Lucy E. Parsons ( – March 7, 1942) was an American social anarchist and later anarcho-communist, well known throughout her long life for her fiery speeches and writings. She was a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World. There are different versions of Parsons' early life: she herself said she was of mixed Mexican and Native American ancestry; historians believe she was born to an African-American slave, possibly in Virginia, then perhaps married a black freedman in Texas. She met the activist Albert Parsons in Waco, Texas, and claimed to have married him although no records have been found. They moved to Chicago together in late 1873 and her ideology was shaped by the harsh repression of workers in the Chicago railroad strike of 1877. She argued for labor organization and class struggle, writing polemical texts and speaking at events. She joined the Workingmen's Party of the United States and later the Knights of Labor, and she set up the Chicago Working Women's Union with her friend Lizzie Swank and other women.

Parsons had two children and worked in Chicago as a seamstress, later opening her own shop. After her husband was executed in 1887 following his conviction for being a ringleader in the Haymarket affair, she became internationally famous as an anarchist speaker, touring frequently across the United States and visiting England. She wrote articles and edited radical newspapers. She was helped financially by the Pioneer Aid and Support Association and wrote the biography The Life of Albert R. Parsons with her young lover Martin Lacher. In the decades following the 1917 Russian Revolution, Parsons moved towards communism. The Chicago police regarded her as a dangerous political figure and attempted many times to stop her from speaking publicly. She continued her activism as she grew older, clashing with the anarchist Emma Goldman over their differing attitudes to free love and supporting challenges to miscarriages of justice in the cases of Angelo Herndon, Tom Mooney, and the Scottsboro Boys. She died in a house fire on March 7, 1942. Her partner George Markstall returned to find the building on fire and was unable to rescue her; he died the following day. She was buried in the German Waldheim Cemetery, where the Haymarket Martyrs' Monument stands. After her death, Parsons was primarily referenced as the wife of Albert Parsons, until recent scholarship and two book-length biographies have commemorated her own achievements. The Chicago Park District named a park on Belmont Avenue after her in 2004.

Early life

Little is known for certain about Parsons' early life. The historian Caroline Ashbaugh states in her biography of Parsons that she was born the daughter of a slave in 1849 and was possibly called Lucy Gathings; through her life Parsons also used the surnames Carter, Diaz, Gonzalez and Hull. Parsons herself told different versions of her life history. One story she told was that she was born in Texas to Marie del Gather (who was of Spanish-Mexican ancestry) and John Waller who was Muscogee. Her entry in the American National Biography suggests she may have been daughter to Pedro Diáz González and his wife Marie. Ashbaugh suggests that Parsons was (like Benton) a former slave of the Gathings brothers, since Philip Gathings had a daughter named Lucy in 1849 and Parsons may have been named after her. While slave records do not preserve names, the Gathings brothers did each own two slave girls in 1860 who would have been around Parsons' age. The couple lived in poor working-class slum tenements around Larrabee Street and North Avenue on the North Side.

Parsons' first writings to be published were letters to the editor of The Socialist concerning the hunger and poverty of the working class. She began to lecture after the birth of her son, Albert Parsons Jr., in September 1879 (on the birth certificate she wrote her maiden name as Carter and Virginia as her place of birth). Her observations of the 1877 strike had taught her that workers were powerful when united. Alongside women such as Elizabeth Chambers Morgan, Elizabeth Flynn Rodgers, Alzina Stevens and Lizzie Swank she helped to set up the Chicago Working Women's Union (WWU) and attended meetings while pregnant, at a time when child-bearing women were expected to stay at home. Swank became a good friend of Parsons and as soon as the Knights of Labor decided to admit women, they both joined up.

On April 20, 1881, Parsons gave birth to her second child, Lulu Eda, who was to die of lymphedema at the age of eight. Two days later, Chicago Police and private security guards known as Pinkertons attacked striking workers at the McCormick Reaper factory, shooting at least one person dead.

On May 5, the day after the bombing, Lucy Parsons was in the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung when it was raided by police officers without a search warrant. They arrested the entire staff including Parsons, whom an officer called "a black bitch"; she was released without charge since the police were hoping she would lead them to her partner. Over the next six months she was briefly detained several times.

Continued activism

thumb|right|A photograph of Parsons taken in 1886|alt=Three quarter length photograph of standing woman in striped dress

Following the funeral of her partner, Parsons continued her political activism. The Pioneer Aid and Support Association gave her a stipend of $12 per week and in March 1888 she toured the East Coast making speeches.

After Parsons returned to Chicago in 1889, the newly renamed Albert R. Parsons Assembly of the Knights of Labor publicized a forthcoming lecture by her entitled Review of the Labor Movement in Europe. Chicago police chief George W. Hubbard resolved to stop the event and on the day itself, Lacher and another man were arrested as they protested for Parsons' right to speak. and Avrich When Oscar Rotter wrote about free love and the destruction of property relations in the anarchist newspaper Free Society, Parsons responded angrily in support of monogamy and this led to a long-lasting feud with Goldman,

After Parsons spoke at a January 1915 hunger march in Chicago which ended in 1,500 unemployed people fighting with the police near Hull House on Halsted Street, she was arrested alongside Father Irwin St. John Tucker and 19 other people. Following the Russian Revolution in 1917, Parsons moved towards communism. She later wrote to Carl Nold that the communists were "the only bunch who are making a vigorous protest against the present horrible conditions!" and lamented that "anarchism is a dead issue in American life today". In a continuance of their rivalry, Emma Goldman criticized her for jumping from one revolutionary cause to the next. Parsons finally joined the Communist Party in 1939. She went blind, received a pension and lived in poverty in Avondale at North Troy Street with a library of around 3,000 books which featured the work of French socialists, Victor Hugo, Jack London, Marx and Engels, Rousseau, Leo Tolstoy and Voltaire. Her long-term partner George Markstall returned to find the building on fire and was unable to rescue her; he died of his injuries the next day.

Legacy

Parsons' fellow activist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn remembered her as a passionate speaker and revolutionary. Until Ashbaugh's 1976 biography, Parsons was often only mentioned in footnotes: more recently coverage of her career has increased. She has been claimed by various left-wing groups as a figurehead and a self-managed social center in Boston was named after her.

Historians such as Gale Ahrens, Mary Condé and Robin Kelley have criticised Parsons' lack of interest in the struggles of African Americans, with her stance reflecting a belief in the need for the working class generally to rise up against its employers, rather than appealing to the need for racial equality. One explanation is that since she denied her own black heritage, she focused more on class struggle. Historians have also focused on the question of Parsons' specific political affiliations, while at the time labels were more fluid and Albert Parsons wrote: "We are called by some Communists, or Socialists, or Anarchists. We accept all three of the terms." The Chicago Park District named a small area on Belmont Avenue the "Lucy Ella Gonzales Parsons" park in 2004, a decision which was opposed by the Fraternal Order of Police. In 2022, a new housing development in Logan Square, Chicago with 100 percent affordable units was named the Lucy Gonzalez Parsons Apartments.

Selected works

Notes

References

  • Lucy Parsons Labs, a Chicago-based digital rights organization
  • The Lucy Parsons Project, an online educational resource designed to publicize the life of Lucy Parsons and the struggles she championed.