Ben Fletcher

Benjamin Harrison Fletcher (April 13, 1890 – July 10, 1949) was an early 20th-century African-American labor leader and public speaker. He was a prominent member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or the "Wobblies"), a left-wing trade union which was influential during his time. Fletcher joined the IWW and the Socialist Party around 1912. Shortly thereafter, Fletcher became a leader of the IWW in Philadelphia, beginning a career in public speaking that won him many accolades.

Local 8

Fletcher, along with other Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) members, co-founded Local 8 of the Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union in Philadelphia in 1913. Fletcher was fined $30,000 and sentenced to ten years in the Leavenworth federal penitentiary in Kansas. Fletcher served for approximately three years before his sentence was commuted, along with most of the other jailed Wobblies, in 1922. Fletcher later denounced the CPUSA as insincere, and warned that it was trying to take over the IWW's unions. On June 21, 2025, a Pennsylvania State Historical Marker was unveiled in Philadelphia commemorating Fletcher and Local 8.