Today in labor history April 08 128 convict miners, mostly African-Americans were killed

[Omaha Steve]

April 08



April 8, 1911 - A violent explosion ripped through the Banner coalmine outside Birmingham, Alabama; 128 convict miners, mostly African-Americans jailed for minor offenses, were killed. Unlike the Triangle Shirtwaist fire that occurred two weeks earlier, the Banner explosion elicited little attention or public sympathy. Although evidence clearly pointed to a dangerous buildup of methane gas in the mine, an Alabama commission placed the blame on the miners themselves. Most of the miners were prisoners leased to Pratt Consolidated Coal Company under the state’s notorious convict lease system. While many southern states leased convicts, Alabama’s program lasted the longest, from 1846 to1928.

April 8, 1952 - President Harry Truman ordered the U.S. Army to seize the nation’s steel mills to avert a strike. The act was ruled to be illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 2.