“We ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for?” – Franz Kafka, “Letter to Oskar Pollak (27 January 1904)”
A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself.
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Henry David Thoreau, Walden (via philosophybits) |
On this day, 3 May 1938, British colonial police massacred construction workers striking for a pay increase at the Frome sugar factory in Jamaica. Three were killed by gunshot, one by bayonet and at least 25 were injured. They also arrested 109 workers and charged them with “riotous assembly”, sentencing many to up to one year’s imprisonment. But the repression sparked widespread demonstrations and strikes by other workers across the island.
More information in this account of struggles in the British Caribbean at this time: https://libcom.org/library/labour-rebellions-1930s-british-caribbean-region-colonies-richard-hart
Pictured: the factory in 1962 https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1708343079350835/?type=3
