William "Big Bill" Haywood was a prominent American labor leader and a central figure in the radical union movement during the early 20th century. As a co-founder of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), he championed industrial unionism, which sought to organize all workers regardless of trade or ethnicity into "One Big Union." Throughout his career, Haywood directed influential actions such as the Lawrence Textile Strike and faced high-profile legal battles, including a famous murder acquittal and a later conviction under the Espionage Act. Committed to revolutionary socialism, he eventually fled to the Soviet Union to avoid imprisonment, remaining there until his death. T ...