Rivers, Charles, ca. 1905-1993.

Charles Rivers (ca. 1905-1993) was a labor union organizer, anti-war activist, and advocate for democracy in Greece.

Rivers was born in Greece and emigrated to the United States at an early age. As an iron worker, Rivers worked on the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings in the 1920s and 1930s. In the late 1920s, he travelled to the Soviet Union to work on various construction projects. Rivers joined the Communist Party in the late 1920s and and was one of a number of CP members who attempted to organize Gastonia, North Carolina, textile workers into the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union. In the 1930s and late 1940s, he worked for the United Electrical Workers organizing workers at General Electric and Westinghouse in Schenectady, New York and western Massachusetts.

Rivers' political activism resumed with the outbreak of the Vietnam War and particularly with the 1968 coup by a military junta in Greece. He helped form the Committee for Freedom and Democracy in Greece, which received much support from labor unions and New York City's radical Greek community.

From the description of Photographic negatives and prints, [ca. 1930-1989]. (New York University). WorldCat record id: 477252362