- Page 320 →Lucy Gonzales Parsons (1852-1942). American free speech and labor leader. Born in Texas, her mixed origins of Black, Mexican, and Native American attuned her to struggles of racial minorities and foreigners in the U.S. She was a leading figure in the national working class movement and in the campaign to release her husband, Albert, and seven other Haymarket martyrs, following the Haymarket “Riots” in Chicago, 1886. Although four were hanged, including Albert, she continued working for the defense of other political prisoners through the International Labor Defense (ILD). She linked other political trials to Haymarket, which was seen as the first precedent for political conspiracy trials. Parsons was a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World and one of the original women members of the Knights of Labor. For 70 years, she was a familiar sight in the labor movement, writing, pamphleteering, demonstrating, and organizing. When she died, the FBI confiscated her large literary and political library and never released it. She is most remembered as a champion of the hungry, jobless, foreign-born, women, and ethnic and racial minorities.
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