Gastonia, N.C. textile mill striker and songwriter Ella Mae Wiggins, 29, the mother of nine, is killed when local vigilantes, thugs and a sheriff's deputy force the pickup truck in which she is riding off the road and begin shooting - 1929

The Trade Union Unity League is founded as an alternative to the American Federation of Labor, with the goal of organizing along industrial rather than craft lines. An arm of the American Communist Party, the League claimed 125,000 members before it dissolved in the late 1930s - 1929

Some 1,100 streetcar workers strike in New Orleans, spurring the creation of the po’ boy sandwich by a local sandwich shop owner and one-time streetcar man. "Whenever we saw one of the striking men coming," Bennie Martin later recalled, "one of us would say, ‘Here comes another poor boy.’" Martin and his wife fed any striker who showed up - 1929

Striking textile workers battle police in Gastonia, N.C. Police Chief O.F. Aderholt is accidentally killed by one of his own officers. Six strike leaders are convicted of “conspiracy to murder” and are sentenced to jail for from 5 to 20 years - 1929

The Ford Motor Company signs a "Technical Assistance" contract to produce cars in the Soviet Union, and Ford workers were sent to the Soviet Union to train the labor force in the use of its parts. Many American workers who made the trip, including Walter Reuther, a tool and die maker who later was to become the UAW's president. Reuther returned home with a different view of the duties and privileges of the industrial laborer - 1929

Strike of cotton mill workers begins in Gastonia, NC. During the strike, police raided the strikers’ tent colony; the chief of police was killed. The strike leaders were framed for murder and convicted, but later freed - 1929

Martin Luther King, Jr. born - 1929

Some 300 musicians working in Chicago movie houses strike to protest their impending replacement by talking movies - 1928

Alabama outlaws the leasing of convicts to mine coal, a practice that had been in place since 1848. In 1898, 73 percent of the state's total revenue came from this source. 25 percent of all black leased convicts died - 1928

Big Bill Haywood, a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies), dies in exile in the Soviet Union - 1928

LIUNA 483, Portland first city worker union - 1928

39 miners killed in Hollinger Consolidated Gold Mine fire Timmins, Ontario