Thread by @michaelmalice

MEMORIAL DAY
This is Albert Parsons.
In 1887 he was murdered by the State of Illinois for his political views.

At age 13, he left his role as an indentured servant to join the Confederacy. As an adult he came to regard Reconstruction as necessary, and joined the GOP. He married a Black woman, Lucy Parsons, at a time when it was unthinkable.
#HistoricalHottie

By 1884 Parsons' views had changed further, and he was publishing a weekly anarchist newspaper advocating for labor and revolution.
In 1886 a bomb was thrown at a labor rally in Chicago's Haymarket Square. Many people were killed, including several policemen.

Though Parsons had not even been there at the time, a warrant for his arrest was issued alongside that of several other prominent anarchists. Parsons managed to escape, but decided to return in solidarity with his comrades.

Though several hadn't even been at the Haymarket when the bomb was thrown, all but one of the men were sentenced to hang. People had died for the ideology they were preaching, and now they had to pay the price.

The men who pled for clemency had their sentences commuted. This Parsons refused to do. He had done nothing wrong. He would rather hang than to betray his conscience.

His last letter to his wife Lucy can be read here. The part where he muses about their kids, "Bless them; I love them unspeakably, my poor helpless little ones," is the toughest part.
historymatters.gmu.edu/d/46/

They wouldn't let Lucy see him as they led Albert to the gallows. As the rope was placed around his neck, he said, “May I be allowed to speak? Oh, men of America! May I be allowed the privilege of speech even at the last moment? Harken to the voice of the people--”

He was hanged midsentence before he could finish his thought. He was 39 years old. Lucy kept his legacy alive by self-publishing books about him and the other Haymarket Martyrs. She continued to be a radical labor agitator until she died in 1942 at the age of 91.