Sunday, September 25, 2016

Sedition Sunday #4: Lucy Parsons

This week Sunday Sedition focuses on Lucy Parsons. She was a labour organizer, an anarcho-communist and leading member of the International Workers Of the World also known as the Wobblies. "My conception of the strike of the future is not to strike and go out and starve, but to strike and remain in and take possession of the necessary property of production." - Lucy Parsons

She was born sometime in the early 1850's in Texas. The woman who the Chicago Police Department described as "more dangerous than a thousand rioters" went on to become a labour organizer in Chicago with her husband Albert Parsons. After her husband was martyred in the aftermath of the Haymarket Affair she continued on with her labour activism with the Wobblies.


Lucy Parsons gave fiery speeches her whole life, inspiring Studs Terkel in her 80's. She died as result of a house fire in 1942. The police promptly seized her 1500 book library and all her writings.