Martyr’s Local: Publics, Violence, Memory-Making And Ramifications Of The Commitment To Progress Through Rhetorics Of The Marion Massacre, 1929-Present

On October 2, 1929, millhands at Marion Manufacturing shut down their machines and walked off the factory floor. However, the wildcat strikers found themselves on the wrong end of the Sheriff’s deputies’ guns and six laborers died outside the mill gate in what would come to be known as the Marion Massacre. Throughout the strikes, violence played a key role as a tactic of resistance and control. Despite national media attention, the Marion Massacre has become largely lost to public memory. Analyzing the role of violence and public-memory making as tactics of resistance and control, this thesis explores the Marion Massacre through the lens of public and counterpublic theory to understand the ramifications of ideological commitments to progress in the New South and contemporary American society. This thesis asserts that wildcat strikes are legitimate counterpublic tactics for achieving agency in the public sphere, that violence should be understood with more nuance and more attention should be given to the rhetorical nature of violence, that counterpublic memory-making is a key tactic for long-term resistance to oppressive ideologies, and that public memory has as strong of an influence on individual identity as it does on collective identity.