This year’s May 1st March, sponsored by Voces de la Frontera, begins at the Voces office, 1015 S. 5th Street, at 11:00 a.m. Demonstrators will march to the office of the Department of Motor Vehicles, N. 6th and Wells Streets. Following the rally at the DMV office, marchers will continue on to Zeidler Park on 4th and Michigan Streets for
a final rally.
The May 1st March is also a memorial to immigrant
workers who were marching for an Eight Hour Day and were killed in Milwaukee
and Chicago in May of 1886. After a
bizarre trial in Chicago, several workers were condemned to be hanged. One of the immigrant workers from Germany,
August Spies, wrote in an autobiography requested by the Knights of Labor that
his death would be a spark in securing workers’ rights.
In his autobiography Spies quotes Rev. Thomas Muntzer, a
colleague of Martin Luther: “Look you,
the sediment of the soup of usury, theft and robbery are the Great, the
masters, they take all creatures as their property, the fish in the water, the
birds in the air; and the vegetation of the earth. And then they preach God’s commandment to the
poor; ‘Thou shall not steal.’ But this
is not for themselves. They bone and
scrape the poor farmer and mechanic until these have nothing left, then, when
the latter put their hands on the sacred things, they are hanged. And Doctor Liar says, Amen! The masters do it themselves, that the poor
man hates them. The cause of the
rebellion they won’t abolish, how then can things change to the better. And I say this, I am an incendiary—let it be
so!”
Muntzer and Luther broke over the Peasants’ War (1525);
Luther advocated the suppression of the Peasants.
Pastor Paul P. Kuenning concluded in his essay, “Luther and
Muntzer: Contrasting Theologies in
Regard to Secular Authority within the Context of the German Peasant Revolt,”
as follows: “Luther’s heritage is a
needful reminder that it is important to oppose violence, while Muntzer [a
colleague of Luther] reminds one that it is not enough to reject only the
violence of those who strike against injustice and oppression, while condoning
the sometimes more subtle violence of their oppressors. Somewhere between Muntzer’s theology of
revolution and Luther’s theology of devotion, there lies a theology of
nonviolent activism.”
August Spies and three comrades were hanged on November 11,
1887. He and his union brothers are
buried at Waldheim Cemetery in suburban Chicago.
Sources:
The autobiographies of the HAYMARKET MARTYRS, Edited by Philip S. Foner,
Pathfinder, New York, 1969.
“Luther and Muntzer:
Contrasting theologies in Regard to secular Authority within the Context
of the German Peasant Revolt,” by Paul P. Kuenning; from the Journal of Church
and State, Vol. 29, Spring 1987.
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