Significantly there is evidence that indicates Parsons was born a slave. Her biographer argues that Lucy may have lived for a while with a former slave by the name of Oliver Gathing.
Later she married Albert Parsons in 1871. Albert became a white radical Republican and Reconstructionist, after first serving as a Confederate soldier in his youth. Due to their political viewpoint and interracial marriage, Lucy and Albert were forced to migrate from Texas to Chicago in 1873. Albert and Lucy Parsons arrived in Chicago during a period stamped by an economic crisis (the Depression of 1873) and intense labor unrest. Living among Chicago’s impoverished yet militant workers served as the catalyst for the Parsons’ political transformation from radical Republicanism to participants in the radical labor movement.
Their initial association with the political left was through the Social Democratic Party and the First International, founded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It was through this contact that the Parsons became aware of the socialist ideology of Marxism. They later became members of the Chicago Chapter of the Workingmen’s Party (WPUSA) and many of its meetings were held in the Parsons’ home.
In 1875 she and her husband were forced to flee to Chicago, due to intolerant reactions to their interacial marriage. Together they would fight for African American voting rights, and against KKK terror, condemning racist attacks and killings. Getting involved also in radical labour organising, they fought for the rights of political prisoners, women, people of color, and homeless people, advocating a syndicalist theory of society. She did all this while working as a dressmaker.
A turning point in U.S. history transpired during the year of 1877. That year marked the end of the Reconstruction era and the start of the first general strike ever witnessed in this country, the Great Railroad Strike. Lucy Parsons, as a WPUSA partisan, was actively involved in the strike. By the end of 1877, however, there was a split in the Party and from out of this rupture emerged the Socialist Labor Party (SLP). Lucy Parsons joined the SLP and wrote for its paper, the Socialist. She was also in the leadership of the Working Women’s Union, an ancillary organization of the Party, and she campaigned for women’s suffrage and equal pay for women. SLP’s political reformism and peaceful approach to capitalism eventually led to Lucy Parsons’ departure.
A staunch militant revolutionary, Parsons advocated the overthrow of capitalism and African American armed resistance to racist violence. She began writing for the radical newspapers The Socialist and The Alarm.
The Chicago Police Department describing her 'as more dangerous than a thousand rioters.' On the topic of the growth of homeless people begging for food on the streets of Chicago, the Chicago trubune said ' When a tramp asks you for bread , put strychnine or arsenic on it and he will trouble you no more, and trouble wuill keep out of your neighbourhood.'
In response to this depravity, Lucy wrote one of her most famous articles called - ' To Trams, the Unemployed, the Disinherited, and Miserable'.
Parsons became deeply involved in support of an eight hour workday, and during a demonstration in support of this at Haymarket Square on Tuesday May 4th 1886, an unknown person threw a bomb, subsequent police violence enabled a riot to take place. After the incident eight Anarchists were arrested on trumped up charges, including Albert. Lucy Parsons at the time did all she could to get justice for her husband and his fellow accused, since no evidence could be found to connect them to the bombing. Fighting tirelessly for them all, travelling across the United States, speaking out, rallying support, raising money. Alas in vain with four out of the eight being executed by hanging on November 11th 1887.
In 1892, Parsons founded her own newspaper, Freedom. This paper addressed such issues as lynching and the plight of African Americans in peonage.
After her husbands death , Lucy came into her own as one of the leading radicals of the day.
she continued to spread her anarchist message, and became known for her powerful oratory. In 1905 she participated in the founding of the International Workers of the World, she believed in their committment to direct action, which she believed would inspire a strong working class movement.
She continued to work with various Labour groups, while raising two children that she had had with Albert. Finding time to organise demonstrations, talking to crowds of workers, for the unemployed, homeless and hungry delivering power passionate speeches against police brutality, judicial murder. Getting involved in the International Labour Defence, fighting for Sacco and Vancetti, Tom Mooney, Scottbro Nine, 9 young African Americans who had become symbols of criminal injustice at the time, and for Women's emancipation, for free birth control, advocating for organisation of sex workers,and the struggle and rights of the poor and disenfranchised.
Preaching justice for the poor by way of revolution. Her radical beliefs prompted the police to arrest her many times but believing in freedom of speech, she would spend the rest of her life, fighting the forces that seeked to eliminate her voice, becomming one of the most radical voices for labor rights, anarchism, and free speech in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Challenging capitalism and state oppression at every turn. Despite constant surveillance and censorship, she never wavered.
Continuing to remain active Parsons joined the Communist Party in 1939 and died in a suspicious house fire on 7/3/42. It seems she was so dangerous and viewed as a threat to the political order it was revealed that her ashes barely being cold, the Chicago Police force seized her entire personal library, in all it's 3,000 volumes, on sex, socialism and anarchy and turned it over the F.B.I. Most of it would never be seen again, an attempt to whitewash and write her out of history as they tried to rob her of the work of her life.
Fortunately some of her writings survived, as do her ideas, fighting strongly for what she believed in, defying both racial and gender discrimination, at the forefronts of movements and battles for social justice, her entire life. She challenged the racist and sexist sentiment in a time when even Radical Americans, believed a woman's place was in the home. The legacy of her fight for workers rights, freedom of speech, the African-American, is still a strong influential one. Her voice still resounding against all kinds of oppression and the forces of capitalism long after her death.
She is buried near her husband in Waldheim Cemetery (now Forest Home Cemetery), Forest Park, Illinois. Her words and actions continue to inspire us today. “Governments never grant rights. They can only suppress rights.” - Lucy Parsons
She is buried near her husband in Waldheim Cemetery (now Forest Home Cemetery), Forest Park, Illinois. Her words and actions continue to inspire us today. “Governments never grant rights. They can only suppress rights.” - Lucy Parsons
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