About Albert Parsons

Albert Richard Parsons was a lifelong socialist-turned-anarchist, a Haymarket martyr, a dedicated union member, a powerful orator, and the loving husband of American revolutionary, Lucy Parsons. He was born on June 20, 1848, in Montgomery, Alabama, and made his living as a printer, a typesetter, and later as a newspaper editor. As a teenager, he fought in the Civil War to end slavery, and afterwards became an activist for Black civil rights in the Reconstruction era. Later he moved to Waco, Texas where he met Lucy. After marrying, they relocated to Chicago in 1873, where he ran for office multiple times, began organizing for the 8-hour workday, and eventually became committed to the anarchist movement, for which he gave his life.

Albert Parsons will forever be remembered as one of the heralded Haymarket martyrs, a group of 8 anarchist labor activists imprisoned and/or executed by the state, not for any crime they committed, but for their politics. On May 1, 1886, a massive strike for the eight-hour work day occurred in Chicago. Two days later police fired on striking workers, killing six people. A rally was quickly organized at Haymarket Square to address the police violence. At this rally, an unknown assailant threw a bomb into the crowd, resulting in the deaths and injuries of dozens of people. While Albert was not present at the rally when the bomb was thrown, he, along with several other prominent local anarchists, were arrested and held accountable. During the trial it became clear that the prosecutors could not connect them to the bombing, so they indicted their ideologies instead. "I have been tried ostensibly for murder", stated Parsons, "but in reality for anarchy. I have been proven of being an anarchist, and condemned to die for that reason."

The International Working People's Association (IWPA) organized the campaign for the 8-hour workday, and Albert and Lucy were at the forefront of the movement. They led powerful strikes through the streets of Chicago with tens of thousand of workers waving red and black flags in tow. Albert's newspaper, the Alarm, promoted a general strike for May Day. He was an eloquent speaker and could talk for hours about capitialism, socialism, anarchism, the working-class, and social revolution. As one of the loudest and most inspiring voices in the struggle, he was also a target for state repression. Parsons was defiant until his last breath; his final words on the gallows just before he was hung were "Let the voice of the people be heard!"

While Parsons and the Haymarket martyrs were never found guilty of the bombing, they were widely known for promoting dynamite as a weapon of class war. Albert's newspaper the Alarm openly advocated for propaganda by the deed, encouraging the use of dynamite for sabotage and self-defense. "Workingmen of America, learn the manufacture and use of dynamite. It will be your most powerful weapon; a weapon of the weak against the strong", the publication declared. His comrade August Spies's newspaper Arbeiter-Zeitung also promoted the use of bombs. This was a time when many anarchists and labor radicals were excited about the prospect of dynamite as a tool to fight back against the capitalist class. Lucy Parsons openly advocated for the use of dynamite. Striking railroad workers had found dynamite useful in exploding railway tracks as a form of direct action. "Gunpowder brought the world some liberty and dynamite will bring the world as much more as it is stronger than gunpowder..." stated Albert Parsons, "Dynamite will produce equality." Parsons may not have been guilty of bombing Haymarket Square, but he had advocated for the use of dynamite for years, and the state wanted to make an example out of him and his comrades.

On July 4, 1876, Albert Parsons joined the Knights of Labor, a union which sought to organize all workers, regardless of race, gender, or skill level. Along with Lucy, he was radicalized by the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. In 1883 he helped found the International Working People's Association, a revolutionary anarchist union. "Albert Parsons was for a short time a Confederate soldier, a Radical Republican office-holder, a socialist political candidate, and an anarcho-syndicalist activist", wrote Dave Roediger, but more "durable than any of these commitments was his membership in trade unions, which stretched over at least a decade and perhaps a quarter century. There would be no more important figure in the Chicago labor movement until the emergence of John Fitzpatrick early in the twentieth century."

Before dedicating his life to anarchism, Albert Parsons was a socialist. He ran for political office on multiple occasions, including United States Congress via the Workingman's Party. He was heavily influenced by Karl Marx, and was the first person to publish The Communist Manifesto in the United States. "After a series of defeats as a candidate for public office between 1877 and 1882," describes Carolyn Ashbaugh, "Parsons rejected electoral politics and joined radical trade unionists who advocated industrial struggle and believed unions to be the embryo of a postrevolutionary society. Parsons began to call himself an anarchist".

Albert and Lucy Parsons edited several newspapers during their time. In 1868, Albert launched the Spectator out of Waco, Texas, in which he spoke up for the political rights of people of color. "When Reconstruction came to an end in Texas," describes Carolyn Ashbaugh, "Parsons was hated as a miscegenationist, a scalawag, a traitor, and a revenue man. He had been shot in the leg, thrown downstairs, beaten, and threatened with lynching for his efforts to register Black voters." Later in Chicago, he worked for the Chicago Times. Along with Lucy Parsons and Lizzie Holmes, he went on to edit the Alarm, an early anarcho-syndicalist periodical which was published by the IWPA.

While awaiting his execution in prison, Albert managed to write two books: a full length work, Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis, and the Autobiography of Albert R. Parsons, published by the Knights of Labor. Parsons was hung before Anarchism was printed, but Lucy Parsons finished editing and published the book after his death in 1887. Anarchism contains lengthy passages from Karl Marx, Peter Kropotkin, his Haymarket comrades, as well as Albert's own contributions.

Albert Parsons was buried in the Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, as part of the Haymarket Martyrs Monument, along with his comrades August Spies, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Louis Lingg, Michael Schwab, and Oscar Neebe. Samuel Fielden is the only Haymarket defendant who is not buried at Forest Home. Lucy Parsons is buried nearby the Monument. He left behind two children, Lulu Eda Parsons and Albert Richard Parsons Jr.

The narrative of Albert Parsons has been written about in Labor Agitator: The Story of Albert R. Parsons by Alan Calmer (1937), The Haymarket Tragedy by Paul Avrich (1984), and Goddess of Anarchy: The Life and Times of Lucy Parsons, American Radical by Jacqueline Jones (2017), and other writings.