On this day, 30 May 1937, the Memorial Day Massacre occurred when Chicago police opened fire on a peaceful march of striking steel workers, their families and supporters. The police murdered 10, shot, beat and hospitalised many others, nine of whom were permanently disabled.
One woman participant, Lupe Marshall, testified to a Senate committee about her experiences: “I was aware that my head was bleeding. I noticed that my blouse was all stained with blood, and that sort of brought me to, and I started walking slowly toward the direction from which a policeman had just clubbed an individual, and this individual dragged himself a bit and tried to get up, when the policeman clubbed him again. He did that four times… Then he took him by the foot and turned him over. When the man finally fell so he could not move, the policeman took him by the foot and turned him on his back, and started dragging him. As he turned over, I noticed that the man’s shirt was all blood stained here on the side, so I screamed at the policeman and said, ‘Don’t do that. Can’t you see he is terribly injured?’ And at the moment I said that, somebody struck me from the back again and knocked me down. As I went down somebody kicked me on the side here, a policeman kicked me on the side here.”
No police were prosecuted, and the press called it a “red riot”.
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