1946 Oakland General Strike – Presentation by Gifford Hartman (Zoom event)

By Gifford Hartman

This year is the 74th anniversary of the Oakland General Strike. This presentation will revisit the sites of Oakland’s “Work Holiday” that spontaneously began with rank-and-file solidarity with the striking, mostly women retail clerks at Kahn’s and Hastings department stores, where picket lines were broken by police-escorted scabs. Within 24 hours, it involved over 100,000 workers and shut down nearly all commerce in the East Bay for 54 hours. In 1946 there were six general strikes across the U.S.; that year set the all-time record year for strikes and work stoppages. The Oakland “Work Holiday” was the last citywide general strike to ever occur in the U.S. This history talk will attempt to keep alive the memory of this tradition of community-wide working class solidarity.