Eight black transit workers got promoted. Thousands of white workers walked off the job.
Eight black transit workers got promoted. Thousands of white workers walked off the job.
By Dustin Waters
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/06/13/liberty-bell-attack-philadelphia-transit-strike-black-workers/
June 13, 2020 at 7:00 a.m. CDT
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The black transit workers promotions to motormen quickly triggered a mass walkout by some 4,500 of their white counterparts. For six days that August, trolleys and buses sat idle. The subway stopped. So did one of the countrys leading wartime manufacturing centers.
Fearing an outbreak of violence, local officials summoned state police, forbade the sale of liquor and canceled a doubleheader between the Phillies and the Cubs. Even so, fights broke out across the city resulting in 200 arrests and numerous injuries.
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Liberty Bell? Liberty Bell? Thats a lot of bunk, shouted Charles White as he hurled a one-pound stone paperweight at the national icon. There is no justice.
Guards quickly arrested him, and the huge bronze bell had minor damage. But White made national headlines. His attack was both personal and patriotic, he explained after being taken into custody.
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