Federation Anarchist Gaucha - FAG - LUCY GONZALEs PARSONS

Eldine Lucy Gonz?lez Parsons, American anarchist and feminist activist died on March 7, 
1942. For nearly 70 years, Lucy Parsons (as it was known) fought for the rights of the 
poor and marginalized in the face of an increasingly oppressive industrial economic 
system. The radical activism Lucy challenged the racist and sexist sentiment at a time 
when Americans are even radicals believed that the woman's place was at home. ---- Little 
is known about the early life of Lucy Parsons. Some biographies report that she was born 
in Texas around 1853, during the Civil War Era, and it is likely that his parents were 
slaves, but other information say she was an african - american ancestry with indigenous 
(Native American) and Mexican. During her life, in order to disguise their racial origins 
in a prejudiced society, Lucy used many surnames.

In 1870, he met Albert Parsons a former confederate soldier who grew into a radical 
anarchist activist and later a Republican. Forced out of Texas for her interracial 
marriage to Chicago where they were soon linked to the revolutionary sectors that began to 
develop the trade union movement.

From 1878 collaborates Lucy in The Socialist newspaper, thereafter becomes a writer and 
stir with a decisive role in the workers' organization in Chicago. In 1883 she co-founded 
the International Working People 's Association (IWPA), an important internationalist 
anarchist organization and advocate of direct action that was distinguished by advocating 
equality for women and blacks. Lucy addition to the military organization was a regular 
contributor to the paper The Alarm, which called for direct action against the rich and 
powerful.

Many of her articles also dealt with the issue of racism and discrimination, defending the 
need for blacks to integrate the social struggle against capitalism.

In 1886 the IPWA was one of the organizations which triggered a general strike in defense 
of the 8 hours of work on the first of May, which led to the events of Haymarket Square 
and the famous case of the Martyrs of Chicago where the U.S. court has sentenced to death 
three known militant workers and anarchists, including Albert Parsons.

Following the hanging of her husband maintained an active presence in the labor and 
anarchist movement, participating in 1905 the foundation of the revolutionary IWW union 
confederation and collaborated in the newspaper The Liberator. In the 30s, in the context 
of advancing Nazi fascism, decided to join the Communist Party.

Lucy Parsons died in the fire of her house in 1942, after half a century of intense 
militancy, where she distinguished herself as one of the most important women of the 
American worker and anarchist movement. His books and personal documents were arbitrarily 
seized by police after the fire.

In her defense of the anarchist cause, Parsons came into ideological disagreement with 
other anarchists her contemporaries, including Emma Goldman, due to its option of 
considering the question of higher class to gender issues and the struggle for sexual 
freedom (free love). In the opinion of several historians Emma Goldman and Lucy Parsons 
represent different generations of anarchism in the United States. This fact turned out to 
result in a personal and ideological conflict. Carolyn Ashbaugh * analyzed the differences 
between the two :

"Feminism Lucy Parsons felt that the oppression suffered by women was a direct result of 
capitalism, was based directly on the values ??of the working class. Feminism by Emma 
Goldman was an abstract character of freedom for women in all things, in all times and in 
all places,.. their feminism had a different origin than the working classes Goldman 
represented feminism advocated the anarchist movement of the 1890s [ and later] the 
anarchist Lucy Parsons intellectuals would argue about their attitudes toward the issue of 
women. "

sources:
Anarchists and Libertarian Thinkers militants - Archive Social History Edgar Rodrigues 
(http://www.ebooksbrasil.org/eLibris/pensadoresanarquistas.html # 9)
The Lucy Parsons Center Collective (http://lucyparsons.org/)
" Lucy Parsons " Wikipedia (http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Parsons)

* Carolyn Ashbaugh wrote the book " Lucy Parsons : American Revolutionary " launched by 
the publisher of Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing, 1976 
(http://www.charleshkerr.com/author/46).