Lucy
Waller,
the daughter of John
Waller, a Creek Indian, and Marie del Gather from Mexico, was born
in Texas in 1853. Her parents died when she was a child and was raised
by relatives.
In 1870 she met Albert Parsons, a former
soldier in the Confederate Army but now a Radical
Republican. They married the following year but mixed relationships
were unacceptable and so the couple moved to Chicago.
Parsons became a printer but after becoming involved in trade
union activities he was blacklisted.
Lucy had several articles published in radical
journals such as The
Socialist and The Alarm. She was also a member of the Socialist
Labor Party and the International Working People's Association
(IWPA), a labor organization that supported racial and sexual equality.
Albert Parsons was arrested and charged
with the Haymarket Bombing. Although
no evidence was provided in court that linked Parsons to the crime,
he was found guilty
along with August Spies, Adolph
Fisher, Louis Lingg and George
Engel and was sentenced to death. He was executed on 11th November,
1887.
Parsons continued to be politically active after the death of her
husband. A founding member of the Industrial
Workers of the World (IWW) she published the radical journals,
Freedom
and The
Liberator
where she campaigned for trade union rights
and an end to lynching.
Parsons was also a member of the National
Committee of the International Labor Defense, an organisation that
helped African Americans unjustly accused of crimes such as the Scottsboro
Nine. In 1939 Parsons
joined the American Communist Party.
Lucy
Parsons
died in a fire in her Chicago home in
1942.
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