Red Jerseys in Detroit

Argentina plays France today in the 2022 World Cup final. The U.S. team bowed out on December 3 when they went down 3-1 to the Netherlands. But soccer, it turns out, has a long history in the United States, thanks to its popularity among immigrant workers from European countries.

From 1927 to 1935, the United States Communist Party (CPUSA) established the Labor Sport Union, a coalition of worker athletic clubs, primarily located in the urban Northeast and Midwest. The CPUSA’s 1925 sport manifesto emphasized that sports should be used as a medium for class struggle and even to create “proletarian fighting units against militarism and fascism.”

One of their successful sporting accomplishments was the Workers’ Soccer Association, or WSA, which organized leagues in New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. This communist soccer league played two seasons per year and competed for city, regional, and national championships.

On today’s show, history professor Gabe Logan recounts the history of the Workers’ Soccer Association and explains an overlooked aspect of U.S. soccer that intersected political ideology, labor, and athletics.

On this week’s Labor History in Two: No Justice, No Bagels!

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Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

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