Workers of the world, awaken!
Rise in all your splendid might
Take the wealth that you are making,
It belongs to you by right.
No one will for bread be crying
We’ll have freedom, love and health,
When the grand red flag is flying
In the Workers’ Commonwealth
(Joe Hill)
On May 1, 1886, hundreds of thousands of North American workers mobilized to strike. In Chicago, on May 3, police shot two workers during a battle between picketers and scabs at the McCormick Harvester Works. At a protest rally in Haymarket Square the next day someone (possibly a police agent) tossed a bomb into the police ranks. Police then opened fire, indiscriminately killing four workers and wounding a hundred others.
Eight anarachist leaders were arrested, subjected to a sham trial, and sentenced to death (with three later pardoned).
International protests followed the Haymarket Massacre and in 1889 the congress of socialist parties known as the Second International called for an annual one-day strike on May 1 to demonstrate labor solidarity and working-class power.
More information on May Day can be found at:
Haymarket Archives
Lucy Parsons Project
Rouge Forum
Haymarket Monument
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