Chicago Revolutionary

By Jon F. Rice, in People's Tribune, 
(Online Edition), Vol. 22 No. 7, 13 February, 1995

Who was Lucy Parsons? Her memory has vanished over the past six decades. But in
the 1920s and '30s, the Chicago Police Department described her as "more
dangerous than a thousand rioters." 

You cannot know Lucy Parsons and what she became without understanding the city
she came to. In 1873, Chicago was a city of misery for tens of thousands of immigrant
workers brought in to be used as machines and cast aside. 

Members of the Chicago Citizens Association who conducted an investigation of how
these immigrants lived were sickened by what they saw -- children picking through
the garbage and animal litter from the meatpacking plants, scrounging for things to
sell. The children were often racked with illness. Fifty percent never reached age
five. Families lived in tiny, dirty shacks without windows, floors or toilets. Houses
built for six or seven often housed 30 or 40 people. There were thousands of hungry
children unable to go to school because the family needed them to work. 

The Chicago economic establishment was either uncaring or downright hostile
toward the immigrants. The relief fund for the poor, for instance, was taken over by
Marshall Field. Field used it for his own business investments for rebuilding after the
Chicago fire. "When a tramp asks you for bread," the Chicago Tribune advised, "put
strychnine or arsenic on it and he will trouble you no more." 

Shortly thereafter, the Illinois National Guard was formed to suppress poor people
who were organizing and striking for better working conditions. The threat of
revolution was in the air! 

Lucy Parsons, a feeling, caring black woman, became, in this atmosphere of fear and
want, a political person. Her private life and personal desires faded before the
strength of her total belief in justice for the poor. 

Albert Parsons, once a Confederate soldier, married Lucy after the Civil War and
became a believer in the social equality of the races. Having fled the South under
threats from the Klan, he was soon a leader in organizing the poor. 

Albert Parsons was targeted for death by city leaders. A bomb was thrown at police
during the Haymarket riot. Although Albert Parsons was not even present, he was
indicted and convicted for his alleged participation. Police Captain John Bonfield, a
brutal thug, had led the charge on the gathering of workers and evidence suggests
that he may have been involved in the bomb-throwing. 

Albert Parsons was hanged along with the other Haymarket martyrs. As the
Haymarket "trial" unfolded, Lucy Parsons' belief in justice and in the necessity for
revolution was confirmed. It seemed irrefutable that Chicago was incapable of
showing justice for its working class. 

What was most striking about this heretofore forgotten heroine was the depth of
her courage. Lucy Parsons was undaunted by physical abuse by the police,
undeterred by vile threats from thugs, or by malicious lies in the Chicago
newspapers. She cried in despair over the dead body of her husband Albert in 1886.
After that, she never shed another tear. 

Lucy preached justice for the poor by way of revolution. She was forceful and
convincing. The most powerful men in the city - Field, Armour, Pullman, etc. - made a
concerted effort to silence her. For the next 50 years, in blatant disregard of her
rights, she was arrested wherever she spoke. 

Lucy Parsons led a Christmas Day march to 18th and Prairie Avenue where marchers
showered the Field mansion with catcalls and rotten tomatoes. Soon after, Field
moved his family to the North Shore -- near the new Fort Sheridan which was built
to protect the rich from the poor. 

Neither city officials, police abuse, years of gnawing poverty and hunger nor
blindness in her later years reduced Lucy Parsons' enthusiasm for the cause, for the
welfare of the workers. 

Lucy Parsons was not a feminist. She would have rejected the idea that she stood for
women's causes, just as she denied she stood for black causes. Blacks are
oppressed, she believed, because they are poor. Lucy was not complicated - she
was totally dedicated to a new society. She was a strong, penniless warrior for the
poor. She lived for 90 years and died without regrets for having fought the Chicago
establishment tooth and nail for over 60 years. 

When Lucy Parsons died, the police seized and destroyed her letters, writings and
library. And so she has virtually disappeared from our memory. 



Information for this story comes from the book, Lucy Parsons: American
Revolutionary, by Carolyn Ashbaugh.

This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition), Vol. 22 No. 7 /
February 13, 1995; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654, pt@noc.org 

For free electronic subscription, email: pt.dist-request@noc.org