Fannie Sellins by Michael Ceraolo

American Labor:  An Episodic Epic, 

Fannie Sellins

Like many,

she had to work to support her family

after being left a young widow with four children

She worked as a seamstress

and helped to organize Local 67

of the United Garment Workers of America

While appealing, successfully, to miners

for help with the garment workers' strike fund,

miners' union officials decided

to hire her as an organizer

"I am free

and I have a right to walk or talk

any place in this country

as long as I obey the law",

but government-by-injunction

made up its own laws, and she was jailed

in Colliers, West Virginia for six months

for violating one of those 'laws'

But that didn't stop her organizing,

or her supporting striking workers

And so

             "Fanny Sellens [sic]"

                                            "came to her death"

"on Tuesday, Aug. 26th, 1919 at 4 P.M.

due to gun shot wound in left temple

from gun in the hands of

person or persons unknown to the Jury

during an attack on the Sheriffs Deputies"

Her death "was Justifiable

and in self defense"

"recommend that Sheriff Haddock be commended"

There were witnesses to the contrary,

and a statue erected in her memory the next year

had an inscription more accurate:

"KILLED BY THE ENEMIES

   OF ORGANIZED LABOR