On the night of May 4, 1886, during a peaceful demonstration of labor activists in Haymarket Square in Chicago, a dynamite bomb was thrown into the ranks of police -trying to disperse the crowd. The officers immediately opened fire, killing a number of protestors and wounding some two hundred others.
Albert Parsons was the best-known of those hanged; Haymarket is his story. Parsons, humanist and autodidact, was an ex-Confederate soldier who grew up in Texas in the 1870s, and fell in love with Lucy Gonzalez, a vibrant, outspoken black woman who preferred to describe herself as of Spanish and Creole descent. The novel tells the story of their lives together, of their growing political involvement, of the formation of a colorful circle of "co-conspirators"-immigrants, radical intellectuals, journalists, advocates of the working class-and of the events culminating in bloodshed.
More than just a moving story of love and human struggle, more than a faithful account of a watershed event in United States history, Haymarket presents a layered and dynamic revelation of late nineteenth-century Chicago, and of the lives of a handful of remarkable individuals who were willing to risk their lives for the promise of social change.
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About the Author:
MARTIN DUBERMAN is Distinguished Professor of History at the City University of New York and the author of some twenty books.
From Booklist:
This wonderful novel is built around Chicago's Haymarket Riot in 1886. A rally erupted into violence after a bomb was thrown at the police, and they responded by opening fire on the crowd. Within weeks, there was a massive police roundup of trade unionists of all stripes. Eventually, some of the most prominent labor leaders were tried on a variety of charges, and several were executed, which united radicals and moderate labor leaders in outrage. Duberman brings those events, the era, and some of the leading personalities to life. At the center of the narrative is the relationship between labor leader Albert Parsons and his mixed-race wife, Lucy Gonzalez, who leave Texas to escape the rigid segregation laws. In Chicago, their personal commitment and political awareness blossom. History professor Duberman is an activist whose left of center politics makes him very sympathetic to one side in the struggle portrayed here. However, that doesn't prevent him from telling a generally balanced and deeply moving tale that works as both love story and political statement. Jay Freeman
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- PublisherSeven Stories Press
- Publication date2005
- ISBN 10 1583226710
- ISBN 13 9781583226711
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages330
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Rating