Haymarket Massacre

It was Labor Day here in America yesterday. At least technically. America doesn’t know how to Labor Day though. When the idea for a labor day came about in the late 19th century, to commemorate the efforts of the labor movements pushing for better working conditions, including but not limited too; weekends, eight-hour work day, safer conditions, not using children in dangerous jobs. But you wouldn’t know that here. In America, Labor is treated like a shopping holiday. (Special shout out to Raising Cane’s Chicken for being closed on Labor Day)

Most of the world celebrates Labor Day as International Workers Day in May. That date was choose for two reasons, to coincide with a traditional holiday and to remember the events of the Haymarket Massacre. Which, by the way, took place in Chicago here in America.  However, America wanted to forget about this tragedy. And that’s symbolic of how America treats Labor.

The Haymarket Massacre occurred in 1886. Workers across the country were striking for an eight-hour work day. Like most labor movements during this period, they had faced many severe crack downs from police and hired thugs. During the protest police to disperse the ground. Up until that point the protest had been peaceful. This is where it takes a turn you might not expect.

One of the protests threw a homemade dynamite bomb at the police, killing at least seven and wounding many more. What happened next is mired in the confusion of personal accounts but at least four workers were killed. Dozens and dozens of people were injured, police and workers. There’s not firm figure for the amount of injured and dead workers due to most fleeing the scene and fearing arrest. Eventually, eight people were convicted for the bomb throwing, though there was no evidence any of them had actually thrown the bomb. The trial was widely criticized as unfair.

This event is a text book case of the cycle of the oppressed vs the powerful. People are exploited to a point where they decide they want to see a change. Those in power don’t want things to change and suppress. Support for change grows. Efforts to suppress grow more and more severe, including much violence. Eventually there is an outbreak of violence from the oppressed. This leads to harsher crackdown. Eventually, the oppressed get a piece of what they wanted.

Instead of using the events of the Haymarket Massacre to remember this tragedy and how the cycle leads to violence and death, it has been suppressed and forgotten. Those in power fear people will learn the lesson that violence leads to success for oppressed people. But that’s not the lesson we should be learning from it.

The lesson we need to learn is that the harder you try to oppress people, the harder they’ll fight. If you give them no options for change, eventually violence is the only alternative. Instead of police cracking down on protesters and protesters killing police, what we should be doing is listening to people. If something is motivating thousands of people to march in the streets, there’s something worth paying attention too.

Stubbornly digging your heels in and refusing to engage with people, for fear of them turning violent, is the single biggest reason violence happens. If people would listen and actually empathize with those that have less power than them, we could actually resolve problems.

Here’s to remembering history and trying to learn from our mistakes. Remember those that fought for your right to have taken yesterday off. Think about those that still don’t have Labor Day off from their labor. Let’s work to make a world where Labor Day is a day of celebrating our efforts with relaxation instead of exploiting those with little power in order to get a good deal on an appliance.