This Day in Resistance History: The Haymarket Uprising On this
day in 1886, a labor rally was held at Haymarket Square in
Chicago by workers as part of a campaign to win the 8-hour
workday. Chicago capitalist had been particularly brutal in
their treatment of workers in the manufacturing and
slaughterhouse sectors, but there was also a lively labor
movement that was led by the International Working People’s
Association (IWPA). The rally was also a response to police
brutality against workers who were on strike at the McCormick
Harvesting Machine Company. The police not only beat several
striking workers and their supporters, they fired into the crowd
at one point wounding several and killing four. The police
brutality incensed members of the IWPA, in particular Albert
Parsons and August Spies. Upon hearing the news of the police
brutality against striking workers on May 3rd, Spies created a
printer circular in both English and German, which read:
Revenge! Workingmen, to Arms!!……You have for years endured the