Happy White Shirt Day!
When : Always February 11th
White Shirt Day honors the men and women who participated in a sitdown strike at General Motors in 1937. These autoworkers helped the United Auto Workers (UAW) union to become the sole bargaining agent for General Motors autoworkers. The strike ended on this day in 1937.
According to the UAW's website, the traditions of White Shirt Day are simple:
Everyone must wear a white shirt or blouse
Your white shirt must not get dirtier than your boss's shirt
Safety and work rules must be followed.
Somewhere along the way, this day evolved into White T-Shirt Day for some people. Except for UAW workers and their families, this UAW event was probably lost or forgotten. Those who chanced across reference to White Shirt Day, most likely created their own version of this day, giving birth to the term White T-Shirt Day.
Please wear a white shirt today. And, honor UAW workers, along with their accomplishments.
Origin of White T-Shirt Day:
Bert Christenson, a member of UAW Local 598, initiated White Shirt Day, in February 11, 1948. It is an annual event. It is best known in Flint, Michigan and other localities that have a GM auto plant.
(Source: http://holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/February/whitetshirtday.htm)
= new reply since forum marked as read
...was the one decent white dress shirt that I currently own.
Thanks for this post, Sparky.
I am working on tearing down a bit of fence today, came in and read this. Was wearing a blue T-shirt, under 2 long sleeve shirts since it's chilly today. Went up stairs to find a white shirt. I thought about a white chamois shirt on top, but that would get very dirty...and there's really no one here to see it except the dogs. So I changed into a white undershirt instead...closer to my heart that way.
On another post this morning a couple of DUers were talking about the 60's and how those years, and particularly the Vietnam war, were a seminal point in protests, rebellion, and progress. I cut my teeth in the 60's too, but I wanted to reply that those days were just another link on the chain. All times of change are unique, but they are built upon the events of the past - the civil rights movement of the 40's, 50's and on, the labor movement, women's suffrage, and so many other struggles in so many struggles. We must never forget these things.
Casey Neill, a Portland OR singer-songwriter, has a song titled "Memory Against Forgetting", derived from the Milan Kundera quote: "the struggle … against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting". Here's the first verse of Casey's song:
The history of the world is writ, laid down in reams and tomes.
Rows and rows of dusty books for the scholars to comb.
Digitized, organized, each one in its place
The events according to the conqueror
And the rest has been erased.
We are memory against forgetting, still we hold the line
The true and honest history in the ocean of time.
Time to get back to that fence.
I'm my own boss today, so I guess that gives me a guaranteed pass on: Your white shirt must not get dirtier than your boss's shirt.
