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WIU History Professor and Art Education Alumnus Carry Out Another Author's Legacy

April 16, 2024

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MACOMB, IL - -Western Illinois University History Professor Peter Cole helped finish a novel by Herb Mills, " Presente: A Dockworker Story." The cover was also illustrated by WIU Art Education alumnus Marc Nelson.

While Cole was writing previous books on San Francisco Bay Area dockworkers he got to know some pensioners well, including Mills. In Mill's retirement, he wrote a novel that is a lightly fictionalized memoir. Cole was asked a few years before Mills passed away to finish his novel and get it published. After 10 long years, this February ‘24, Cole got the novel published by Hard Ball Press.

The novel takes place in December 1980. The story starts with an officer in the Longshoremen's Union in San Francisco who learns there is a shipment of military weapons on the docks waiting to be loaded onto a ship bound for the fascist government of El Salvador. Ronald Reagan had just been elected president on a right-wing, pro-fascist agenda. The El Salvador government was murdering thousands of its citizens. Mills, an officer in that ILWU Local, proposed that the union refuse to load the weapons which is a direct violation of their union contract that could lead to the officers going to jail and the government taking over the union. Now they need to stop the shipment before it is too late. With part of the novel being out of his personal diary and historical union records, Mills fashioned a fictional account of that campaign. The names have been changed, but the courage and the daring of the union men and women have not.

"When working on my book, Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area, I got to know some old-timers well, one was Mills. An amazing man, during his retirement, he wrote a novel that's a lightly fictionalized memoir about some of his union activism," Cole said. "About 10 years ago and after we had become friends, he asked me to edit his novel and get it published. Mills passed away in 2018 at the age of 87. This month, the book finally was published and I couldn't be happier that I was able to keep my promise to him!"

To purchase this novel, visit the Hard Ball Press website.

Posted By: Kelsey Brown (kl-brown5@wiu.edu)
Office of University Communications & Marketing