Each of Us Imperfect Comrades

In 1887, after one of the more dramatic and unjust trials in US history, a German immigrant toymaker named George Engel walked onto the scaffold in Chicago. His hanging was far from public—the prison was ringed with machineguns in case the anarchists or their allies decided to storm the place to free their martyred comrades.

Three other men were with him. One was his friend, Adolph Fischer. One, Albert Parsons, spoke English instead of German. The other man, though, was August Spies (pronounced “Speez,” I’ve heard).

This fucking guy.

Engel hated Spies. They hadn’t been on speaking terms for more than a year. See, there was more than one German-language anarchist paper in Chicago in those days. Engel and Fischer worked for Der Anarchist (The Anarchist), the radical paper, which advocated for individuals and small groups to take direct action against capitalism. Spies worked the moderate paper, Arbeiter-Zeitung (Worker’s Newspaper) that advocated building a mass movement with which to overthrow the capitalist order.

None of their differences mattered to the state, who put the noose around each neck all the same. So died the men we know as the Haymarket Martyrs, from whose memory springs much of the modern labor movement.

None of us in our movements that fight for a better world are perfect people.

Albert Parsons is perhaps the most famous of the Haymarket Martyrs, maybe (and unjustly) because he was the one who was born in the United States. Maybe because he was married to one of the most famous labor organizers in history, the immortal Lucy Parsons, who spent decades remembering him publicly and loudly as she rallied workers to action.

Their marriage was illegal—Albert was white, while Lucy was Black.

Albert Parsons, through both his work and his martyrdom, is one of the most important figures in not just anarchist history but labor history. He also, as people conveniently forget, spent years of his life as a Confederate soldier. He wasn’t conscripted; he volunteered. In fact, he lied about his age to volunteer, because he was just a kid when he went off to fight for one of the most evil systems the world has ever seen.

I say this not to disparage the man or his memory, but instead to say: none of us are angels.

Now, if there’s a clearer redemption arc for a former Confederate in history, I haven’t found it. He ...