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The Writings of Lucy Parsons “My mind is appalled at the thought of a political party having control of all the details that go to make up the sum total of our lives.” About Lucy Parsons The life of Lucy Parsons and the struggles for peace and justice she engaged provide remarkable insight about the history of the American labor movement and the anarchist struggles of the time. Born in Texas, 1853, probably as a slave, Lucy Parsons was an African-, Native- and Mexican-American anarchist labor activist who fought against the injustices of poverty, racism, capitalism and the state her entire life. After moving to Chicago with her husband, Albert, in 1873, she began organizing workers and led thousands of them out on strike protesting poor working conditions, long hours and abuses of capitalism. After Albert, along with seven other anarchists, were eventually imprisoned or hung by the state for their beliefs in anarchism, Lucy Parsons achieved international fame in their defense and as a powerful orator and activist in her own right. The impact of Lucy Parsons on the history of the American anarchist and labor movements has served as an inspiration spanning now three centuries of social movements. Lucy Parsons' commitment to her causes, her fame surrounding the Haymarket affair, and her powerful orations had an enormous influence in world history in general and US labor history in particular. While today she is hardly remembered and ignored by conventional histories of the United States, the legacy of her struggles and her influence within these movements have left a trail of inspiration and passion that merits further attention by all those interested in human freedom, equality and social justice. The Writings of Lucy Parsons Stolen and distributed by the Irvine Infoshop http://irvineinfoshop.wordpress.com http://www.myspace.com/irvineinfoshop irvineinfoshop (A) riseup.net (A)nti-copyright The Irvine Infoshop has produced the following pamphlets and carries many other pamphlets and journals – most are available for download on our website or can be shipped. At Daggers Drawn Escritos escogidos de Ricardo Flores Magón (es) Gay Shame Opposes Marriage in Any Form How to Organize an Insurrection Industrial Society and Its Future: The Unabomber Manifesto La Comandanta: Comandanta Ramona (es) Manifiestos y Comunicados del Movimiento Revolucionario 26–7 (es) Marxism: The Negation of Communism, by Jeff Stein Por qué somos anarquistas (es) Pretty Objects of Revolt The ABC's of “Fuck Myspace” The Really Really Free Market The Writings of Lucy Parsons Vocal: Comunicados de la lucha popular libertaria en Oaxaca (es) What is the “Green Scare?” Your Politics are Boring as Fuck Those who so foully murdered you, under the forms of law - lynch law - in a court of supposed justice, are forgotten. Rest, comrades, rest. All the tomorrows are yours! The Labor Defender November 1926 Once again on November 11 a memorial meeting will be held to commemorate the death of the Chicago Haymarket martyrs. 1937 is the fiftieth anniversary, and this meeting bids fair to be more widely observed than any of the forty-nine previous ones. On that gloomy morning of November 11, 1887, I took our two little children to jail to bid my beloved husband farewell. I found the jail roped off with heavy cables. Policemen with pistols walked in the inclosure. I asked them to allow us to go to our loved one before they murdered him. They said nothing. Then I said, "Let these children bid their father good-bye; let them receive his blessing. They can do no harm." In a few minutes a patrol-wagon drove up and we were locked up The Principles of Anarchism in a police station while the hellish deed was done. Oh, Misery, I have drunk thy cup of sorrow to its dregs, but I am TO TRAMPS, The Unemployed, the Disinherited, still a rebel. and Miserable The One Big Union Monthly November 1937 Speech to the IWW in 1905 Source: The Voice of the People Will Yet Be Heard Roediger, Dave, and Franklin Rosemont, eds. Haymarket Scrapbook. Charles H. Kerr Publishing Co., Chicago, 1986. All materials taken from the Lucy Parsons Project: http://www.lucyparsonsproject.org/ The Principles of Anarchism except a police riot. Mayor Harrison attended the Haymarket meeting, and took the stand at the anarchist trial for the defense, Comrades and Friends: not for the state. I think I cannot open my address more appropriately than by The great strike of May 1886 was an historical event of great stating my experience in my long connection with the reform importance, inasmuch as it was . the first time that the workers movement. themselves had attempted to get a shorter workday by united, simultaneous action.... This strike was the first in the nature of It was during the great railroad strike of 1877 that I first became Direct Action on a large scale. interested in what is known as the "Labor Question." I then thought as many thousands of earnest, sincere people think, that the Of course the eight-hour day is as antiquated as the craft unions aggregate power, operating in human society, known as themselves. Today we should be agitating for a five-hour workday. government, could be made an instrument in the hands of the oppressed to alleviate their sufferings. But a closer study of the The Industrial Worker origin, history and tendency of governments, convinced me that May 1, 1912 this was a mistake; I came to understand how organized governments used their concentrated power to retard progress by The Eleventh of November has become a day of international their ever-ready means of silencing the voice of discontent if raised importance, cherished in the hearts of all true lovers of Liberty as a in vigorous protest against the machinations of the scheming few, day of martyrdom. On that day was offered to the gallows-tree who always did, always will and always must rule in the councils martyrs as true to their ideal as ever were sacrificed in any age.... of nations where majority rule is recognized as the only means of adjusting the affairs of the people. I came to understand that such Our comrades were not murdered by the state because they had concentrated power can be always wielded in the interest of the any connection with the bombthrowing, but because they were few and at the expense of the many. Government in its last analysis active in organizing the wage-slaves. The capitalist class didn't is this power reduced to a science. Governments never lead; they want to find the bombthrower; this class foolishly believed that by follow progress. When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer putting to death the active spirits of the labor movement of the silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a time, it could frighten the working class back to slavery. step, but not until then. The Agitator I will state this contention in another way: I learned by close study November 1, 1912 that it made no difference what fair promises a political party, out of power might make to the people in order to secure their Parsons, Spies, Lingg, Fischer and Engel: Although all that is confidence, when once securely established in control of the affairs mortal of you is laid beneath that beautiful monument in Waldheim of society that they were after all but human with all the human Cemetery, you are not dead. You are just beginning to live in the attributes of the politician. Among these are: First, to remain in hearts of all true lovers of liberty. For now, after forty years that power at all hazards; if not individually, then those holding you are gone, thousands who were then unborn are eager to learn essentially the same views as the administration must be kept in of your lives and heroic martyrdom, and as the years lengthen the control. Second, in order to keep in power, it is necessary to build brighter will shine your names, and the more you will come to be appreciated and loved. The Voice of the People will yet be Heard up a powerful machine; one strong enough to crush all opposition and silence all vigorous murmurs of discontent, or the party The twentieth anniversary of the 11th of November, which has just machine might be smashed and the party thereby lose control. been observed in Chicago, was a great success from many standpoints, notably among which was the increased number of When I came to realize the faults, failings, shortcomings, young people who took part in it. aspirations and ambitions of fallible man, I concluded that it would not be the safest nor best policy for society, as a whole, to entrust As these years speed by, our comrades' lives will be better the management of all its affairs, with all their manifold deviations understood; their great work for the uplifting of humanity and ramifications in the hands of finite man, to be managed by the understood and appreciated. This has been the case of the martyrs party which happened to come into power, and therefore was the of all ages.... majority party, nor did it ten, nor does it now make one particle of difference to me what a party, out of power may promise; it does "The Voice of the People" will yet be heard. not tend to allay my fears of a party, when entrenched and securely seated in power might do to crush opposition, and silence the voice The Demonstrator of the minority, and thus retard the onward step of progress. November 20, 1907 My mind is appalled at the thought of a political party having It is now 18 months since I published the [Famous Speeches of the control of all the details that go to make up the sum total of our Haymarket Martyrs].
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