Site information:

On 5th St, W of Harbor Blvd, San Pedro

33.74064,-118.280574

Plaque information:

State plaque has gone missing

Plaque text:

Liberty Hill

In 1923 the Marine Transport Industrial Workers Union 510, a branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), called a strike that immobilized 90 ships here in San Pedro. The Union protested low wages, bad working conditions, and imprisonment of union activists under California's criminal syndicalism law. Denied access to public property, strikers and supporters rallied here at this site they called "Liberty Hill." Writer Upton Sinclair was arrested for reading from the Bill of Rights to a large gathering. The strike failed but laid a foundation for success in the 1930s. The syndicalism law was ruled unconstitutional in 1968.

Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the San Pedro Bay Historical Society and the American Labor Movement, May 9, 1998.

Registered 3/3/1997