WINNIPEG GENERAL STRIKE RE-ENACTED
Posted on May 24th, 2009(From the Winnipeg Free Press) Mounted police drew their guns and charged, goons cracked heads with their truncheons, the Union Jack flew over city hall, and a striking Ukrainian immigrant was shot… again.
Maybe not since 1919 have 5,000 people crammed onto Main Street in front of city hall, said a delighted but still stunned impresario Danny Schur, the man who brought the Winnipeg General Strike back to life Saturday afternoon.
No, it wasn’t a real streetcar that the strikers tried to overturn, and it wasn’t a real scab behind the wheel.
It was all pretend — those thugs standing on William Avenue in suits and fedoras, wearing white armbands and carrying billy clubs, scowling at families and cyclists and seniors and giving the cellphone cameras all the attitude they could handle.
But when a mounted policeman turned, drew his pistol, and charged up Main at full gallop, and when a man was shot — just as striker Mike Sokolowski was before he died on that very spot 90 years ago — it was a moment frozen in time.
Not a single sound came from 5,000 people. . . (read more)