Labor Spotlight- Lucy Gonzales Parsons

Lucy Gonzales was born a slave in Texas. After emancipation, she married Albert Parsons, and white supremacists drove the activist couple from their home state. Settling in Chicago, Lucy and her husband began organizing on behalf of the city's industrial unions. 

In 1886, the couple helped lead 80,000 working people in the world's first May Day parade, which demanded the eight-hour day. After her husband was arrested, along with seven immigrant leaders, during the Haymarket Riot, Parsons became active in the campaign to free the men. She soon became known by anti-union forces as "more dangerous than a thousand rioters." 

Her activism in the following years would lead her to become the only woman to speak at the founding convention of the Industrial Workers of the World. She actively fought for working people until she died in a fire in 1942.

Source: aflcio.org