Attending the memorial service are, l. to r. (standing), Robert Gallegos, Justin and Tessie Triplett, BM-ST Tim Ruth, Brandon and Tiffany Turner and family, Sharif Carter, Jesse Hopkins, Dave Uhl, Nikolay Lyubimenko, Lorenzo Tonche, Craig Rose, John Matusky and Josh Mayes; (kneeling) James Breckenridge, Twayne Decuir, James Gardner and Stacey Uhl. Not pictured are Brian Rose and Rosario Obilisundar.
Members travel to Colorado town to remember slain workers, families
A CONTINGENT FROM Local 101 (Denver) along with family members caravanned nearly 200 miles to Ludlow, Colorado, June 24 to remember victims of one of the most brutal and tragic attacks on striking union workers in U.S. history — the Ludlow Massacre.
L-101 BM-ST Tim Ruth said Boilermakers attended the memorial service to honor the victims and also to express solidarity and support for the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), whose General President, Cecil Roberts, was the keynote speaker at the event. This was the 104th time the UMWA has conducted a memorial service at the site, which is held every June. The 2018 remembrance included the dedication of a life-size statue of UMWA organizer Louis Tikas, who was murdered by the Colorado State Militia at Ludlow.
The massacre took place April 20, 1914, when the militia opened fire with rifles and machine guns on a tent encampment of some 1,200 striking coal miners and their families. Twenty-two people in the camp were killed, including 11 children, some of whom were burned or suffocated when the militia set tents on fire. Detectives employed by the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, the largest coal mining company in Southern Colorado at that time, also took part in the violence against miners.
