Lucy Parsons’ life
energy was directed toward freeing the working class from capitalism.
She attributed the inferior position of women and minority racial
groups in American society to class inequalities and argued, as
Eugene Debs later did, that blacks were oppressed because they were
poor, not because they were black. Lucy favored the availability of
birth control information and contraceptive devices. She believed
that under socialism women would have the right to divorce and
remarry without economic, political and religious constraints; that
women would have the right to limit the number of children they would
have; and that women would have the right to prevent “legalized”
rape in marriage.
“Lucy Parsons’
life expressed the anger of the unemployed workers, women, and
minorities against oppression and is exemplary of radicals’ efforts
to organize the working class for social change.”
—From the preface
Lucy Parsons, who
the Chicago police considered “more dangerous than a thousand
rioters,” was an early American radical who defied all the
conventions of her turbulent era as an outspoken woman of color,
writer, and labor organizer. Parsons’ life as activist spanned the
era of the Robber Barons through the Great Depression, during which
she actively campaigned and organized for the emancipation of the
working class from wage slavery. Parsons courageously led the defense
campaign for the “Haymarket martyrs,” including her husband
Albert Parsons. Ashbaugh’s biography takes a giant leap toward
reinterpreting the role of women in American history.