Gompers

A mayoral SUV got a warning in May 2021 for driving 39 mph past Samuel Gompers Park.

The winner, Ruth Maria Purcell — also from D.C., as it would happen — was awarded a movie contract but quickly soured on it and returned to her job as a secretary for labor leader Samuel Gompers.

Samuel Gompers, the first president of the American Federation of Labor and an advocate of making Labor Day a national celebration, lifted up freedom in a commentary on the holiday in 1910.

City Council Member Katherine Gilmore Richardson, who attended Gompers and has a child in kindergarten there, joined teachers and union officials protesting outside the school Monday.

Gompers stands as a colossus in the history of America’s organized labor movement, yet Mr. Mix sees him as someone who understood the virtue of making union membership voluntary.