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Actor: The Devil's Brigade. Bill Fletcher is known for The Devil's Brigade (1968), Black Sheep Squadron (1976) and The Fall Guy (1981).
- Actor
- December 20, 1922
- Bill Fletcher
- August 29, 2013
- Political Activism Began in High School
- Joined The Labor Movement
- Joined The AFL-CIO
- Named President of Transafrica Forum
- Opposed The Iraq War
- Selected Works
- Sources
- GeneratedCaptionsTabForHeroSec
Fletcher was born on June 21, 1954, in New York City. He and his sister grew up in a home filled with political discussion. As labor movement supporters, his parents, William G. Fletcher, Sr. and Joan Carter Fletcher, emphasized black liberation and the fight for desegregation within organized labor. His great-grandparents lived in a famous Harlem ...
Fletcher’s career began in the rank-and-file of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America, when he took a job as a welder at the Quincy Shipyards, a division of General Dynamics, in Quincy, Massachusetts. In his three and a half years there, he found himself battling not only the bosses, but also the conservative white unio...
When Sweeney was elected head of the AFL-CIO, Fletcher became the organization’s education director. He was the most overtly leftist national staff member that the AFL-CIO had had in many years. In a 1998 interview with Dollars &Sense magazine, Fletcher summed up his union philosophy: “unions, at different times in history, become instruments for m...
Fletcher’s interests in education and internationalism came to the fore when he was named president of the TransAfrica Forum in December of 2001. TransAfrica Forum is an educational and lobbying organization that works for justice for people of color throughout the world. It attempts to influence U.S. foreign policy for the benefit of the people of...
Fletcher is a charter member and co-chair of the anti-war coalition United for Peace and Justice. He announced on the organization’s website: “The formation of United for Peace & Justice will mark a breakthrough for the peace movement—the diversity and breadth of groups involved is astounding.” Fletcher told the Nation, “it will be a challenge for ...
Books
(With Peter Agard) The Indispensable Ally: Black Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1934–1941, William Monroe TrotterInstitute, University of Massachusetts, 1987. (With Richard W. Hurd) “Beyond the Organizing Model: The Transformation Process in Local Unions,” in Organizing to Win: New Research on Union Strategies, ILR Press, 1998. (With Richard W. Hurd) “Political Will, Local Union Transformation, and the Organizing Imperative,” Which Direction for Organiz...
Periodicals
“Interview with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams,” Monthly Review, 1989. “The Crisis of American Labor: Operation Dixie and the Defeat of the CIO,” Monthly Review, 1990. “From Gang Members to Union Members?,” Dollars & Sense, 1995. “Can Black Radicalism Speak the Voice of Black Workers?” Race and Class, 1999. “Race, Gender, and Class: The Challenges Facing Labor Educators,” Labor Studies Journal, 2000. “A Tribute to The Life of Nadra Floyd,” Social Policy, 2000/2001. “A Tale of Two Conference,...
On-line
“Bush’s War Plans Part of Dangerous Bid for Empire, TransAfrica Forum Head Warns,” UCLA Interna tional Institute, http://isopweb.sscnet.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=3378 (June 24, 2003). “Everything Has Not Changed Since 9/11,” Freedom Road Socialist Organization, www.freedomroad.org/antiwar_fletcher.html (July 6, 2003). “Extracting the Life from Africa,” The Progressive Media Project, www.progressive.org/mediaproject03/mpffll03.html (July 6, 2003). “Into the Valley of Death,” TransAfrica Fo...
Books
Boyd, Herb, Race and Resistance: Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century, South End Press, 2002.
Periodicals
Dollars & Sense, May-June 1995, pp. 26, 28–29; September/October 1998, pp. 6, 26–27. Jet, December 24, 2001, pp. 22–23. Nation, January 3, 2003. New Crisis, January/February 2002, p. 11. Progressive, March 2000, pp. 31–35.
On-line
“Fight for Global Justice is TransAfrica’s Immense Task, Says Danny Glover,” All Africa, www.transafricaforum.org/newletter/taf_allafricall502.shtml (July 6, 2003). “Human Rights Day to Feature Anti-War Protests,” United for Peace and Justice, www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=301 (July 6, 2003).
Learn about Bill Fletcher Jr., a prominent labor and social activist who is a self-described socialist and black radical. He is the president of TransAfrica Forum, a historian of the American labor movement, and a co-founder of the Black Radical Congress.
Jun 18, 2023 · Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a world-renowned racial justice, labor, and international activist, scholar, and author; he has served in leadership positions with many prominent labor organizations, including the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union; he is the former president of TransAfrica Forum and the author of numerous books, includ...
Bill Fletcher Jr. is a labor activist and co-author of Solidarity Divided, a book that examines the crisis and challenges facing the U.S. labor movement. The book covers topics such as globalization, civil rights, elections, and social justice unionism.
In this talk, acclaimed labor educator and writer Bill Fletcher Jr. enlightens us with some little known history of how racism has been used since Europeans ...
- 85 min
- 1552
- Ed Mays
Bill Fletcher Jr. is a labor, racial justice and international activist and author of several books on social movements. Learn about his work, his articles and his books on the Zinn Education Project website.
Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a talk show host, writer, activist, and trade unionist. The Man Who Changed Colors is his latest novel. His first novel is The Man Who Fell From the Sky. He...
