She was born Lucia Carter in Virginia around 1860. She married a confederate soldier “turned anarchist firebrand”, as Kim Kelly puts it, who “took her from the small-town Waco, Texas, to the revolutionary hub of Chicago, where the couple immersed themselves in a heady brew of radical political thought imported straight from the old country. They found a permanent home in the burgeoning anarchist movement and became heavily involved in the fight for an eight-hour workday.
As Lucy Parsons she became a powerful orator who defied the conventions of her day by addressing mixed gender crowds. She preached anarchy and wrote scathing opinion pieces that gave her a reputation. She and her husband and her friend, Lizzy Swank Holmes, worked with multiple groups for the cause of worker solidarity.
On May 4th, 1886, in Chicago’s Haymarket Square, local anarchist and labor organizers speak to support workers attacked by police for striking to demand on an eight-hour workday. At some point a bomb was thrown into an advancing police line and those cops started firing wildly. Eleven people died and more than seventy were injured. Eight protesters were arrested.
From Kelly’s book (pg. 62):
“There was no firm evidence connecting any of the men to the bombing itself, and as one policeman who’d been present told a reporter, “A very large number of the police were wounded by each other’s revolvers.” Still, Lucy’s husband, Albert, was one among four to be sentenced to death.
These are recognized today by a National Historic Landmark called “The Haymarket Martyr’s Monument” located in Forest Park Illinois.
Lucy Parson’s spent her life working to avenge her husband’s death and to advance the cause of working-class revolution. She would become the most famous black woman of her time, yet she would hide her racial identity unto her grave. She would battle for human freedom yet have her son committed to an institution for considering a military career.
Lucy Parsons was a contradiction, but her name cannot be severed from laws that protect the eight-hour day.
For this story and others from America’s labor history read:
FIGHT LIKE HELL: The Untold History of American Labor by Kim Kelly
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