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'Solidarity Forever' Labor Anthem Endures

A version of Joe Glazer singing Chaplin's "Solidarity Forever" is included in a new CD from the Industrial Workers of the World marking the group's 100th anniversary.
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A version of Joe Glazer singing Chaplin's "Solidarity Forever" is included in a new CD from the Industrial Workers of the World marking the group's 100th anniversary.

"Solidarity Forever," the unofficial anthem of the American labor movement, was written in 1915 by a little-known poet named Ralph Chaplin and set to the civil war tune "John Brown's Body." Since then, it has been sung in union halls, jails and on picket lines across the country. Even now, at a time when labor rolls are down, the song endures.

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Linda Paul