MOUNT OLIVE, Ill. (AP) - The monument to “the grandmother of all agitators” in Mount Olive has been rededicated.
Mary Harris “Mother” Jones requested burial among the rank-and-file workers in the Union Miners Cemetery when she died in 1930.
The (Springfield) State-Journal Register reports (https://bit.ly/1TFRVwa ) that more than $76,000 was collected to restore the 22-foot pink Minnesota granite obelisk erected in 1936. A state grant and donated labor helped spruce up the rest of the site.
Visitors to the Saturday ceremony included U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, a Springfield Democrat who has suggested Mother Jones replace Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill.
Jones was a labor activist who organized strikes and co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World.
Mount Olive is planning a Mother Jones museum in a building housing city offices.
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Online: https://www.motherjonesmuseum.org/
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