Peter Cole
Professor of history at Western Illinois University
Research Associate in the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa
Founder and co-director of the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project
Peter Cole is a professor of history at Western Illinois University and a Research Associate in the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. Cole is the author of the award-winning Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area (University of Illinois Press, 2018) and Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia (University of Illinois Press, 2007). He co-edited Wobblies of the World: A Global History of the IWW (Pluto Press, 2017) and edited Ben Fletcher: The Life & Times of a Black Wobbly, 2nd. ed (2007; PM Press, 2021). He is the founder and co-director of the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project (CRR19).
Articles by
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Local 8 (1913-ca. 1928)
Local 8 was an interracial, multiethnic local that was part of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a militant,...
Cordy Tindell “C.T.” Vivian (1924-2020)
The life of the Reverend Cordy Tindell “C.T.” Vivian is in many ways the story of the modern black freedom...
Benjamin Harrison Fletcher (1890-1949)
Benjamin Fletcher, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1890, was the most important African American in the most influential radical union...
William H. Chester (1914-1985)
Dr. Martin Luther King with Bill Chester, January 25, 1963 “Image Courtesy of Anne Rand Library, International Longshore and Warehouse...
Leo Lythel Robinson (1937–2013)
“Image Courtesy of David Bacon” A rank-and-file activist in the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), Leo Robinson was best...
Tefere Gebre (1968–)
Labor leader Tefere Gebre fled Ethiopia at fourteen years of age, moved to the United States, and was elected years...
African Americans and the Knights of Labor (1869-1949)
Founded in Philadelphia in 1869, the Knights of Labor (KOL) was the largest, most important labor union in the 19th...
