Eldine Lucy Gonz?lez Parsons, American anarchist and feminist activist died on March 7,
1942. For nearly 70 years, Lucy Parsons (as it was known) fought for the rights of the
poor and marginalized in the face of an increasingly oppressive industrial economic
system. The radical activism Lucy challenged the racist and sexist sentiment at a time
when Americans are even radicals believed that the woman's place was at home. ---- Little
is known about the early life of Lucy Parsons. Some biographies report that she was born
in Texas around 1853, during the Civil War Era, and it is likely that his parents were
slaves, but other information say she was an african - american ancestry with indigenous
(Native American) and Mexican. During her life, in order to disguise their racial origins
in a prejudiced society, Lucy used many surnames.
In 1870, he met Albert Parsons a former confederate soldier who grew into a radical
anarchist activist and later a Republican. Forced out of Texas for her interracial
marriage to Chicago where they were soon linked to the revolutionary sectors that began to
develop the trade union movement.
From 1878 collaborates Lucy in The Socialist newspaper, thereafter becomes a writer and
stir with a decisive role in the workers' organization in Chicago. In 1883 she co-founded
the International Working People 's Association (IWPA), an important internationalist
anarchist organization and advocate of direct action that was distinguished by advocating
equality for women and blacks. Lucy addition to the military organization was a regular
contributor to the paper The Alarm, which called for direct action against the rich and
powerful.
Many of her articles also dealt with the issue of racism and discrimination, defending the
need for blacks to integrate the social struggle against capitalism.
In 1886 the IPWA was one of the organizations which triggered a general strike in defense
of the 8 hours of work on the first of May, which led to the events of Haymarket Square
and the famous case of the Martyrs of Chicago where the U.S. court has sentenced to death
three known militant workers and anarchists, including Albert Parsons.
Following the hanging of her husband maintained an active presence in the labor and
anarchist movement, participating in 1905 the foundation of the revolutionary IWW union
confederation and collaborated in the newspaper The Liberator. In the 30s, in the context
of advancing Nazi fascism, decided to join the Communist Party.
Lucy Parsons died in the fire of her house in 1942, after half a century of intense
militancy, where she distinguished herself as one of the most important women of the
American worker and anarchist movement. His books and personal documents were arbitrarily
seized by police after the fire.
In her defense of the anarchist cause, Parsons came into ideological disagreement with
other anarchists her contemporaries, including Emma Goldman, due to its option of
considering the question of higher class to gender issues and the struggle for sexual
freedom (free love). In the opinion of several historians Emma Goldman and Lucy Parsons
represent different generations of anarchism in the United States. This fact turned out to
result in a personal and ideological conflict. Carolyn Ashbaugh * analyzed the differences
between the two :
"Feminism Lucy Parsons felt that the oppression suffered by women was a direct result of
capitalism, was based directly on the values ??of the working class. Feminism by Emma
Goldman was an abstract character of freedom for women in all things, in all times and in
all places,.. their feminism had a different origin than the working classes Goldman
represented feminism advocated the anarchist movement of the 1890s [ and later] the
anarchist Lucy Parsons intellectuals would argue about their attitudes toward the issue of
women. "
sources:
Anarchists and Libertarian Thinkers militants - Archive Social History Edgar Rodrigues
(http://www.ebooksbrasil.org/eLibris/pensadoresanarquistas.html # 9)
The Lucy Parsons Center Collective (http://lucyparsons.org/)
" Lucy Parsons " Wikipedia (http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Parsons)
* Carolyn Ashbaugh wrote the book " Lucy Parsons : American Revolutionary " launched by
the publisher of Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing, 1976
(http://www.charleshkerr.com/author/46).
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