Resolution of the IWW Industrial Workers of the World Chicago General Membership Branch 4/2/01 WHEREAS Lucy Parsons made an integral contribution to the fight for workers' rights, particularly in the struggle for the eight hour day - as well as the related Haymarket demonstration,
WHEREAS her husband Albert was murdered by the state because of his anarchist beliefs and activism,
WHEREAS Lucy Parsons refused to be type cast as a homemaker and supported a woman's right to birth control and freedom of marriange and divorce - all of which were important in the fight for women's rights,
WHEREAS Lucy Parsons vocally supported rights for people of color and helped free the Scottsboro 8, which cleared the way for later civil rights progress,
WHEREAS Lucy Parsons fought to free her husband priot to his death sentence as well as Tom Mooney, Warren Billings, Sacco and Vanzetti, and others imprisoned for their color and/or their beliefs,
WHEREAS Lucy Parsons engaged in numerous "free speech fights" against the state blockage of the right of radicals to publicly speak,
WHEREAS Lucy Parsons helped strengthen the radical tradition in America by contributing meaningfully to the Communist, Socialist, Anarchist, and Revolutionary Syndicalist movements by writing for such publications as The Socialist, the Liberator, and The Alarm, publishing pamphlets and going on vast and hard-fought tours,
WHEREAS Lucy Parsons worked with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, Knights of Labor, the International Working Peoples' Association, and the International Labor Defense to inform and radicalize unkown numbers of people,
WHEREAS Lucy Parsons helped found the Industrial Workers of the World at the 1905 convention in Chicago and continued to support the union through its pivotal fledgling years, which allowed it to become the fighting union and organization for industrial democracy that it is today,
WHEREAS the life of Lucy Parsons is egregiously under-documented in the overwhelmin majority of history curricula and mainstream sources of information to the point where she has become an obscure figure to most people,
WHEREAS the possibility of naming a Chicago park in her honor has come under attack by the Fraternal Order of Police,
BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Chicago General Membership Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World supports the creation of a park in the city of Chicago named in honor of Lucy Parsons. It supports providing a space for the remembrance of her life and thought that is filled with growing, natural things which will be a relief to the mind from the harsh and exploitative world that surrounds it as well as a reminder of the need for change.
TO THAT END, the Chicago GMB lends it support to ensure a park is named in her honor, including organizing a vocal presence at meetings to support the name of this park at the Park District Headquarters on April 14th and May 12th.
