May Day - International Labor Day: Born in Chicago on May 1, 1886
On May 1, 1886, workers throughout the United States engaged in a massive strike for the eight-hour day. Chicago was the strike’s center. On May 4, 1886, a rally was held at Haymarket Square (at the corner of Desplaines and Randolph streets) in Chicago to protest a police attack on a group of strikers. As this peaceful rally was winding to a close, 176 cops moved in to stop the rally. Then someone threw a bomb. It killed one police officer instantly and wounded many others.
In June 1886, several leaders of the Chicago union movement and the fight for the 8-hour day were put on trial, charged with being accessories to murder at Haymarket Square. Most had not even been present when the bomb was thrown.
Tried before a biased judge and jury, the defendants were convicted. Four were hanged.
On July 14, 1889 – the 100th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille Prison — at the International Labor Congress in Paris, a delegate from the American Federation of Labor proposed that the Congress adopt May 1 as International Labor Day and a day to remember the “Martyrs of Chicago.”
This important labor holiday is celebrated every year with huge parades and rallies all over the world – and it began just a few blocks from the heart of the Loop.
Reprinter 04/26/2023