September 27, 2019
Hello ,
So glad to be back! So excited to tell you about my trip to commemorate the life and work of Fannie Sellins, and the 100th anniversary of her death.
What an emotional day.
But first, welcome new subscribers Colleen, James, Jauna Perley, Martha Brockenbrough and Beverly Love Warren! Thanks for coming on board! And a huge thanks for hanging out with me to all of you "old" subscribers!
Remembering Fannie Sellins
It was powerful to gather with folks who love Fannie like I do, but who are much more closely connected to the times, places and events of her story.
I hope I can convey to you some measure of how profoundly I was moved, and
how, for them, today's realities are intrinsically linked to those Fannie died for.
When I started trying to sell Fannie Never Flinched in 2006 I felt like a voice crying in the
wilderness. No publisher wanted a book about an obscure woman, no matter how compelling her story.
I never imagined I would be standing on this spot where she died, this hallowed ground, telling the story of that hot August afternoon when shots rang out in this neighborhood of immigrant working
families.
I imagine Fannie was tired.
She'd been working the picket line all day in the Creighton District a couple miles downriver.
It was shift change at Allegheny Coal and Coke just down the bluff from here, and she wanted to convince non-union men headed to work to join the United Mine Workers strike.
Tension heightened as the strike rolled into if fifth week, mine operators siphoning money to the sheriff's department to hire and deputize thugs to patrol the picket lines. There had been reports all day of gunshots.
Fannie heard a ruckus and turned around to see several of the men pictured above beating a miner, Joe Strazeleski. She shouted at them to stop before they
killed him.
They didn't stop. They fired shots into his back as he lay on the ground. Then they turned on Fannie, clubbing her in the head, shooting at her as she turned and ran. Maybe she stumbled on the rock, trying to get away.
That's where she died. One of the deputies picking up her hat, putting it on and prancing around, sing-songing, "Who's Fannie Sellins now."
A crowd of witnesses, mostly women and children, testified Fannie was shot down in cold blood. A jury found the shooters not-guilty, believing their claims that Fannie died in the midst of a riot that she perpetrated.
Among the other speakers remembering Fannie, I was most struck by this woman Kipp Dawson, who went to work as a coal shoveler in 1978.
She told how her Jewish grandparents immigrated from Russia and settled in Erie, Pennsylvania where the Ku Klux Klan terrorized immigrants and blacks.
Klan members killed her grandfather. The sheriff advised her grandmother, “Don’t ask questions. Just leave town.”
Most everyone connected the events of Fannie’s time with events of today. That evening at Fannie’s gravestone, there was a powerful call to stand with immigrants and to fight for inclusion and economic justice.
Tanya James, a former miner and the first woman elected an officer in the International United Mine Workers of America, called for solidarity in the face corporate assault on
workers and middle class families.
I love and admire Fannie, and the notes of Taps brought tears to my eyes.
But the people here in Western Pennsylvania, their relatives mined coal here a hundred years ago. They're connected by blood.
I met the grandsons of Stanley Rafalko, the boy in my book who witnessed Fannie’s shooting. They told me Stanley and his family had to move across the state for fear for Stanley's life after the shooting.
I had lunch with man from Vandergrift, Penn. whose father died in a coal mine when he was baby.
And from a retired steelworker, I heard the story, passed down from his grandfather,
how as a boy, his family was kicked out of their company home during a strike at a Carnegie mine. While living in a tent, his 11-year-old brother died of pneumonia.
Like seams of coal, the history here runs thick and dark.
Ceremonies ended with mournful notes floating out over Union Cemetery and a commitment by those present to continue Fannie's work.
My chest swelled with gratitude for sharing this once in a lifetime day honoring Fannie Sellins’ great compassion, courage and sacrifice, and a prayer that her story will inspire us all to work harder and longer for justice.
Many thanks to photographers Bob Ketcham and Anne E. Lynch.
For more sights and sounds from the day, check out my short video.
In other news, my first formal gig with Spokane Aerial Performing Arts was great fun! I was a very small part of an amazing show including physical comedian Sherrie Martian, Tresa Honaker and AirAligned out of Sacramento, and my very talented friends in our
local troupe.
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To find out more about my books, how I help students, teachers, librarians and writers visit my website at www.MaryCronkFarrell.com.
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