This year
Voces de la Frontera’s May 1st March will be in Waukesha for a good reason. Waukesha County Sheriff Eric Severson, in an
attempt to expand his power, wants his department to function as an immigration
agency. In protest and to publicize this
power grab, Voces will stage its May 1st March in Waukesha.
The
International Labor Day Marches promote labor rights and are a memorial for
those who died in the May 1st uprisings in 1886 in Chicago and Milwaukee
with workers demanding the eight-hour day.
In Chicago several were killed in what has been called a “Police Riot.” The next day in Bay View, Wisconsin several were killed by the National Guard in
their attempt to break up a march to the Bay View Rolling Mills. ‘Remembering the past’ is an important
animating force in the present struggle.
The experience gained is important in plans for action and a coherent explanation
of goals.
Remember the 5th of May -
Governor Rusk’s nefarious day
Fire at will he said – and soon 9
workers and a boy were dead
Waukesha has some
important connections to the May 1st Labor Day celebrations. In 2006
Waukesha’s congressman, James Sensenbrenner promoted anti-immigrant legislation
that caused community outrage. The
response in Wisconsin was the first May 1st March in many years. It was the largest in the country with an
estimated 70,000 participants. Large May
1st Marches have been held in Milwaukee every year since.
After the police
rioting in Chicago labor leaders were arrested.
Albert Parsons escaped to Waukesha and stayed with the Daniel Hoan
family. (Daniel Hoan Jr. was to become
the future mayor of Milwaukee.) After a
few weeks, Parsons turned himself in to face trial with his comrades. Eight labor leaders were convicted of murder;
seven were sentenced to death. Lucy
Parsons (ne: Lucy Eldine Gonzalez) said goodbye to her husband:
My husband, I give you
to the cause of liberty. I now go forth to take your place. I will herald abroad to the American people
the foul murder ordered here today at the behest of monopoly. I, too, expect to mount the scaffold. I am ready.” LPAR p. 104
Lucy Parsons was evicted from her apartment in Chicago so she
left her son with the Hoan family in Waukesha and her daughter with other
friends while she traveled to several cities on a speaking tour.
Ms. Parsons traveled the country advocating workers rights
until her death in 1942. She did talk
about her husband’s unfair trial and hanging but she emphasized the rights of
working people and pointed to the disgrace of hunger and unemployment. The
basis for her talks was the Pittsburg Manifesto of the International Working
Peoples Association written by a group including her husband Albert Parsons. The Manifesto demanded equality of the sexes
and:
Establishment of a free
society based on cooperative organization of production. LPAR p. 44
Immigrant workers struggling for Justice continues with the
International Labor Day parade - May 1st, 2018, 10:00 a.m. starting in Cutler Park
in the city of Waukesha, 321 Wisconsin Avenue.
SUGGESTED
READINGS
Amazing
Grace, William
Wilberforce and the heroic campaign to end slavery, Eric Metaxas
The
Autobiographies of the Haymarket Martyrs, ed. Phillip S. Foner AHM
Black
against Empire,
Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin Jr.
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Eric
Metaxas
The End
of Work, Jeremy
Rifkin
Goddess
of Anarchy,
(Lucy Parsons) Jacqueline Jones
Laborem
Exercens, John Paul II
The Labor
Movement in Wisconsin, Robert W. Ozzane
Labor’s
Untold Story,
Richard O. Boyer, Herbert M. Morais LUS
Lucy
Parsons = American Revolutionarty, Carolyn Ashbaugh LPAR p.104
Martin
Luther, Eric Metaxas ML
The
Making of Milwaukee,
John Gurda MM
May Day –
A Short History of the International Workers Holiday, Phillip S. Forner S. Forner MD
Movie: The
Long Shadow, Frances Causey, film maker and investigative reporter
