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The origins of may 1st : The martyrs of Chicago

Wednesday 30 April 2025, by DLR, MLT, OLT (CC by-nc-sa)

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A meeting was held in Chicago’s Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886. Anarchist speakers Albert Parsons, August Spies and Samuel Fielden supported the demand for an eight-hour day for workers. The “Knights of Labor” had just launched a major mobilization campaign to obtain this right. The demonstrators begin to disperse when the police charge in. A bomb explodes among the police, who then fire into the crowd.

Eight anarchist activists are arrested: Auguste Spies, Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe, Michael Schwab, Louis Lingg, Adolph Fischer, George Engel and Albert Parsons. All eight were sentenced to death. The sentences of Schwab, Fielden and Neebe were commuted to life imprisonment. The three men were pardoned on June 26, 1893.

On Friday November 11, 1887, Parsons, Spies, Fisher and Engel were hanged. Lingg committed suicide in prison. May 1 becomes International Workers’ Day in memory of the “Chicago Martyrs”.

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