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Recent Posts
- A People’s History of Grand Rapids book is now available
- Revolutionary Anarchist Youth zine highlights benefit show in Grand Rapids for political prisoner Geronimo Pratt in 1996
- Revolutionary Anarchist Youth flyer on the Amway co-founders
- Just after the Depression years, the Grand Rapids City Government provided direct relief and created a public works project for those unemployed
- Some examples of the conditions for blacks in Grand Rapids and what types of discrimination blacks faced on a daily basis in the early part of the 20th Century
Category Archives: Anti-Capitalism/Labor
Solidarity with Migrant Farm Workers event in Grand Rapids – 1978
Recently, we were able to find some archival documents from the Walter Reuther Library at Wayne State University, documents that are specific to Grand Rapids, particularly the Farm Worker Movement. The image below is taken from a newsletter in April … Continue reading
Anti-Globalization Movement in Grand Rapids began in the Spring of 2000
The US anti-sweatshop organizing in the 1990s focused a great deal of individual corporations and their exploitation of workers in countries around the world. Organizers around the world however, didn’t just challenge the practices of individual corporations, instead they saw … Continue reading
Anti-sweatshop Action in Grand Rapids – 1996
As part of the growing anti-globalization/anti-free trade movement that was growing in the US, especially after the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, organizers with the Institute for Global Education held an action at the Woodland Mall to … Continue reading
Grand Valley Labor News series on Amway – 1980
We recently received a three-part series of articles written by Michael Johnston, a Grand Rapids labor historian and former journalist with Grand Valley Labor News (GVLN). This recently acquired three-part series is important, since he provides important analysis about co-founders … Continue reading
Artwork highlights a People’s History in Grand Rapids – Print #18: Anarchist and Feminist Voltairine De Cleyre
Last semester, art students in Brett Colley’s GVSU class on printmaking, invited me to come talk about the Grand Rapids People’s History Project. The intent of the class was to have students investigate their own part of a People’s History … Continue reading
Celebrating the Grand Rapids Furniture Workers Strike of 1911: Lessons for contemporary organizing and resistance
On April 19, it will be 106 years since hundreds of furniture workers walked off the job in Grand Rapids protesting working conditions, wages and the lack of an 8 hour work day. We have been researching this historic event … Continue reading
Responding to the GR Press Pro-Amway Propaganda – 1998
“Our people are seeking inspiration all the time, as most people are. Some people find it in the Rotary Club, some people find it at church and some people like to go to Amway meetings.” Rich DeVos, in, “The Power … Continue reading
Posted in Anti-Capitalism/Labor, Indy Media, Religious Right
Tagged Amway, the GR Press and Amway
1 Comment
Haiti and Grand Rapids: Part 3 (1993)
This is the third part of three articles from 1993, written about the Haiti/Grand Rapids connection, a series which appeared in the Independent newspaper, The Fundamentalist. Part 1 looked at a Grand Rapids-based company, H.H. Cutler, which had moved their … Continue reading
Giving Haiti the Business: Grand Rapids-based H.H. Cutler Leads the Way (1993)
(This article on Grand Rapids-based company H.H. Cutler and trade policy in the early 1990s is re-posted from the Independent newspaper, The FUNdamentalist Nov/Dec 1993) According to the National Labor Committee report, “Haiti After the Coup,” H.H. Cutler was the … Continue reading
Grand Rapids People's History Project 