Joe Hill, an IWW organizer, wrote dozens of songs—biting, funny, class-conscious, inspiring—that appeared in IWW publications and in its Little Red Song Book. He became a legend in his time and after. His song “The Preacher and the Slave” had a favorite IWW target, the church: Long-haired preachers come out every night, Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right; But when asked how ‘bout something to eat They will answer with voices so sweet: You will eat, bye and bye, In that glorious land above the sky; Work and pray, live on hay, You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.

Highlighted by Jonathan Bristow in A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present by Howard Zinn

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