Today, we celebrate May 1 as International Labor Day. That date was chosen to honor the eight martyrs of the Haymarket Affair and the cause they fought for, the "Eight Hour Day Movement." The State of Illinois framed the Haymarket Eight in 1886 for the murder of seven police officers who were killed when a bomb was thrown into the midst of a peaceful demonstration. While only three of the eight men were actually present at the meeting where the bomb was thrown, but all eight, Albert Parsons, August Spies, Oscar Neebe, Louis Lingg, George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Michael Schwab, and Samuel Fielden were convicted of conspiracy. Seven were sentenced to death.
The day before the tragedy in Haymarket Square, the Chicago police brutally assaulted workers who were striking for the eight-hour day at the McCormick Reaper Plant. This strike was part of a nation wide movement called the "Eight Hour Day Movement." On May 1, 1886, 340,000 workers throughout the country went out on strike, 80,000 of which were in Chicago. August Spies, a German anarchist, spoke at the May 3rd meeting of the McCormick strikers and witnessed the police attack, which left two strikers dead.
The next day a meeting was called at Haymarket Square. Only one of the planned speakers, Spies, actually arrived, but he arrived hours late. Eventually, two other labor radicals, Albert Parsons and Samuel Fielden, arrived and spoke to the crowd. As the meeting was winding down, 176 police officers arrived and attacked what was left of the crowd, which by this point had dwindled, to around 200 protesters. Then, an unknown person threw a dynamite bomb into the ranks of the police officers and killed seven of them, as well as at least four workers.
Following the bombing, a series of terrifying raids haunted Chicago. The Chicago police arrested hundreds of anarchists, socialists, and labor activists. In the end, eight men went on trial for conspiring to murder the seven officers. While no one claimed that any of the men had thrown the bomb, the prosecution argued that they were guilty nonetheless because of their radical ideas.
The trial of the Haymarket Eight is universally regarded as one of the most unfair and biased trials in history. All of the men were found guilty and seven were sentenced to death. On November 11th, 1887, Parsons, Spies, Engel and Fischer were hung. Lingg was found dead in his jail cell only a day before. The other three were eventually pardoned by the labor-populist Governor Atgeld in 1893.
All eight Haymarket Martyrs are now buried in Waldheim (Forest Home) Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, a short drive from Chicago. With them are also the remains of many other radicals who were inspired by the courage and conviction of the Eight, including Emma Goldman and Ben Reitman, and the ashes of IWW activists Joe Hill and "Big Bill" Haywood. The Communist Party owns a plot near the monument to the Haymarket Martyrs where many of the Party's greatest leaders are buried, including William Z. Foster, Elizabeth Gurly Flynn, Eugene Dennis, Geraldine Lightfoot, and Alexander Trachtenberg.
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