On this day, 12 November 1977, the first Reclaim The Night march took place in the UK in Leeds, York, Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle, Brighton and London (content note: sexual violence). They were called by the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group, who were inspired by news of co-ordinated women-only ‘Take Back The Night’ marches against sexual harassment, held across towns and cities in West Germany on 30 April 1977. This was particularly significant to women in the area because of the serial murders by Peter Sutcliffe, dubbed by the press as the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’, who sexually attacked and murdered thirteen women across Yorkshire between 1975 and 1980. Women in the area were angry that the police response to these murders seemed slow and that the press barely reported on them when it was mainly women involved in sex work who were murdered. But when a young woman student was murdered, the press and the police seemed to take more notice. The police response was to tell women not to go out at night, effectively putting them under curfew. This was not a helpful suggestion, especially for women working late shifts or night shifts, or those involved in sex work who often had no choice about whether they went out at night or not. Despite the fact that the Ripper was known to be white, police used the opportunity of the investigation to harass Asian youths. Learn more about this in our podcast episodes 33-34: https://workingclasshistory.com/2019/09/18/e28-29-asian-youth-movements-in-bradford/ https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1852157661636042/?type=3
On this day, 11 November 1887, four of the Haymarket martyrs were executed in Chicago. They were anarchist labour organisers framed for a bombing by authorities because of their role in the fight for the 8-hour day. The May Day holiday, International Workers Day on May 1 each year, commemorates the martyrs. Lucy Parsons, a formerly-enslaved anarchist activist, and wife of Albert Parsons, one of the martyrs, recalled that day 50 years later:
“On that gloomy morning of November 11, 1887, I took our two little children to the jail to bid my beloved husband farewell. I found the jail roped off with heavy cables. Policemen with pistols walked in the enclosure. I asked them to allow us to go to our loved one before they murdered him. They said nothing. Then I said, ‘Let these children bid their father goodby, let them receive his blessing. They can do no harm.’ In a few minutes a patrol wagon drove up and we were locked up in a police station while the hellish deed was done. Oh, Misery, I have drunk thy cup of sorrow to its dregs but I am still a rebel.”
The others to be executed were George Engel, Adolph Fischer, August Spies and Louis Lingg, although Lingg cheated the hangman by blowing himself up the previous night.
Upon his sentencing, Spies told the court: “if you think that by hanging us you can stamp out the labour movement — the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the millions who toil and live in want and misery, the wage slaves, expect salvation — if this is your opinion, then hang us! Here you will tread upon a spark, but here, and there, and behind you, and in front of you, and everywhere, flames will blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out. The ground is on fire upon which you stand.”
On the gallows, he said: “There will be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.”
Learn more about the history of May Day in this book: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/the-incomplete-true-authentic-and-wonderful-history-of-may-day-peter-linebaugh https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1851901614994980/?type=3
