| rdfs:comment | - Free speech fights is the term used to describe a number of conflicts in the early twentieth century, particularly those relating to the efforts of the Industrial Workers of the World (the "IWW", or "Wobblies") to organize workers and publicly speak about labor issues. Wobblies, Single Taxers, and other radicals of the time were actively engaged in organizing workers and others, and their efforts were often met with violent repression by local government and business authorities. The most notorious of these conflicts was the "San Diego Free Speech Fight", which brought the IWW to the greater notice of the American public and was notable for the intensity of violence by anti-labor vigilantes directed at IWW; this violence included the kidnapping and tarring and feathering of Ben Reitman, a
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| abstract | - Free speech fights is the term used to describe a number of conflicts in the early twentieth century, particularly those relating to the efforts of the Industrial Workers of the World (the "IWW", or "Wobblies") to organize workers and publicly speak about labor issues. Wobblies, Single Taxers, and other radicals of the time were actively engaged in organizing workers and others, and their efforts were often met with violent repression by local government and business authorities. The most notorious of these conflicts was the "San Diego Free Speech Fight", which brought the IWW to the greater notice of the American public and was notable for the intensity of violence by anti-labor vigilantes directed at IWW; this violence included the kidnapping and tarring and feathering of Ben Reitman, a physician and Emma Goldman's lover. More generally, the term free speech fight may also be applied to any incident in which a group is involved in a conflict over its speech. For instance, the Free Speech Movement, which began with a conflict on the Berkeley Campus in California in the 1960s, may be termed a "free speech fight".
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