Friday, May 16, 2008

Studs Terkel is 96 years old

Today is the Birthday of Louis 'Studs' Terkel . Studs moved to Chicago in 1922 with his family. Terkel is well known for his Oral histories of the Jazz Age, World War II, Chicago, and Worker's Movements. Particularly, his efforts for the Haymarket Memorial Committee in commemorating that infamous Chicago incident of injustice.

According to Terkel from his 1971 Memoir, in 1926 Studs learned firsthand of the Haymarket Tragedy from Parsons' widow Lucy and members of the IWW, the Wobblies.

On May 4, 1970 Terkel spoke at a small rally at Haymarket and with members of the Illinois Labor History Society placed a small plaque honoring the union dead on the Catholic Charities Building on Randolph Street.

On September 14, 2004 a memorial was finally erected. It's good Terkel lived to see a statue placed to the memories of the wrongly accused, wrongly convicted and murdered workers

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