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Peter Cole is a professor of history at Western Illinois University in Macomb. He is currently working on a book that compares the modern histories of work, technological change, race relations, and longshore unionism in the ports of Durban and the San Francisco Bay area.

  • Magazine

    “An irresistible force”

    Before dawn one Sunday in June 2010, nearly 1,000 people converged on the Port of Oakland in northern California. Following a well-devised plan, they marched to the dockside gates of SSA Marine, one of the world’s largest shipping corporations, and awaited the arrival of the Israeli cargo ship Zim Shenzhen.