Emanuel “Slim” Boggs was born in Hazard, Kentucky, in 1907. He became involved in the labor movement in the mid-1930s when he organized the metal fabricating plant where he was working in Louisville. He was fired for his efforts and spent most of the next 40 years working for a number of different labor unions - the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, the Textile Workers Organizing Committee, the Tobacco Workers International Union, the International Hod Carriers and Building Laborers' Union of America, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, the Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA), the United Textile Workers of America, and the International Association of Machinists. With the TWUA, Boggs was an international representative and later manager of the Pittsylvania County Joint Board in Danville, Virginia.
