She Suffered A Brutal Death For Helping Others
The Sad Demise Of Fannie Sellins
The year:1919
The place: Brackenridge, Pennsylvania
The bloody body of a woman lay in the streets. Her crime: Giving aid to a dying miner, Joseph Starzelski, who had been beaten by guards.
When police identified her as a labor organizer, guards chased her down the street and shot her in the back, bludgeoned her in the head, and shot her point-blank in the face. Her body was tossed into the police wagon and the murderers tossed her hat to each other while they danced and laughed.
The deputies who shot her were exonerated of wrongdoing.
Fannie Sellins was a widow with four children who had gone to work in a garment factory to support her family. She became a union leader and negotiator who described her work as not just recruiting but “to provide clothing and food to starving women and babies, to assist poverty-stricken mothers and bring children into the world, and to minister to the sick and close the eyes of the dying.”
Because of her ability to inspire, she became an organizer for the United Mine Workers of America. When she was sent to the coalfields of West Virginia, she was charged with ‘inciting to riot’ and sent to prison. After six months, she was pardoned by President…
