Speaker 1: On this day and working class history. The fourteenth of
Speaker 1: January and on the fourteenth of January nineteen twenty six,
Speaker 1: a strike broke out among all grades of worker on
Speaker 1: the Sierra Leone government railway. The strike united precariously employed
Speaker 1: African daily wage labourers with Creole clerks and artisans who
Speaker 1: were being forced to in exam to qualify for pay rises,
Speaker 1: whilst their European colleagues were not. The day the strike
Speaker 1: broke out, the British colonial government put the country under
Speaker 1: virtual martial law, and a few days later railway management
Speaker 1: fired many strikers from their jobs. In response, the strikers
Speaker 1: showed increasing militancy, removing the rails in front of the
Speaker 1: manager's train and attacking it with sticks, removing rails at curves,
Speaker 1: and pulling down telegraph polls to prevent communication by the
Speaker 1: colonial administration. The strikers held out for six weeks, supported
Speaker 1: by a strie like fund that raised hundreds of pounds
Speaker 1: from supporters across West Africa, but eventually the strikers were defeated. However,
Speaker 1: the strike did set an example that would be followed
Speaker 1: by more groups of workers in the country, and the
Speaker 1: sources maps and all of our anniversaries each day. Check
Speaker 1: out the on this Day section of our stories at
Speaker 1: at stories, stopworkingclasshistory dot com, and if you value our work,
Speaker 1: support us at Patreon dot com slash working class History.
Speaker 1: Links in the show notes the music by a Decade
Speaker 1: See you tomorrow