Lest we forget!

May Day 2011 the 125th Anniversary of Haymarket

International Workers’ Day was originally recognized to commemorate the 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago and working class struggle.
In 1884, the heart of the American labour movement was in Chicago. The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions – in response to workers who were being forced to work more than twelve hours a day – passed a resolution stating that eight hours should constitute a day’s work legally from May 1, 1886. The resolution further called for a general strike to achieve this goal.

The government of the day was terrified by the increasing revolutionary nature of the Anarchist and Labour Movements and prepared accordingly. By May 1st, the movement got momentum.
On May 3, 1886, police fired into a crowd of strikers at the McCormick Reaper Works Factory, killing four and wounding many. Agitators called for a mass meeting the next day in Haymarket Square to protest the brutality. The Chicago Police marched into the square and ordered the meeting to disperse. At this moment a bomb was thrown into the ranks of the police, killing one and wounding about seventy others. The police opened fire on the spectators. The subsequent riot resulted in the deaths of seven policemen and an unknown number of protesters.

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