Casimer Mazurek Gravestone Restored, to be Rededicated Monday

Rest in Power: Casimer Mazurek Gravestone Rededication, is an event to rededicate the gravestone of Casimer Mazurek, the decorated World War veteran killed by Lackawanna Steel Company police in the opening days of the Great Steel Strike of 1919. The event, sponsored by the Eugene V. Debs Local Initiative and WNY Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, will take place on the 101 year anniversary of the strike’s calling on September 21, 1919.

Casimer Mazurek Gravesite

Division 15, Holy Cross Cemetery

Lackawanna, NY

Monday, September 21, 5:30-6:30 pm

“Casimer Mazurek is perhaps Buffalo’s greatest symbol of the sacrifices made to secure dignity for the working class through the labor movement,” says Chris Hawley of the Eugene V. Debs Local Initiative. “Mazurek defended democracy in Europe and was killed fighting for industrial democracy back home on American soil. Now, thanks to the volunteer efforts of fellow workers, Mazurek’s gravestone is restored and standing tall again.”

In 2019, Buffalo’s labor community commemorated the 100 year anniversary of the killing of Casimer Mazurek, a decorated World War veteran shot on the picket line by Lackawanna Steel Company police on September 23, 1919.

This year, on the 101 year anniversary of the calling of the strike in which Mazurek became a martyr, the community will come back together to rededicate his gravestone, recently restored by volunteers led by Bob Mahoney of SEIU Local 200United.

The Steel Strike of 1919 is one of the great flashpoints of U.S. labor history. The national strike of 350,000 workers was called on September 21, 1919, and collapsed on January 2, 1920, without achieving any of its aims—namely an eight hour work day, six day work week, and recognition of the union by management. The steel trusts, denouncing the strike as an outbreak of foreign-inspired Bolshevism, responded to strikers with violence and repression. The steel industry locally would not become organized until 1941.

Mazurek, a 26 year old decorated World War veteran having only recently returned from the fighting in France, was among dozens killed at plants across the country. He died instantly when Lackawanna Steel Company police fired into a crowd of 3,000 men, women, and children assembled at a strike gathering at Gate No. 3 (“Three Gate”) on the Hamburg Turnpike. His funeral procession down Ridge Road to Holy Cross Cemetery attracted 10,000 mourners, the largest such assembly in Lackawanna history.

The labor movement remembers its heroes.