Mother Jones played a vital part in organizing miners and their families in West Virginia, in encouraging a culture of resistance that led to the Battle of Blair Mountain 100 years ago.

100 years later, all her advice about confronting power and thinking about how to build solidarity are still worth discussing. We face levels of inequality, scapegoating of immigrants, government by monied corporations, legal straitjackets around organizing unions.

The Mother Jones Heritage Project seeks to connect this past history to the present. We have brought Mother Jones back to picket lines with a 12 foot inflatable, have produced exhibits in venues from labor unions to museums, and have worked with artists and sculptors. We are currently in the process of erecting a statue sculpture to her in a prime location in Chicago. We seek to partner with others who know that Mother Jones believed in the power of workers and their allies to transform the world.

The Mother Jones Heritage Project will be hosting a virtual discussion of this with Kim Kelly, a leading labor journalist, columnist at Teen Vogue, and author of the forthcoming Fight Like Hell a narrative history of United States labor movements, Elliott Gorn, Loyola University, and author of Mother Jones, America’s Most Dangerous Woman,  Ginny Ayers, author of Never Justice Never Peace Mother Jones and the Miner Rebellion at Paint and Cabin Creek. 

In addition, we will invite and present commentary from women and male trade unionists and other activists in the present who take inspiration from Mother Jones.

This event is being conducted via Zoom. Click here to join: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87251028306