A lot of workers responded to this tacit, cowardly pact with business as they did in the 1930s: they weren’t having it. Beginning in the 1960s, there was wave after wave of wildcat strikes across the industries of coal mining, automobile, trucking, education, railroad, construction, and transit. Workers were extraordinarily militant at the time, and to my contemporary eyes, fucking crazy. During one strike in New York City, workers shut down the metropolis by raising the drawbridges and taking fuses, keys, handles, and electrical parts with them as they walked off the job. And it wasn’t just about money. Workers wanted much more than just raises and guaranteed cost-of-living adjustments; they wanted racial equity, healthy communities, and responsive, politically active unions. And they were willing to fight for it.

It’s a simple process that recurs throughout history: workers see injustice, they organize each other, and they fight for change. Institutions and their leaders are often worthless, corrupt, intransigent, cowardly, moronic, or some delightful combination thereof. Bradley’s book, in grisly detail, shows what the basic project of democracy is up against, and how it might triumph again. We mourn Yablonski—and everyone else who died so the masses could see a better world—but it is never about one person. In fact, if we have any imagination at all, every leader will disappoint us. This isn’t a reason to give up on the process. In fact, this is yet another point that the taxi driver Joe hears from his wife Edna in Waiting for Lefty.

Edna: When in the hell will you get wise—

Joe: I’m not so dumb as you think! But you are talking like a red.

Edna: I don’t know what that means. But when a man knocks you down you get up and kiss his fist! You gutless piece of bologna.

Joe: One man can’t—

Edna (with great joy): I don’t say one man! I say a hundred, a thousand, a whole million, I say. But start in your own union. Get those hack boys together! Sweep out those racketeers like a pile of dirt! . . . Goddamnit! I’m tired of slavery and sleepless nights.