may 4, 1877 - The Haymarket Affair

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Encouraged by the impact of the 1877 strike, labor
leaders continued to press for change. On the evening of May 4, 1886, 3,000
people gathered at Chicago’s Haymarket Square to protest police brutality—a
striker had been killed and several had been wounded at the McCormick Harvester
plant the day before. Rain began to fall at about 10 o’clock, and the crowd was dispersing when police arrived. Then someone tossed a bomb into the police line.
Police fired on the workers; seven police officers and several workers died in the
chaos that followed. No one ever learned who threw the bomb, but the three speakers at the demonstration and five other radicals were charged with inciting a riot.
All eight were convicted; four were hanged and one committed suicide in prison.
After Haymarket, the public began to turn against the labor movement

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