Today in Labor History November 10, 1887: Chicago Haymarket martyr Louis Lingg, 22, “cheated” the state the day before his scheduled execution by committing suicide in his prison cell. He exploded a dynamite cap in his mouth. It took him 6 painful hours to die. Using his own blood, he wrote "Hoch die anarchie!" (Hurrah for anarchy!) on the stones of his cell. In 1893, Illinois Governor John Altgeld granted Lingg a posthumous pardon because he, and his 7 codefendants were actually all innocent of the Haymarket bombing. None of them had even been present at Haymarket square when the bomb was thrown. All 8 were, however, anarchists, and were railroaded because of the political beliefs and affiliations.
On May 1, 1886, 350,000 workers went on strike across the U.S. to demand the eight-hour workday. It was the world’s first May Day/International Workers’ Day demonstration—an event that has been celebrated ever since, by nearly every country in the world, except for the U.S. Two days later, another anarchist, August Spies, addressed striking workers at the McCormick Reaper factory. Chicago Police and Pinkertons attacked the crowd, killing at least one person. On May 4, anarchists organized a demonstration at Haymarket Square to protest that police violence. The police ordered the protesters to disperse. Somebody threw a bomb, which killed at least one cop. The police opened fire, killing another seven workers. Six police also died, likely from “friendly fire” by other cops. The authorities, in their outrage, went on a witch hunt, rounding up most of the city’s leading anarchists and radical labor leaders, including Albert Parsons, Louis Lingg and August Spies.
Read my article on Lucy Parsons and the Haymarket affair here: 
#laborhistory #WorkingClass #haymarket #anarchism #prison #deathpenalty #EightHourDay #chicago #police #policebrutality #lucyparsons #louislingg
Michael Dunn
Lucy Parsons - Michael Dunn
Lucy Parsons anarchist communist revolutionary
