Bacon, a renowned photojournalist who has documented workers and the labor movement for many years, will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Weyerhauser Chapel, 1600 Grand Ave., St. Paul. The event is free and open to all.

“Minnesota has been a place of many labor battles throughout history,” Bacon said. “Another reason I am excited to be in Minnesota is so that I can meet with and talk to many of workers involved in these struggles — especially those involved in recent events involving the workers who were fired from their jobs at Chipotle stores.” He said such events are linked to broader trends seen around the country.

Service Employees International Union Local 26 is a sponsor of Bacon’s appearance and is one of many unions co-sponsoring “Untold Stories,” an annual series of events coordinated by The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library. The 2012 series runs through May 21 and features panel discussions, music, readings and more.

Here is the schedule:

David Bacon: Illegal People
Thursday, April 12, 7 pm
Macalester College, Weyerhaeuser Chapel, 1600 Grand Ave.
Writer and photojournalist David Bacon returns to the Untold Stories series with a talk on his new book Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants. Bacon is also the author of Children of NAFTA and the photo-documentary project Communities Without Borders. He is an associate editor at Pacific News Service, and writes for TruthOut, The Nation, The American Prospect, The Progressive, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications. He has been a reporter and documentary photographer for 18 years, shooting for many national publications. He has exhibited his work nationally, and in Mexico, the UK and Germany.

David Noble Lecture: Ricardo Dominguez
Tuesday, April 17, 5 pm
University of Minnesota, Influx Room West Bank, Regis Center for Art (East)
The 18th annual David Noble Lecture, presented by the American Studies Department, features Professor Ricardo Dominguez, co-founder of the Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT), a group who developed Virtual-Sit-In technologies in 1998 in solidarity with the Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico. He is co-Director of Thing (thing.net) an ISP for artists and activists and an Associate Professor at UCSD in the Visual Arts Department, a Hellman Fellow, and Principal/Principle Investigator at CALIT2. Co-sponsored by Untold Stories.

Woody Guthrie at 100
Thursday, April 19, 7 pm
St. Paul Labor Centre, 411 Mahoney (Main) Street
Celebrate the centennial of Woody Guthrie’s birth with a program featuring folk singer Darryl Holter, a former labor education director for the Wisconsin AFL-CIO and labor educator at UCLA, who has developed a "Woody Guthrie in Los Angeles" presentation/performance, and renowned Twin Cities labor troubadour Larry Long, who has applied and extended Woody Guthrie\'s aesthetics and energies for the past four decades.

Socialist Traditions in City Hall
Monday, April 23, 7 pm
Merriam Park Branch Library, 1558 W. Minnehaha Ave., Saint Paul
In the first decades of the 20th century, two Socialist mayors shaped the future of the Twin Cities. Thomas Van Lear, an Army veteran and Machinists union leader, won the 1916 election in Minneapolis as the “Public Ownership Candidate.” Sixteen years later, William Mahoney, a founder of the Farmer Labor Party, became mayor of St. Paul. Tom O’Connell of Metropolitan State University and Barb Kucera of the Labor Education Service discuss how they left their mark on their respective communities.

Around the World in Saint Paul
Thursday, April 26, 7 pm
Minnesota Humanities Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, Saint Paul
On the 80th anniversary of the publication of Alice Sickels’ book, Around the World in St. Paul, about the creation of the Festival of Nations, join Immigration History Research Center Donna Gabbacia and undergraduates from the program working on oral histories and the Minnesota 2.0 Facebook archive, for a look at the various communities coming together to create the St. Paul we know today.

“Living the Revolution: Italian Immigrant Women\'s Anarchist Feminism in Early Twentieth Century New York City”
Tuesday, May 1, Noon
120 Elmer Andersen Library, 222-21st Ave S., Minneapolis
The Immigration History Research Center presents Jennifer Guglielmo, of Smith College, presents “Living the Revolution: Italian Immigrant Women\'s Anarchist Feminism in Early Twentieth Century New York City,” followed by a reading from the works (in Italian and in translation) of anarchist poet Virgilia D\'Andrea. Co-sponsored by Untold Stories.

Workplaces: Readings & Chorus
Tuesday, May 1, 7 pm
Rondo Community Outreach Library, 461 North Dale Street, Saint Paul
Join the Twin Cities Labor Chorus and guest readers for selections from several different works exploring labor and place, including Charles Walker’s American City, Candacy Taylor’s Counter Culture, Alice Sickels’ Around the World in St. Paul, and more.

Uprising: Why Wisconsin? with John Nichols
Wednesday, May 2, 7 pm
Carpenters\' Union Hall, 730 Olive Street, St. Paul
The uprising in Wisconsin last year didn’t just happen. It was the result, author John Nichols argues, of history – because the workers, students, farmers, and so many other citizens of Wisconsin knew their legacy and knew what real democracy demands. Nichols, a writer for The Nation, is based in Madison, and that gave him a first-hand (and often inside) look at the massive protests. In his new book, Uprising, Nichols positions Wisconsin’s activism as a revival not just of the state’s legacy dating to “Fighting Bob” LaFollette and the 20th-century Progressives, but also in the democratic vision of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. It’s a democracy rooted in “First Amendment remedies” – with roots that exist in other states, too, Nichols says, including the Farmer-Labor tradition in Minnesota.

Czechs & Paychecks: Working-class History of West 7th
Tuesday, May 8, 7 pm
CSPS Hall, 383 Michigan Street, Saint Paul
Hear the voices and stories of Czech workers and their families from the West 7th neighborhood, including acclaimed author Patricia Hampl (The Florist’s Daughter); Joe Landsberger, Sokol Archivist at C.S.P.S. St Paul; and labor historians Dave Riehle and John Sielaff discussing John Rachac, a carpenter on the Capitol building project, and more.

Are You Now or Have You Ever Been…: Post-show discussion
Wednesday, May 9
Guthrie Theater, Dowling Studio
Join playwright Carlyle Brown for a post-show discussion of his new play Are You Now or Have You Ever Been… running through May 20. The year is 1953 in the Harlem apartment of Negro writer Langston Hughes on the night prior to his appearance at the McCarthy hearings. Find out more about the play and get tickets at www.guthrietheater.org. Contact The Friends for information on a discount offer for this performance.

Culture & Class in Post-War Milwaukee
Wednesday, May 16, 7 pm
St. Anthony Park Branch Library, 2245 Como Avenue, Saint Paul
Untold Stories crosses the state border with Professor Eric Fure-Slocum, author of the forthcoming project Postwar Democracy: How Growth and Working-Class Politics Reshaped a 1940s City, with an examination of post-war Wisconsin.

Ghost Trails & Places: Looking for the lost Native American footprint in St Paul
Saturday, May 19, 2 pm
Rice Street Branch Library, 1011 Rice Street, Saint Paul
Labor historian Dave Riehle’s annual bus tour commemorates the 150th anniversary of the US-Dakota war. The earliest inhabitants that we know of in the area that is presently encompassed by St. Paul are the Dakota people, who were forcibly removed from the State of Minnesota after the US-Dakota War of 1862. Very little is recorded about the Dakota within the present confines of this city and county, but this tour will visit still identifiable sites, some buried beneath modern roads and landscapes, that can tell their story. Space is limited, so please call The Friends at 651-222-3242 to reserve your seat on the bus.

Counter Culture with Candacy Taylor
Monday, May 21, 7pm
Metropolitan State University Library, Ecolab Room, 645 E. Seventh St., Saint Paul
Celebrate National Waitress Day with a special multi-media lecture by Candacy Taylor, author of Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress, which profiles waitresses aged 50 and older who have been working in neighborhood diners throughout the United States. Photographer, writer and former waitress, Taylor uses interview quotes, cultural criticism, documentary photography and oral histories to document an overlooked group of working women who have brought meaning and culture to the American roadside dining experience.

75 Years of AFSCME
Equal rights for African-Americans. Equal pay for women. Equal treatment for the LGBT community. Basic respect for the public workers who hold our communities together. In all these areas, AFSCME continues to make the promise of America possible for workers and their families, here in Minnesota and across the nation. History panels highlight the first 75 years of the nation’s largest public-employee union -- from overturning the patronage systems of political machines, to the fight for human rights by striking sanitation workers in Memphis in 1968, to the fight for the middle class in the streets of Madison in 2011. Panels will be displayed at Untold Stories events on April 23, April 26 and May 1.

For more information
A complete list of sponsors and more information on this series and The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library can be found at The Friends website.