Mother Jones is remembered for many things, for her bravery, her resilience, her support for the unionisation of all workers especially women, her leadership of the March of the Mill Children and so much more.
And yet her enduring spirit remains relevant and very much alive across the world mainly as a result of a simple sentence addressed to poor miners standing in a dark field in West Virginia, over 120 years ago… According to her autobiography, Mother Jones went to speak one night to a mining town in the Fairmont district in West Virginia.
She discovered that the meeting was to be held in a church. On entering she discovered that the priest was collecting money from the union miners presumably for the rent of the church in which the meeting was taking place.
‘I reached over and took the money from the priest. Then I turned to the miners. “Boys , this is a praying institution. You should not commercialize it”
She led the union miners out to a nearby field, in front of a school and held the meeting. Pointing to the school, she advised them to hold their meetings at the school declaring
” Your organisation is not a praying institution. It’s a fighting institution. It’s an educational institution along industrial lines.
Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!”
Source: The Autobiography of Mother Jones, Chapter V1 War in West Virginia. Charles H Kerr Publishing Company. Page 41.
Those profound words of Mother Jones at a little town in Fairmont, West Virginia in 1902 remain so powerful that over 120 years later they continue to echo through history wherever union members and people gather to fight for justice and human rights.
It’s been uttered by presidents, on banners in the US Congress, printed on posters, written on plaques and walls in union halls, quoted by trade unions across the world and by social justice and human rights organisations in countless articles….it has become a rallying call for many especially during Covid, and recently at Palestinian support demonstrations, imprinted on awards, painted on union banners at strike picket lines.
The President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins in paying tribute to the front line workers quoted it to praise and generate public support for their brave efforts to combat Covid-19 in April 2020.
Organisations from Oxfam to Greenpeace, many peace and justice organisations and the Justice for the Stardust 48 Campaign have repeated this battle-cry. Its global reach stretches from the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) to SIPTU (formerly the Irish Transport and General Workers Union of Connolly and Larkin) in Ireland and to the Washington State Nurses Union.
The front page of the New York Times (23rd April 1972) contained the quote. when reporter George Vecsey described the pop art wall posters with a picture of Mother Jones when he visited Appalachia. A few days later a “Mother Jones Day” organised by Miners for Democracy took place in Pursglove, West Virginia. It was addressed by Kenneth “Chip” Yablonski, son of murdered union leader Jock Yablonski who urged the miners to reclaim democratic control of their union, the UMWA, in which Mother Jones was one of its first organisers under then President John Mitchell.
Variations of the cry such as “mourn the dead” or “remember the dead” rather than the original “pray for the dead ” are also used. A wonderful documentary written and performed by Kaiulani Lee called Fight Like Hell: The Testimony of Mother Jones has been produced. Controversially, the growing use of the phrase “fight like hell” by the Right has increased in recent times. We must reclaim those passionate words, which reflect the communal ideas of Mother Jones, first spoken back near Fairmont all those years ago to the union miners gathered at the dead of night in that field.
Historian Elliott Gorn in the introduction to his book, Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America mentioned that the words “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living” are all that most people know of Mother Jones.
As long as her words resonate as a call to action wherever in the world people struggle for social justice then Mother Jones lives on.
