Greek American Radicals

15th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival – Images of the 21st Century March 15 – 24, 2013

karpoz — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 14:01:31 +0000

The 15th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (March, 15-24, 2013) will be screening Greek-American Radicals.

Detroit: I do Mind Dying

karpoz — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 23:34:24 +0000

An interesting book co-written by our good friend and ardent historian Dan Georgakas.

DETROIT: I DO MIND DYING (Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin) tracks the extraordinary development of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, as they became two of the most vital political organizations of the 1960s and 1970s. Widely heralded as one the most important books on the black liberation movement and labor struggles in U.S. history.

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Steve Katovis, Martyr Laborer, Killed by a Policeman While on Picket Line

karpoz — Fri, 18 May 2012 23:38:42 +0000

Reprint of article by Steve Frangos in the National Herald of 5/10/12

CHICAGO, IL – With growing reports of civil disturbances and massive demonstrations spontaneously erupting around the world, this latest series of conflicts between the rich and poor has once again brought that issue to the very center of the world stage. As the world’s masses resist the continuing efforts of the wealthy ruling class to subjugate them, we find that Greeks are again among the leading dissenters.

According to a pamphlet written about his life, Steve Katovis’ last words were:

“I’m dying, comrade. Tell the others outside to keep up the fight – organize the workers.”

Since quite literally the establishment of European colonies in North America, Greeks have been prominent advocates for social equality. Various Greek-Americans have been killed in North America for their actions in support of those beliefs. The events surrounding Steve Katovis’ presence on a New York City picket line on January 16, 1930 are a part of this ongoing Greek-American struggle for basic social equality. Understanding and thereby reclaiming Katovis is not simply a matter of revising Greek-American history. Other questions related to how American society is actually structured and who has the power to make those determinations logically follow any thoughtful consideration of Katovis’ actions. Let us consider what little we know of Katovis’ personal life and then move on to the events involving his very public death.

A WORKER’S LIFE

In 1890, Stavros Katovis was born in the village of Karytha in the Greek province of Thessaly. He was the third child (of eight who lived) of Nicholas and Ajero Katovis. Driven by hard poverty, Katovis at age 10 went to work on a sailboat, which plied its trade along the Greek coastline. By 16, Katovis was working aboard a steam-powered ship as a cook and fireman. In 1913, he arrived in New York City and not long after enlisted in the United States Coast Guard.

It was while serving in the Coast Guard that Katovis began to develop what is referred to as a political consciousness. Far from the stereotype of an illiterate peasant, Katovis was fully literate in (at least) Greek and English. The young Greek could also speak fluent Spanish and was able to read Italian. An extremely active rank-and-filer, Katovis was a member of several unions and was generally known as “Steve the Red.” That last nickname was given since Katovis was also a member of the Communist Party. Aside from his work with unions in New York City and Los Angeles, Katovis wrote articles for the Greek Communist newspaper Empros (Forward).

Katovis was in the United States not only before World War I but also during two very significant periods afterwards, the Palmer Raids (1919-1920) and the Great Depression. The Palmer Raids were conducted in November 1919 and January 1920, under the direction of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer (1872-1936) and were aimed at breaking up leftist organizations, principally the anarchists. That Palmer had no legal right to order government officials and the local police forces to break into and destroy the offices and other gathering places of leftist political organizations did not stop the attacks. Nor have they been widely condemned in historical accounts of the period. The second was the great worldwide economic downturn commonly known as The Great Depression. Given those two events, that Katovis would find it impossible to believe that the United States government cared about the average citizen or even the laws on which the nation claimed it stood is not hard to understand.

In early January 1930, the New York City local chapter of the Food Workers Industrial Union raised the demand for shorter hours and higher wages. As a means of protest, the union decided to picket a well-known anti-union establishment, Miller’s Market at 161 Street and Union Avenue in the Bronx. On January 16, Katovis was among the picketers peacefully demonstrating in front of this market. During the demonstration, local police patrolman Harry Kiritz arrived on the scene. What happened next is known in its broad terms even if there is agreement on the exact details.

After watching the picketers for a period of time, Kiritz attempted to disperse them. That Kiritz had no legal right to have the peacefully assembled protesters leave was not mentioned in media accounts at the time. The picketers not only refused to leave the scene, they fought back when Kiritz began to beat them with his baton. Later, when patrolman Donald Clarey arrived, Kiritz was on the ground. Clarey who entered the crowd beating his way through the demonstrators, called out to Kiritz to get up and engage the picketers. At that point, Kiritz claimed he stood up and fired his service revolver once in the air. Next, Kiritz told the New York Times he “placed his gun to the picket’s back and fired (January 18, 1930).” The individual Kiritz shot in the back was Steve Katovis.

Steve Katovis in his coffin.

Katovis lay in the street, where he had fallen, unattended for a full 20 minutes, (his head had been placed on the curb by another protestor when he first fell) until Kiritz and Clarey dragged his body to a nearby pharmacy. Katovis was charged with felony assault and was sent to Lincoln Hospital, where a uniformed police officer stood guard 24-hours a day.

Katovis died on January 24. According to the pamphlet “Steve Katovis: Life and Death of a Worker,” the Greek’s last words were: “I’m dying, comrade. Tell the others outside to keep up the fight–organize the workers.” A black banner, with letters two feet high, hung across the front of the Communist Party’s headquarters declaring, “Workers, Avenge the Murder of Steve Katovis.”

The following day, a riot involving 400 to 500 citizens and the police broke out in front of City Hall. The police entered the crowd and beat virtually everyone within reach. To underscore that point, various news reports documented that local businessmen, in no way involved with the political gathering at city hall, were beaten by the police just because they happened to be on the street when the rally was held.

The initial shooting of Steve Katovis and subsequent events were the subject of front page headline news stories around the country. It cannot be overemphasized not only how many newspapers featured these stories (along with large news photographs) but also the extent of coverage. The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and other prominent publications carried lengthy detailed accounts of all these events, as did the smaller town papers in rural America. Steve Katovis died an advocate for human rights. He was buried a hero.

Political cartoon is of Katovis in his death bed from the

Daily Worker, a famous socialist paper of the era.

THE CORTEGE

Katovis lay in state on the fourth floor of the Workers’ Center on Union Square, the headquarters of the Communist Party of New York City. The Times echoed the general concern about city officials in their headline, “Communist Riot Is Feared in New York.” Katovis was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery on January 28, 1930. Over 10,000 people attended his funeral. The procession was 20 blocks long. The police were heavy involved with the exact details of how, where and when the funeral procession would progress.

After much debate, the procession was organized with police on horseback leading the entire column. Two members of the Communist youth group carried an American flag and a flag of the Worker’s Center. Then came four motorcycle police units, machine guns mounted on sidecars. A 12-piece brass band marched behind them and following the musicians was the Workers Center youth group. The hearse with the coffin was next with 10,000 marchers following. A long string of cars containing leaders of the various social organizations rode next to the marchers, careful not to advance ahead of the hearse. Today, Katovis, is better known to non-Greeks than he is to the average Greek-American.

The history of the American labor movement is punctuated by terrible violence and frequent killings of working-class citizens by state officials. Yet, for some reason, this is not the history we read about in textbooks. Though many will disagree with the political views of Greek radicals like Louis Tikas, Nick Bordoise, or Katovis, each of those Greek sojourners to American shores gave his life to benefit everyone else’s.

grecianmon@yahoo.com

Marx on the front-page!

karpoz — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:41:48 +0000

March 15, 1924: the greek-language newspaper of the Socialist Labor Party in New York, Organosis [Organization], has Karl Marx on the front-page commemorating the anniversary of his demise (March 14, 1883).

Organosis was the first greek-language socialist newspaper published in the United States (Cincinnati, Ohio in 1916) as the official organ of the Greek-American members of the Socialist Labor Party. The “eselepistes” –that is the Greek-American version of the S.L.P.- were rather active in translating the works of Daniel De Leon, founder of the Party, while they did translate and publish the voluminous “proletarian novel” of Eugene Sue, The Silver Cross, the carpenter from Nazareth. The Greek-American followers of the Socialist Labor Party engaged in prolonged fights and discussions with the Greek-American “Bolsheviks” after 1917. Organosis terminated its publication in 1925, signifying thus the crisis of the Greek-American “eselepistes”.

The Socialist Labor Party is still active, while here a list of its publications, containing the titles of those translated in Greek.

discussing our project in public

karpoz — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 22:21:28 +0000

This Friday March 16th, 2012 our historical consultant Kostis Karpozilos is invited to the Film and History Seminar of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens to present our project.

This will be the second public presentation devoted to the production of our documentary. This is the flyer for Friday’s discussion [in Greek]

Here is a photo from the public discussion organized by the Network of Social Support for Refugees and Immigrants on the 1929 crisis some weeks ago.

San Francisco General Strike (1934)

karpoz — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 09:35:00 +0000

Watch Part 2, here.

youth of Greece-1948

karpoz — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:33:21 +0000

Today, February 23rd, is the 69th anniversary of the foundation of the United Panhellenic Organization of Youth (EPON) by the social and political forces constituting the Greek National Liberation Front (EAM).

The following pamphlet was published in the summer of 1948 in New York City by the organization American Youth for the Youth of Greece. Since 1942 a number of organizations and committees, such as the Greek-American Labor Committee and the American Committee for National Unity in Greece, were actively promoting the work of EAM to the American public. In 1948, when the civil war in Greece was at its peak and the intervention of the United States was in line with the rise of domestic anti-communism, the committees became the target of anti-communist persecutions and Greek-American conservatism.

making our project known

karpoz — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:06:20 +0000

On the 25th of February the Greek Cultural Center in New York is organizing a concert tribute to Odusseus Elytis with Vasilis Lekkas.

The brochure of this event has an advertisement of the documentary Greek-American Radicals- the Untold Story.

aid Greece

karpoz — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:39:22 +0000

Here is a front page that allows associations between past and present.

February 20, 1942 and the weekly progressive journal Greek-American Tribune is published with a cover that shows imprisoned Greece asking for help. The commentary of the newspaper is indicative of the tendency to opt for anti-fascist unity, postponing to the future the issue of social transformation: ”Τhe immediate issue is how Greece will be liberated, not how she will be governed. This truth is very simple and it is surprising that there are those who do not understand it”.

a presentation of interest

karpoz — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:44:49 +0000

On Wednesday 22 of February our historical consultant Kostis Karpozilos was invited to a public discussion organized by the Network of Social Support for Refugees and Immigrants on the 1929 crisis and the development of the working-class movement. During the discussion we presented primary material from the documentary, drawing wide interest for our project.

Here is the poster for the public discussion and soon we will upload photos from the event.