Mark Your Calendars

It's that time of year when you hang your new calendars. With that in mind, here's an important date in the labor and civil rights movement for every month of the year.

• January 15 - Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was born on this date in 1929.
  
• February 1 - National Freedom Day marks the day in 1865 when President Abraham Lincoln approved the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery in the United States.
  
• March 24 - On this date in 1974 3,000 women trade unionists meeting in Chicago formed the Coalition of Labor Union Women. Today CLUW has more than 20,000 members.
  
• April 15 - Asa Philip Randolph, the African American organizer and president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was born on this date in 1889.
  
• May 1 - Mary Harris "Mother" Jones was born on this date in 1830. A renowed labor organizer, she lived to be 100.
  
• June 28 - On this date in 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed the bill that made Labor Day a national holiday.
  
• July 5 - The National Labor Relations Act, or Wagner Act, became law on this day in 1835. The law led to significant gains in union organizing.
  
• August 26 - Known as Women's Equity Day, this date marks the anniversary of the 19th Amendment in 1920 that gave women the right to vote.
  
• September 5 - In 1882 in New York City, 30,000 workers marched in the country's first Labor Day parade.
  
• October 24 - The 40-hour work week went into effect in 1940.
  
• November 9 - The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was formed in 1935 to expand industrial unions.
  
• December 5 - In 1955, the CIO merged with the American Federation of Labor (AFL), to create today's AFL-CIO.

Dates collected by CWA Local 4319. To learn more go to www.cwa4319.org and click on "Labor Calendar."