Today, May 1, is International Workers’ Day! It commemorates the sentencing to death of seven anarchist workers in Chicago who were framed for throwing a bomb at police who attacked a strike demonstration in May 1886.
400,000 workers in Chicago had walked out on 1 May demanding a maximum 8 hour working day, alongside workers across the US. Employers and the government were determined to crush the movement, and four of the anarchists were executed, with the fifth cheating the hangman by killing himself. The remaining three were later pardoned, and the fight for the 8 hour day continued.
Subsequently, May 1 was chosen as International Workers’ Day and is celebrated as an official holiday in much of the world, although many people are unaware of its radical origins.
This book by Peter Linebaugh tells its story: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/books/products/the-incomplete-true-authentic-and-wonderful-history-of-may-day-peter-linebaugh
Pictured is a misleading contemporary press illustration of the demonstration and bomb blast. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1414770162041463/?type=3
Screams of a Winter Night (1979), James L. Wilson
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“Tomb of Terror” #3 August 1952
(via anarchistcommunism)
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Ozzy Osbourne
(via suspiria76)
