YEAR: 1886

Haymarket Affair

In May 1886, workers on strike in Chicago for the eight hour day were shot at, and two were killed, by police. The following day, workers organized a protest against the killings and in solidarity with the strikers. When the police moved to disperse the protest, an unknown actor threw a dynamite explosive into the ranks of the police who immediately fired back. Several workers and police were killed. In the aftermath, eight labor organizers were charged, tried, and executed not for the bombing, but for their political beliefs. This struggle in Chicago is the reason International Workers’ Day — May Day — is celebrated across the world on May 1st. It is a solemn and celebratory holiday for billions of workers, yet here in the United States, where the inciting event occurred, that history is erased and replaced by a sanitized and apolitical “Labor Day” at the end of the summer.