On this day in Labor History the year was 1961.

That was the day when Herbert Lee was murdered just outside of Liberty, Mississippi.

He was a successful black cotton farmer, who became active in efforts to register black voters.

Lee had nine children.

He was one of the few area black farmers with a vehicle.

This made him very valuable to the voter registration movement.

Lee would drive Bob Moses from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee around Amite County to reach unregistered voters.

It was dangerous work to register black share croppers and farmers in rural Mississippi.

Attempts by black residents to gain legal or economic equality were met with threats and violence.

On the morning of his murder, Lee had come to the Westbrook Cotton Gin outside of Liberty to drop off a truck load cotton.

There he was met by a childhood friend, Mississippi State Representative, E. H. Hurst.

Hurst came up to the truck and started shouting at Lee.

He then took out a gun and shot Herbert Lee in the head.

Witnesses stated that Lee had brandished a tire iron at Hurst.

Hurst claimed self-defense.

A jury declared the murder a justifiable homicide.

Louis Allen, a black farmer and timber worker, was one who had testified about witnessing the shooting.

Later he recanted his testimony, saying he had lied about Lee threatening Hurst because he feared for his life.

After Allen began to talk about what he saw that day, he became the victim of harassment and beatings.

Finally, on January 31, 1964 he too was gunned down in his driveway.

No one was every convicted or arrested for his murder.

On this day in Labor History the year was 2007.

It was that morning that a bridge under construction in Vietnam collapsed.

The disaster happened in Can Tho, about 100 miles south of Ho Chi Minh City.

It was a suspension bridge project to cross the Hau River.

The project was run by Japanese firms working with the Vietnamese government.

250 workers were on site at the project when the disaster happened.

55 people were killed and another one hundred were injured due to the collapse.

One reason cited for the collapse was that torrential downpours had caused the support structure for the bridge to sink.

Another possible reason was that the scaffolding on the construction project was too weak to hold the weight.

When it failed, it took down a section of the four-lane concrete deck approach ramp with it.

The fallen section weighed between 1,500 and 2,000 tons.

The collapse was considered the worst disaster in the history of the Vietnam construction industry.

Manh Hung, leader of one of the construction teams described what occurred.

“We suddenly heard a great explosion at a bridge head. Dust covered a great air space while workers screamed out. The scene was so terrible. The whole great block fell on people below.”

Vietnamese, along with Japanese and Filipino rescue volunteers rushed to attempt to find survivors.

1,000 local residents gave blood at the hospital for those injured.

The rescue efforts were hampered by the danger of a further collapse.

They had to use a crane to clear the rubble.

Finally, after four days, the rescue efforts were called off.

The bridge project was completed in 2010.

The names of the fallen workers are inscribed on a memorial.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1903.

That was the day that is remembered in Virginia as the “Wreck of old 97”.

Old 97, also known as the Fast Mail, was a Southern Railway freight train.

It carried the mail from Washington D.C. to Atlanta, Georgia.

The train wreck happened on the leg of the trip from Monroe, Virginia to Spencer, North Carolina.

The train had come in late to Monroe.

It was reported that the railway company ordered the engineer to increase the speed of the train to make up time.

The company had to pay a penalty for delivering the mail late.

But when the trained neared Danville, Virginia the tracks curved at the Stillhouse Trestle Bridge.

The speed was too much.

Despite the engineer’s efforts to slow the train, it careened off the tracks and plummeted to the rocky ravine forty-five feet below.

Eleven of the sixteen people on board the train died, including the conductor, the engineer and the flagman, and both firemen.

The railway company blamed the wreck on the deceased engineer.

Newspapers across the country carried photos of the wreck.

The disaster became the subject of multiple ballads.

One version by Vernon Dalhart in 1924 is thought to be the first million-selling country record in the United States.

Johnny Cash recorded another well-known version of the song.

In 1993 an alternative country band took the name the “Old 97’s” harking back to the disaster and the songs it inspired.