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The Death of Anna LoPizzo

Back in the day on January 29th, 1912, Anna LoPizzo, an immigrant mill worker, was shot and killed in a picket line of the Lawrence Textile Strike. The American Woolen Company in Massachusetts had pilfered out wage decreases to its mostly female workforce at its four mills. Workers, like LoPizzo, took action, as salaries before the cut were already meager. Also popularly known as the “Bread and Roses” strike, the work stoppage was organized by the Industrial Workers of the World. In a major turning point, witnesses said that police office Oscar Benoit was the trigger man that fired the fatal shot that killed LoPizzo. Authorities then used her death to try and deal a blow to the strike by arresting labor organizers Joseph Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti. Though both men were not at the scene of the shooting, they were charged with inciting and procuring the murder. Undeterred, the woman of the bread and roses strike continued in LoPizzo’s memory and won wage increases the very next month.

The following Novemeber, Ettor and Giovannitti were acquitted of all charges and once more the people of Lawrence gathered in celebration.

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