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On this day, 11 May 1923, after months of agitation 150 mostly women rent strikers who had been jailed in the Mexican town of Veracruz the previous year were freed by the governor.
The women had organised strikes in detention, and fought with prison guards, while workers outside threatened a general strike for their freedom.
The tenants left the jail in groups of 10, the women wearing cream dresses and straw hats with red ribbons, while their supporters sang songs, shouted slogans and set off firecrackers.
The group then paraded through the main streets of the city to the office of the renters' union, where they declared their commitment to continue their direct action against landlords.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8337/veracruz-tenant-prisoners-freed

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On this day, 11 May 1968, French riot police began their assault at 2:15 AM on Paris's Latin Quarter, which had been occupied and barricaded by student protesters on the evening of May 10.
Over the course of the night, they eventually managed to evict the demonstrators, but the violence they employed against students and local residents provoked public anger, and protests continued to grow.
Reproduction artwork from the rebellion is available with global shipping in our online store to help fund our work: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/may-68

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On this day, 10 May 2009, leading Ecuadorian Indigenous rights activist and revolutionary Tránsito Amaguaña died a few weeks away from her 100th birthday in her native village of Pesillo.
Born into a Quechua family of hacienda workers, Amaguaña took part in a strike in 1931 demanding an eight-hour working day and Sundays off, amongst other improvements. Then, she later recounted, “the soldiers arrived. Fifty at every hacienda. They destroyed houses and arrested the leaders, tying them up and beating them.”
Amaguaña joined the Communist Party and helped found some of the first unions in the country for agricultural workers, and later helped set up rural cooperatives to provide land for other Indigenous people. She also helped establish schools for rural poor children teaching in Spanish and Quechua, and was jailed by authorities several times.
In the 1940s, campaigning was successful in achieving the abolition of forced taxes by the Catholic Church. Amaguaña recalled:…

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On this day, 9 May 1763, what became known as Pontiac's war began when warriors from several Indigenous nations under the Ottawa leader Pontiac attacked British colonial troops at Fort Detroit in present-day Michigan.
While Fort Detroit itself did not fall, Native American fighters captured several forts, with Seneca warriors seizing Venango and Le Boeuf.
Despite British forces massacring unarmed Native Americans, and attempting to spread smallpox among the Native population, fighting continued into the following year, causing around 450 British casualties. The eventual peace agreement reached ensured important concessions to Native Americans, including a ban on colonisation west of the Appalachian ridge, and the loss of several forts.
Learn more about Indigenous peoples' history in these books: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/indigenous
Pictured: Painting of the Siege of Fort Detroit by Frederic Remington

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On this day, 8 May 1974, in India, the national railway strike started, involving 1.7 million workers, demanding higher wages and shorter working hours.
The strike had begun spontaneously on May 2 and spread across the country.
The government of Indira Gandhi set about brutally repressing the strike. They arrested 50,000 workers, evicted 30,000 families from their homes, and fired 50,000 workers from their jobs.
The opposition leadership refused to call for solidarity strikes in solidarity with the rail workers, and eventually, by May 27, the workers were forced to call off the strike and return to work.
1 million strikers were then penalised by being treated as new recruits, and having their previous years of service, leave and pensions disregarded. Although this measure was later overturned after 1977 when the Indian National Congress was voted out of power.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10841/Indian-national…

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On this day, 7 May 1919, Eva "Evita" Perón, actor and later wife of Argentinian president Juan Perón was born.
While commonly seen as a hero of workers and the poor, in reality, Evita and her husband were admirers of the fascism of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. In particular, they were influenced by some of their policies, particularly with regard to integrating the working class into the state machinery.
While some of their early reforms helped improve living standards, after the 1949 stock market collapse they slashed wages by a third and declared military rule to stop a rail workers' strike.
During World War II the government Perón took part in maintained relations both with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy until they were eventually pressured to drop them in 1944, although it maintained relations with fascist Spain from the time of general Francisco Franco's victory until his death, even sending aid to the country in the 1940s.
After the defeat of the Nazis…

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