Immortal voices of Haymarket: Chicago martyrs' enduring May Day legacy

Today, May Day 2026, as India's 25 crore workers echo their 22 April Bharat Bandh against the diluted Labour Codes, we reclaim the Chicago Martyrs — eight great heroes whose 1886 stand for an eight-hour working day reshaped the world. Framed after Haymarket's chaos, they faced a kangaroo court, yet their sacrifice birthed global labour rights.

Fedayi ka khoon hai surkh ruh ka sailaab,
Zameen-e-mehnat par ugti hai inqilab ki kahaar
(The martyr's blood is the crimson flood of a spirited soul,
On labour's soil sprouts the crop of revolution)

Let us honour each by name, their lives a defiant hymn against exploitation.

August Spies (31), German immigrant and furniture craftsman, wielded words like weapons as Arbeiter-Zeitung editor. A mesmerising orator, he rallied Chicago's German workers, exposing factory barons' greed. At trial, he exposed bias; from the gallows on 11 November 1887, he proclaimed: "The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today!" His pamphlets fuelled the 1 May strike by 300,000.

Albert Parsons (39), Texan printer and The Alarm editor, evolved from Confederate soldier to interracial unionist. Founder of Chicago's Noble Order of the Knights of Labor, he bridged Black and White workers, defying Jim Crow. Kissing his children goodbye, he sang 'Sweet Bye and Bye' to the scaffold, his eloquence immortalised in trial speeches that shamed the judge.

Adolph Fischer (30), German printer at Arbeiter-Zeitung, embodied revolutionary zeal. Father to a young daughter, he typeset manifestos demanding dignity. "I die a proud communist," he declared, unbowed as the noose tightened — his last words galvanising anarchists worldwide.

Phansi ke farmaan par shaheedon ke geet sada,
Mehnatkashon ki awaaz ban gayi hai sada
(On the gallows' decree, martyrs' songs echo eternal,
Becoming the forever voice of toilers)

George Engel (50), Jewish toy seller from Germany, overcame deafness to join the fight. Never at Haymarket, he was convicted on rumour. His simple life — peddling playthings — belied a fierce intellect; from jail, he wrote of "the social revolution", his hanging a stark injustice.

Louis Lingg (22), Swiss carpenter and unmatched dynamite artisan, supplied the movement's muscle. Anarchist firebrand, he scorned the verdict, biting a blasting cap in his cell days before execution — his mangled face a final rebuke, as witnesses like Captain Schaack later confirmed.

The survivors endured Cook County Jail's hell: Michael Schwab (35), Austrian bookbinder and Arbeiter-Zeitung associate editor, penned defiant essays till his 1901 pardon. Samuel Fielden (39), English teamster and Methodist preacher turned radical, hauled goods by day, spoke fire by night — freed in 1893. Oscar Neebe (41), yeast merchant and union organiser, dodged the rope through savvy lawyering, paroled amid uproar.

Hanged amid 10,000 mourners, four martyrs sparked riots from London to Paris. The 1889 Second International declared May Day their tribute; US eight-hour laws followed in 1916, ILO standards in 1919.

India inherited their fire: the 1926 Trade Unions Act legalised strikes, mirroring Haymarket's call amid mill drudgery. Factories Act, 1948, enshrined eight hours. Now, 2026's IFTU-led bandh — paralysing rails and ports — rails against the 2020 Codes' gig-era betrayals, Swiggy drivers toiling endlessly like 1880s Chicagoans.

From Haymarket's National Historic Landmark rises their truth: power bows to united sacrifice. In Srinagar's workshops or Mumbai's mills, their voices urge: seize this May Day to forge equity anew.

Chicago ke shaheedon ka silsila na rukega,
May Day ki loh par likha inka naam sada rahega
(The Chicago martyrs' chain will never halt,
On May Day's stone, their name endures eternal)

Hasnain Naqvi is a former member of the history faculty at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai. More of his writing here