Early Farm Labor Organizing, 1935’s Sebastopol Apple Pickers Strike, and the ACLU’s Role-

Presentation and Discussion of Sol Nitzberg:Sponsored by California Historical Society
Join Barry Nitzberg, grandson of tar-and-feathering victim Sol Nitzberg, and historian Ken Kann, for a retrospective on early farm labor organizing and vigilante terror in Sonoma County, California. Learn about the 1935 Sebastopol apple pickers strike, the assault on Barry’s grandfather and other labor organizers, the local community leaders who comprised the vigilantes, and the ACLU role in the following trial. Barry and Ken review the impacts of the violence on Sonoma County, its left-wing Jewish chicken ranching community, and the Nitzberg family. Barry Nitzberg has deep roots in the historic Jewish chicken ranching community of Petaluma, where he was born and raised. The grandson of Sol Nitzberg— chicken rancher, labor organizer, and tar and feathering victim—Barry and his family are featured in Ken Kann’s oral history of three generations of this unique immigrant community. Ken is a historian and author of Comrades and Chicken Ranchers; The Story of a California Jewish Community.

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Review of this event by Oliver Pollak