Edited and
introduced by Gale Ahrens, here, for the first time, is a hefty
selection of the writings and speeches of the woman the Chicago
police called "More dangerous than a thousand rioters!"
"Lucy Parsons'
writings are among the best and strongest in the history of US
anarchism. Her long and often traumatic experience of the capitalist
injustice system—from the KKK terror in her youth, through
Haymarket and the judicial murder of her husband, to the US
government's war on the Wobblies—made her not 'just another victim'
but an extraordinarily articulate witness to, and vehement crusader
against, all injustice." —from the introduction, by Gale
Ahrens
"Lucy Parsons'
personae and historical role provide material for the makings of a
truly exemplary figure.....anarchist, labor organizer, writer,
editor, publisher, and dynamic speaker, a woman of color of mixed
black, Mexican and Native American heritage, a founder of the 1880s
Chicago Working Women's Union that organized garment workers, called
for equal pay for equal work, and even invited housewives to join
with the demand of wages for housework; and later (1905) co-founder
of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which made the
organizing of women and people of color a priority..... For a better
understanding of the concept of direct action and its implications,
no other historical figure can match the lessons provided by Lucy
Parsons." —from the afterword, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz