Albert Parsons

Albert Parsons
Born	Albert Richard Parsons (1848-06-20)June 20, 1848 Montgomery, Alabama, U.S.
Died	November 11, 1887(1887-11-11) (aged 39) Cook County Jail, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Cause of death	Execution by hanging
Occupation	Printer
Political party	Republican (before 1875) Socialist Labor (1877–1887)
Spouse	Lucy Parsons
Conviction(s)	Conspiracy to commit murder
Criminal penalty	Death
Military career
Allegiance	Confederate States of America
Service / branch	Confederate States Army
Years of service	1861–1865
Unit	"Lone Star Greys"

Albert Richard Parsons (June 20, 1848 – November 11, 1887) was a pioneering American socialist and later anarchist newspaper editor, orator, and labor activist. As a teenager, he served in the military force of the Confederate States of America in Texas, during the American Civil War. After the war, he settled in Texas, and became an activist for the rights of former slaves, and later a Republican official during Reconstruction. With his wife Lucy Parsons, he then moved to Chicago in 1873 and worked in newspapers. There he became interested in the rights of workers. In 1884, he began editing The Alarm newspaper. Parsons was one of four Chicago radical leaders controversially convicted of conspiracy and hanged following a bomb attack on police remembered as the Haymarket affair.