granddaughter
Lila Wilkinson did.

Thanks.

Margy Wilkinson

==========

5. Re: Obama's Liberty Problem: Why Indefinite Detention by
Executive Order Should Scare the Hell Out of People

I would have liked to know which advisors made this proposal
or at least been given a context that could be referenced.
Advisors in the Obama administration have floated the idea
of creating a special new legal system to indefinitely
detain people by Executive Order.

    Advisors in the Obama administration have floated the
    idea of creating a special new legal system to
    indefinitely detain people by Executive Order.

John T.

==========

6. Correcting Elinor Bowles re: Restarting the Civil Rights
Movement

I didn't read the original post, but Elinor Bowles writes in
"Re: Restarting the Civil Rights Movement":

"E. R. Shipp has written an interesting piece of history.
But the story he tells and the people he names and the
issues that the movement addressed are no longer the
prevailing problems in the African-American community."

E.R. Shipp is female.

Hal Davis
Minneapolis

___________________________________________

Portside aims to provide material of interest to people
on the left that will help them to interpret the world
and to change it.

Submit via email: [log in to unmask]

Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3

Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq

Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe

Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive

Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate