 Centralia |
| ©Linda Allen 1989 Wesley Everest was a Wobbly -- he fought the Wobbly fight For better pay, the eight-hour day, a warm, dry bed at night But townfolks called 'em Red and tried to chase 'em out of town But Everest turned and killed a man, and they brought that Wobbly down Since nineteen-nineteen when he died, the Wobs still tell the tale How the lights went out in town and how they dragged him from the jail His tortured body hung that night from a place called Hangman's Bridge And silence and a grave now mark the town's grim heritage And we stood in a circle and remembered how he died Though it happened many years ago, a few among us cried And we wondered if his troubled soul still wandered this old town On the day we sang Wes Everest down - let it be- On the day we sang Wes Everest down Wesley never had a funeral and his grave was lost for years But seventy years later, we all gathered near And we sang "Joe Hill" and "Casey Jones" and "Preacher and the Slave" And someone read the Wob Preamble over Wesley's grave The cold November rain came down like tears from unseen eyes And a million fellow workers voices sang and harmonized An injury to one has been an injury to all Let honor mark his gravestone. Let justice be his pall CHORUS Notes: Washington's Birthday, November 11th, also happened to be the anniversary of the Centralia Massacre of 1919. On this day, the last of this project, I stood in the rain with a dozen others at the grave of Wesley Everest, singing songs and remembering him. Earl Robinson, composer of "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night" was also there, having recently moved back to the Northwest. We all sang "Solidarity Forever" and other songs of the I.W.W. |