• Listen to this segment

Albert “Ginger” Goodwin

Back in the day on July 27th, 1918, labor leader Albert “Ginger” Goodwin was shot to death in Canada. Originally from Yorkshire, Goodwin immigrated to Canada and worked as a coal miner. When his travels took him to Cumberland on Vancouver Island, the future martyr cut his teeth as an organizer and effective orator against coal companies joining the Socialist Party of Canada and eventually running for office under its banner. After participating in the Cumberland Strike, Goodwin moved on to Trail where he led another strike effort for an eight hour workday in a smelter plant there. It was at this time that the fiercely anti-war labor organizer was conscripted for World War I only to be deemed temporarily unfit. However, after the picket lines assembled, he was re-categorized but fled to the hills of Vancouver Island rather than report to the military.

A single bullet took Goodwin’s life when special constable Dan Campbell led police in a search for draft resisters. The labor movement gave one of its leaders a fitting eulogy, however, when the first general strike in British Colombia’s history took place days later.

For Uprising, this is your truth professa’ saying it’s no mystery why they conceal our people’s history