Lucy Parsons

Lucy Parsons wouldn't be quiet. She spoke, wrote, and agitated for her political beliefs for seventy years. Even though police sometimes tried to stop her, she insisted on speaking out.

Parsons was a writer and labor organizer. She worked as a dressmaker to help support her family when her husband Albert Parsons was fired because of his involvement with the labor movement. Although he was not present at Haymarket Square when a bomb was thrown that killed a policeman, Albert Parsons was arrested as a conspirator and sentenced to death. She toured the country, speaking out about the unjust trial and trying to win his freedom.

After his death, she struggled to provide for herself and her two children. She continued to work with the labor and anarchist movements. She sold copies of a pamphlet she wrote, Anarchism, on the street. She believed only violent direct action or the threat of violence would help workers win their demands.

Parsons later worked with the Communist Party. Parsons, whose ancestry was African-American, Mexican, and Native American, was especially concerned when minorities did not receive justice from the court system. She continued to fight for her political beliefs until her death at age eighty-nine.

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