Today in labor history May 04 Haymarket massacre

[Omaha Steve]

May 04

May 4, 1886 - A day after police killed four striking workers, protesters gathered at Haymarket Square in Chicago. As the peaceful event drew to a close, a bomb was thrown into the police line. One officer was killed and several were wounded. Police responded by firing into the crowd, killing one and wounding many. Eight anarchists were later framed for the bombing; four were hanged, one committed suicide and three were pardoned by Illinois Gov. John Peter Altgeld. The Haymarket affair was a seminal event in U.S. history, providing the pretext for many government officials to crack down on “radical” elements and ending the meteoric rise of the Knights of Labor, an organization that professed solidarity among all workers, regardless of race or ethnicity.



May 4, 1931 - Gun-toting vigilantes attacked striking miners in Harlan County, Kentucky. Coal miners were among those hardest hit by the Great Depression. Some families survived on a diet of dandelions and blackberries.

[tblue]

1. It's always authoritarians vs. the oppressed and those looking to make a more equitable world

Idn't it?

[pnorman]

2. "There will come a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!"

(August Spies, Haymarket Martyr)

Five score years so soon are gone
That crown that fateful hanging day,
Yet still the years live on and on
And never will they go away!

Eight doomed martyrs spoke their dreams:
An eight-hour day, their modest hope;
For such effrontery it seems
Four lives were snatched by hangman's rope!

But by a miracle of fate
The voices still ring loud and clear;
The voices stilled by cruel hate
Are heard today, this hundreth year!

So many years have passed them by,
Yet louder still the timeless call
Rings 'round the world, a battle cry
For workers' rights, for peace for all!

Raise high the flag, you workers brave,
March strong and steady, side by side,
On First of May this hundredth year,
So not in vain those martyrs died!

http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/mayday.htm

pnorman