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Albert Parsons
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Albert Richard Parsons (June 24, 1848 - 11 November 1887) was an anarchist labor activist, hanged under doubtful circumstances following a bomb attack on police at the Haymarket Riot.
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His immigrant ancestor arrived at Narragansett Bay from England in 1632. One of the Tompkins on his mother's side was with George Washington in the revolution and fought at the Battle of Brandywine. Major General Samuel Parsons of Massachusetts, his direct ancestor, was an officer in the revolution, and another ancestor, Captain Parsons, was wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Albert Parsons was born on June 24, 1848 in Montgomery, Alabama to Samuel Parsons (?-1853) of Maine. His mother was a Tompkins-Broadwell of New Jersey and she died in 1850. They moved to Montgomery, Alabama where Samuel started a shoe and leather factory and they had ten children. One brother was William Henry Parsons. One of his Direct Ancestors was also General Parsons.
At age 13, in 1861 he volunteered to fight for the Confederacy in the American Civil War in a unit known as the "Lone Star Greys." In 1861. His first military exploit was on the passenger steamer Morgan where he made a trip into the Gulf of Mexico and intercepted and assisted in the capture of General David E. Twiggs's army which had evacuated the Texas frontier and headed to Indianapolis to leave for Washington, DC.
He later regretted his support for slavery and personally apologized to the black nanny who raised him as an orphan. Living in Texas with his brother William, he married Lucy Waller, a woman of mixed African American, Native, Mexican and Caucasian heritage, who also became famous as an activist as Lucy Parsons. Through the pressure from the KKK their interracial marriage forced them to leave the South and they moved to the north, Chicago.
In Chicago, he became an anarchist (libertarian socialist), labor activist, and finally a founding member of the International Working People's Association (IWPA). Albert Parsons became recording secretary of the Chicago Eight-Hour League in 1878, and was appointed a member of a national eight-hour committee in 1880. On May 1, 1886, Parsons, with his wife Lucy and two children, led 80,000 people down Michigan Avenue, in what is regarded as the first-ever May Day Parade, in support of the eight-hour work day. Over the next few days 340,000 laborers joined the strike.
Parsons addressed a rally at Haymarket Square on May 4th. At the end of the event, after Parsons left and as the audience was already drifting away, police requested the crowd to disperse. At that point a bomb thrown into the square exploded, killing four policemen. Seven men were arrested. Parsons turned himself in to stand in solidarity with his comrades. There were witnesses to testify that none of the eight threw the bomb. However, all were found guilty and sentenced to death. Three asked for clemency and were pardoned by Illinois Governor John Altegeld. Of the remaining five, Louis Lingg killed himself in his cell with a cigar bomb but Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer, and George Engel were hanged on November 11, 1887.
His wife, Lucia Gonzales Parsons, was noteworthy in her own right. She was a feminist, journalist, and labor leader, and one of the founders of the Industrial Workers of the World.
