Edited and Introduced by Gale Ahrens with an afterward by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Charles H. Kerr Publishers, 2003

Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company is America’s oldest purveyor of labor agitation and libertarian socialism. Now thanks to Chicago based activist, poet and essayist Gale Ahrens, that tradition is continued with a book that gives us Lucy Parsons in her own words. Editor Gale Ahrens’ introduction to this book and an afterward by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz are likewise invaluable.

For those who might not know, Lucy Parsons was one of the greatest anarchists ever to rouse a crowd in this country. Not much is known of her personal life. She did not like to talk about herself, and shortly after her death in 1942 the FBI stole all of her papers and books, of which she had over 1500, and they have never been seen since. Thus it is that this little book, published in 2003, is the first ever compilation of some of Lucy Parsons’ own writings.

Lucy Gonzales was born in or near Waco, Texas, around the year 1853. She was most likely born into slavery and was of Mexican, Native American and African heritage. Around 1870, she married a Confederate soldier turned Radical Republican by the name of Albert Parsons. They were a dynamic team. They moved to Chicago in the early 1870s. Their political understanding was undergoing a continued radicalizing at the time. Albert and Lucy both became active in the Socialist Labor Party, and Albert became famous in Chicago’s labor movement. Lucy was a founder of the Working Woman’s Union and both Albert and Lucy joined the Knights of Labor. Finally around 1883, weary of the reformism spawned in electoral politics, Albert and Lucy began to feel most at home with anarchism, and soon after, with other like minded folks they helped organize the International Working People’s Association and started a newspaper called Alarm. Albert’s life was cut short in 1887 when he was one of those murdered by the State of Illinois after being framed for the police led riot at Haymarket during the Eight Hour Day strike in early May of 1886.

In the past, many have written off Lucy Parsons as just a collaborator with her husband, Albert. This book will quiet that nonsense once and for all. She carried on for over 50 years after Albert’s death, and has left a unique and important legacy about and for socialists of the anarchist view. Lucy was deeply moved by the suffering and misery that the capitalist system inflicted upon the workers and the poor with whom she lived and traveled. Still, Parsons never suggested that the dispossessed look to any political party for their aid. She tirelessly urged self-emancipation from the wage slavery that had replaced the chattel slavery of her youth. It was with deep anger she offered this infamous advice to those enduring the repression of the rich, "learn to use explosives!"

Lucy spoke and wrote not from some head trip, but from her gut and her experience. She absolutely trusted in the ability of the working class, the poor and the oppressed to liberate themselves. She argued that, "The disinherited must work out their own salvation in their own way.

Parsons’ contemporaries, and those who have tried to understand her since her death, have been frustrated by an inability to put her into any specific political or ideological box. She was perhaps the least sectarian of all the radicals of her day. Her ability to trust individuals allowed her even to befriend and work alongside some communists. She felt most at home with the IWW, and was saddened by the eventual propensity of anarchists in the US to avoid the struggles of the workers. Still, to the end, Lucy Parsons remained an anarchist and a socialist.

The writings contained in this book constitute much more than a history lesson. They are also more than a long overdue tribute to great champion of real freedom. The writings and speeches of Lucy Parsons have special significance today. In a day when our imperial government is waging a war to save our civilization, Parsons asks, "Our Civilization: Is it worth saving?" Are you concerned about the corporate media? Included in this book are essays by Parsons about "The Importance of a Press" and "Challenging the Lying Monopolistic Press." This is an election year, and included here is an essay entitled, "The Ballot Humbug."

Why read Lucy Parsons? Because she confronted in her actions, speeches and writings the exploitation of the poor, police brutality, racism, patriarchy, war, capitalism, government repression of dissent, homelessness and more. Read Lucy Parsons and get all fired up.

- Stephen Donahue