The Workers Theater Company of BREAD AND ROSES a NFP in St. Louis Missouri, focuses on economic justice and workers’ rights. The artists and performers are members of the movement and working St Louis. These workers-turned-actors
collaborate and train for months each year to create a series of sketches that connect stories of struggle, past and present. Stories are shared in word and song, historical reenactments and tales of the ongoing struggle for workers rights, told by those most affected. JAILBIRD is a dramatization of a 1920 presidential campaign wherein Eugene V. Debs received almost one million votes will he was in a prison cell. Debs, who was imprisoned for his open opposition to WWI, sent his life advocating for workers’ rights and social justice.
“Early in his political career, Debs 
was a member of the Democratic Party. He was elected as a Democrat to the Indiana General Assembly in 1884. After working with several smaller unions, including the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Debs was instrumental in the founding of the American Railway Union (ARU), one of the nation’s first industrial unions.As a leader of the ARU, Debs was convicted of federal charges for defying a court injunction against the strike and served six months in prison. Debs was a founding member of the Social Democracy of America (1897), the Social Democratic Party of America (1898) and the Socialist Party of America (1901). Debs ran as a Socialist candidate for President of the United States five times, including 1900 (earning 0.6% of the popular vote), 1904 (3.0%), 1908 (2.8%), 1912 (6.0%) and 1920 (3.4%), the last time from a prison cell.”*
*From Wikipedia
