DC's Labor History Explored

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

When labor activists took a walk through downtown Washington recently, it was, unusually, as tourists, not demonstrators. The group of 18 labor lawyers – in town for the annual meeting of the Lawyers Coordinating Committee -- participated in the first-ever DC Labor History Tour, led by Metro Council Union Cities Coordinator Chris Garlock (center). “We’d been intending to put together a walking tour for a few years and the LCC request was just the spark we needed to pull it together,” said Garlock, who, with his dad Jon, a labor historian, has been researching metro-area labor history for the Metro Council’s online DC Labor Map, which also includes DC labor monuments and markers, art, as well as area union headquarters, hotels, restaurants. The June 4 tour started off at the AFL-CIO headquarters, where participants checked out the giant labor-themed tile murals, and proceeded to stops at the 1953 CIO headquarters just off Lafayette Park, the White House – where 18 protestors were arrested in 1989 when they blocked a gate during a protest over deaths of labor leaders in El Salvador – the unionized Hotel Washington, the National Archives (where an envelope once contained some of Joe Hill’s ashes), the WPA-era sculpture depictions of Labor & Trade at the Interstate Commerce Commission and wound up with an extensive personal tour of the Labor Hall of Fame at the Department of Labor with AFGE Local 12 President Alex Bastani. Some of the tour group continued on a bonus leg down to Union Station, passing the Carpenter’s, Teamsters and Letter Carriers headquarters, the unionized Charlie Palmer’s Steak House and concluding at the A. Philip Randolph Memorial and nearby Amtrak Workers Memorial in Union Station. Tour fees totaling $360 were donated to the Community Services Agency’s Emergency Assistance Fund. Click here for a virtual tour of DC’s labor history sites. If you’re interested in participating in the next DC Labor Tour – or organizing one as a fundraiser -- email cgarlock@dclaborarchives.org. - photo by Adam Wright