On Nov. 25, 1758, British troops, without firing a shot, entered the burnt-out remains of Fort Duquesne, abandoned by the French. Forbes named the fort and the burgh after his imperial leader, British statesman William Pitt. Literally a watershed event, the city's founding established English access to the vast Mississippi drainage, the heartland of a continent, and ended 14,000 years of Native American control of the forks of the Ohio River.

		Charles J. McCollester, director of the Pennsylvania Center for the Study of Labor Relations and professor of Industrial and Labor Relations at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, also is president of the Battle of Homestead Foundation (charles@iup.edu).

The Allegheny Conference on Community Development is planning a big bash for Pittsburgh's 250th birthday. The aim is "recognizing the region's past and laying out its future" while putting "the brand and image of the Pittsburgh region in a positive light." The conference proclaims two priorities: promoting consolidation of local governments and improving the business climate, specifically, by lowering the state's corporate net income tax.

Planning for the event began in 2004 and has included corporate luminaries and cultural leaders. Conspicuously absent in the early planning were labor unions, activists and community organizations.

Pittsburgh needs an expanded party that includes a sustained conversation about the city's historical significance and future direction -- an exercise in democracy, not a marketing campaign. Rather than tax breaks for corporations, we should set goals such as opening all city pools and renewing our parks and recreational facilities by encouraging citizen cooperation with city employees. Make Pittsburgh a place where retirees and young families want to live. We need neighborhood and community renewal for a "People's Pittsburgh 250."

The two years leading up to the commemoration in November of 2008 should be a time for reflection, remembrance and discussion about the past and future. Pittsburgh 250 should be a celebration of pride and achievement that includes Steeler Nation, the Pittsburgh diaspora, and that invites the participation of all people, women as well as men, Native Americans and African Americans, the French, Scots, English, Irish, Germans, Italians, Slovaks, Jews, Poles, Serbs and Croatians, the more recently arrived citizens from India, Mexico, the Middle East, and all the rich fabric of Pittsburgh, yesterday and today.

Pittsburgh is a story of individual achievement and collective struggle, of monumental production and revolutionary technological breakthroughs. Industrial achievements include commercial aluminum production, the harnessing of alternating current, development of train controls and safety mechanisms that made modern mass transit possible, advances in modern food processing, development of plate glass, the birth of the oil and gas industries, the historic transition from the age of iron to the age of steel. And more!

The city's fierce struggle against slavery; the massive contributions of Pittsburgh producers, soldiers and citizens to America's wars; the city's contributions to culture, literature and sport, need remembering.

Organized labor deserves recognition for its contributions and because the forks of the Ohio form the cradle of the American labor movement. Pittsburgh played a role in the national organization of steelworkers, ironworkers, glass workers, electrical workers, sheet metal workers, firefighters, police and others. Both the AFL and CIO were founded here. Trade union training centers remain key regional assets.

This is an occasion to educate Pittsburghers, especially the young, about the region's vibrant history. Remember and celebrate the wonderful parade of characters that lived and worked here. Remember Queen Aliquippa and Guyasuta along with George Washington and General Braddock; honor Johnny Appleseed's altruism along with Martin Delaney's struggle against slavery; be inspired by Jane Grey Swisshelm's fight against slavery and for woman's rights, as well as the journalistic exploits of Nellie Bly; reflect on the lives of labor's heroes and martyrs, Mother Jones, Bill Sylvis, Fannie Sellins, Crystal Eastman, and Phil Murray, along with the impact of industrial and business giants like George Westinghouse, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Heinz, Andrew Mellon and Henry Clay Frick.

Let's rename the 10th Street Bridge in honor of Phil Murray, the most influential Pittsburgh union leader in coal and steel, and erect a monument to the tens of thousands of workers who died on the job building Pittsburgh and shaping the modern industrial world. All of August Wilson's great cycle of Pittsburgh plays should be presented as a way for the city to understand its African-American heritage. Let a thousand flowers bloom!

This anniversary should be an occasion to reflect on the radical degradation of the pristine and prolific environment that surrounded the European conquerors at The Forks in 1758; the drastic impact on public health and worker safety during the period when Pittsburgh led the industrial world; and the work that remains before us to fully restore our land, water, and air for generations yet unborn.

Pittsburgh 250 needs to be a deeper, more inclusive celebration than so far envisioned. It should be about neighborhoods, families, children and grandchildren; about a future building on the past. It needs to be about green buildings and green technologies, solar panels and wind turbines; about worker training and a rebirth of manufacturing; about growing things.

We need an inclusive and shared effort, a broad-based, ethnic and cultural rainbow effort, to commemorate the region's history, to celebrate all that it has been and what it still can be.