International Workers’ Day was originally recognized to commemorate the 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago and working class struggle.
In 1884, the heart of the American labour movement was in Chicago. The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions – in response to workers who were being forced to work more than twelve hours a day – passed a resolution stating that eight hours should constitute a day’s work legally from May 1, 1886. The resolution further called for a general strike to achieve this goal.
The government of the day was terrified by the increasing revolutionary nature of the Anarchist and Labour Movements and prepared accordingly. By May 1st, the movement got momentum.
On May 3, 1886, police fired into a crowd of strikers at the McCormick Reaper Works Factory, killing four and wounding many. Agitators called for a mass meeting the next day in Haymarket Square to protest the brutality. The Chicago Police marched into the square and ordered the meeting to disperse. At this moment a bomb was thrown into the ranks of the police, killing one and wounding about seventy others. The police opened fire on the spectators. The subsequent riot resulted in the deaths of seven policemen and an unknown number of protesters.
Following the bombing a reign of terror swept over Chicago. Meeting halls, union offices, printing shops and private homes were raided “Make the raids first and look up the law afterwards” was the public statement of J. Grinnell, the Illinois States Attorney.
The raids and repression, backed and encouraged by the press, weakened the eight-hour day movement. A major source of worry and fear for the ruling class was removed and both the American Labour and Anarchist movements suffered set backs. The raids had solved part of the problem, now scapegoats had to be found.
Eight men, all anarchists and active union organisers stood trial for murder. No proof was offered by the state that any of the eight had anything to do with the bomb. In fact, three had not even been at the meeting and another was there with his wife and children. A biased judge and jury and a hysterical press ensured that all eight were found guilty. Their only “crimes” were their anarchist ideas, union activity and the threat these held for the ruling class. Grinnell made it clear, “Anarchy is on trial…these men have been selected… because they are leaders”.
In spite of world wide protest, four of the Haymarket Martyrs were hanged. Half a million people lined the funeral cortege and 20,000 crowded into the cemetery. In 1893, the new Governor of Illinois made official what the working class in Chicago and across the world knew all along. He pardoned the Martyrs because of their obvious innocence and because “the trial was not fair”.
In 1889, at the first congress of the Second International meeting in Paris for the centennial of the French Revolution, the American delegation proposed that May 1st be adopted as a workers’ holiday. This was to commemorate working class struggle and the “Martyrdom of the Chicago Eight”. Since then May Day has became a day for international solidarity.
May Day was formally recognized as an annual event at the International’s Second Congress in 1891.
cross posted @ http://chilaborarts.wordpress.com/...
and
https:/maydaymarch.wordpress.com
On this, the 125th Anniversary of Haymarket, it is appropriate and exciting to find all the work being done to rededicate the monuments where the martyrs are buried. We are delighted to share the list of activities shown below. May Day is the time of year when workers celebrate, "the only truly universal day of all humanity," as Eduardo Galeano wrote in The Book of Embraces.
It is also the time of year when the workers movement comes together to evaluate where we are, and what are the tasks that face us. It should be transparently clear that corporations, in the name of defending their private property, are slicing away all the gains made in this country since the first general strikes of 1876, the legacy of the end of the Civil War and the precursor to Haymarket. Every great movement for human liberation in the United States can be traced back to these two fundamental processes: the movement to overturn slavery and the workers' movement.
May Day, Protest Walmart's international exploitation of workers. And march to the Haymarket Memorial.
Start: 05/01/2011 - 12:00pm
End: 05/01/2011 - 2:00pm
Timezone: Etc/GMT-6
May Day, Protest Walmart's international exploitation of workers.
12:00 Noon, at the corner near the big Walmart in Forest Park.
Des Plaines Road and Roosevelt Road in Forest Park, Illinois. MAP! [ http://maps.google.com/.... ]
[Print, display, and hand out the .pdf poster / flyer (English, Spanish).]
Speakers include:
- Tom Balanoff, President SEIU Local 1 and Illinois State Council
- Donnie Von Moore, President Teamsters Local 743
- Jesse Miranda, Teamsters Hispanic Caucus
- Moises Zavala, Local 881 UFCW
- Margarita Klein, Workers United/SEIU Chicago and Midwest Regional Joint Board
- Robert Hines, Warehouse Workers for Justice-UE
The Labor Committee on Immigrant Worker Rights of Chicago Jobs with Justice is sponsoring this event. We are starting our May Day with this event to lift up the ongoing worker oppression and exploitation by Walmart and its supply chain around the world.
FOLLOWED BY 12:30 PM. March from Walmart to the Forest Home Cemetery, 1 mile est.
1:00 PM Rededication of the Haymarket Memorial
Forest Home Cemetery, 863 Des Plaines Avenue, Forest Park, IL.
MAP!! http://www.foresthomecemetary.net/... [ http://mapq.st/... ]
The ceremony will take place in the cemetery and is sponsored by the Illinois Labor History Society, the Illinois AFL-CIO, Chicago Federation of Labor, and allies and activists in organized labor and the community.
May 1, 1 pm, World wide gathering to celebrate 125th anniversary of the Haymarket and the restoration of the Monument in Forest Park featuring AFL-CIO secretary Treasurer Liz Shuler
May 1, 7PM Old Town School of Folk Music concert titled Music and Rebellion with Bucky Halker, his band, and some international groups. Tickets are 15 dollars.
Account of the Haymarket Riot(from regular media)
Policeman Joe Deegan [Mathias Jdot; Degan] and three unknown Bohemians dead, Policemen Sheehan, Barrett, Redden, Keller, and Miller mangled and dying, thirty-five other policemen wounded more or less severely, and nobody knows how many citizens and rioters wounded is the result of an encounter between the police and an Anarchistic meeting in the old market square at the corner of Randolph and Desplaines streets. . . .
Mayor Harrison was early on the scene, but it was not until after 10 o'clock that the police determined to disperse the crowd by reading the riot act. A bomb or hand grenade thrown into their ranks wrought terrible havoc with life and limb, and then ensued a scene of wild carnage with revolvers, bludgeons, and other missiles. . . . Three thousand men and boys stood around three barrels and boxes erected as a platform on the square at 8 o'clock last evening. August Spies, the editor of the Arbeiter Zeitung the Anarchist organ in this city, stood upon one of the barrels. He made a brief speech to the crowd, and then introduced A. R. Parsons, one of the prominent leaders of the Socialists of Chicago. The latter told his hearers that instead of getting ten hours' pay for eight hours' work statistics proved that workingmen to-day were only getting two hours' pay for ten hours' work, and if they worked eight hours at the same wages they would only be getting three hours' pay for eight hours' work. He warned his audience that the time would come when the brutal oppression of the capitalists would drive every one save themselves into the ranks of socialism. . . .
Samuel Fielden, a grim-visaged Anarchist, wearing a black slouch hat, then leaped upon a barrel. He said that the newspapers of the city charged the Socialists with cowardice, saying that they would sneak away from real danger. They were there to-night to repel the lie and prove that they were willing to risk their lives in the cause. It were a glorious death to die like a hero rather than be starved to death on 60 cents a day. . . .
While the Anarchist was talking a dark cloud rolled out of the northern horizon. It swept to the zenith and had the appearance of a cyclone. A fierce, cold blast of wind roared down the street. Signs creaked violently, and bits of paper flew in the air. The great crowd of Socialists, fearing that a tornado was approaching, began to seek shelter. The Anarchist leaders urged the men to adjourn to Zepf's Hall, which is only about half a block away. The ominous cloud had now passed over the stand, and north of Lake street the stars shone out again. The vast audience was now encouraged to remain by Fielden, who said he would detain them but a few moments, as it was getting late and threatening rain. . . .
. . . South of Randolph on Desplaines street a body of men was dimly seen approaching in measured tread. It appeared like a phalanx of Masons returning from a private assembly or drill. The stillness of their approach was ominous and appalling. The 3,000 Anarchists crept closer to the barrels, and Fielden swept the street under a roof formed by the fingers of his right hand. The silent marchers came nearer, until the gas lamps on Randolph street threw their flickering light upon them. Then a hundred stars and a thousand brass buttons flashed in horizontal and perpendicular lines at the street intersections. The silent marchers were 400 police officers arranged in platoons, and choking the street from gutter to gutter. As they crossed the car tracks on Randolph street the officers clutched their clubs with a firmer grasp and then hurried forward, thus compelling the 3,000 Anarchists still massed in the street to fall back before the measured advance. Just as the officers reached the barrels upon which Spies, Parsons, and Fielden were standing a serpentine stream of fire burst from a window or the roof of Crane Brothers' manufacturing establishment on the opposite side of the street. It burned like the fuse of a rocket and hissed as it sped through the air. The mysterious stranger sputtered over the heads of the Anarchists and fell amid the officers. There was an explosion that rattled the windows in a thousand buildings, a burst of flame lit up the street, and then a scene of frightful and indescribable consternation ensued. The mysterious meteor was the fuse of a bomb hurled from the Crane Building by an Anarchist.
The work it done when it fired the explosives stored in the shell was murderous � ghastly. Over a score of officers were stretched upon the ground. Blood gushed from a hundred wounds, and the air was filled with the agonizing cries of the dying and injured. Those who escaped the deadly missiles which flew from the boom wavered for a moment. They dashed over the mangled bodies of their comrades with drawn revolvers, the glittering barrels of which were belching fire every instant. Bullets sped into the howling Anarchists in murderous storms, strewing the street with dead and dying. No quarter was given or asked. The Anarchists dodged behind boxes and barrels, from which they poured a withering, merciless fire from revolvers and guns. Officers and Socialists fall in hand-to-hand combat, and others were brought to earth by the assassin. Bystanders who had been attracted by the roar of the battle shared no better. They were shot down where they stood, or overtaken by the leaden storm while fleeing. The street was littered with the victims. Exploding cartridges flashed like a swarm of firebugs in a thicket. They came from windows, from dark alleys, and from behind every conceivable barricade.
The officers were crazed with fury. They pressed forward into the teeth of a hurricane of bullets and stones, driving their antagonists toward Lake street. The latter fled into the stores on either side of the thoroughfare. . . .
While the battle was at its height patrol wagons filled with officers with drawn revolvers rattled down the streets from all the outlying precincts. They leaped out of the vehicles and hurried to the assistance of their comrades, who had by this time succeeded in dispersing the mob as far north as Fulton street. The officers, nearly a thousand strong, now formed in platoons and cleared all the streets within an area of three blocks. Then they returned to their comrades, who were strewn about the sidewalks and in the roadway. As fast as they were picked up they were borne to the Desplaines Street Station in patrol wagons. Many were at the point of death; all were horribly mangled. Seven bullets had pierced one officer, the legs of another had been nearly torn off by the exploding shell, and another was bleeding from a shocking gash in the neck. All were covered with blood and dirt. . . .
So hot was the battle and so sudden the crowd's flight that no arrests were made. On their retreat to the station the police stopped to pick up the wounded members of the mob. All the patrol wagons in the city were hurried to the spot and the wounded citizens and officers were taken to the station. The citizens were taken down stairs to the cell-room and cared for by physicians as soon as they could be procured. Thence many of them were sent to the County Hospital. . . .
Inspector Bonfield described the scene of the explosion as follows: "There were about one hundred and thirty men in the platoon, in three companies, commanded by Lieutenants Ward, Stanton, Hubbard, and Steele. We marched from the station north to Randolph street and found the crowd gathered north of Halsted street, on the east side of Desplaines. Captain Ward's company went ahead, he and I in front of the line. When we got about one hundred feet north of Randolph street and within fifteen feet of the wagon on which Fielden was holding forth Captain Ward read the statutory command in the name of the state to disperse peaceably. Some ran away at this, but Fielden was just in the midst of a sentence exhorting the crowd that ‘This was the time to arm themselves,’ and the words were scarcely out of Captain Ward's mouth when someone in the crowd threw the bomb. It sizzled over the heads of Captain Ward and myself, who were somewhat in advance of the line, and struck right in the middle of the line. It exploded the minute it struck, and then immediately, as if the explosion were a preconcerted signal, the crowd began to fire. Our men pulled their weapons at once and charged northward into the crowd, firing as they went. The mob scattered in every direction, but some of them fired back as they ran.". . ..
The result of this terrible encounter will not be known for hours. Two policemen are already dead. John Degan, shot in the region of the heart; Olaf Hanson, and twenty-one others are more or less wounded, five of them seriously. Fifty or more of the strikers must be dead and wounded. The street was strewn with them, and many escaped, dragging broken limbs behind them. One, a boy, died in a drug store at the corner of Halsted and Madison streets, and an unknown Bohemian lies dead in the Desplaines Street Station.
Chicago Herald. 'Account of the Haymarket Riot' in the 'Chicago Herald, 05 May 1886' . Chicago: Chicago Herald Co., 1886. [format: newspaper], [genre: article]. Permission: Northern Illinois University
Persistent link to this document: http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/...
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