Autobiography

Albert Richard Parsons (1848-1887) was an anarchist labor activist, hanged under doubtful circumstances following a bomb attack on police at the Haymarket Riot. At age 13, in 1861 he volunteered to fight for the Confederacy in the American Civil War. His first military exploit was on the passenger steamer Morgan where he made a trip into the Gulf of Mexico and intercepted and assisted in the capture of General David E. Twiggs's army which had evacuated the Texas frontier and headed to Indianapolis to leave for Washington, DC. He became a Radical Republican and pushed for equal rights for blacks, in a newspaper called The Spectator which he published. Later he became the editor of the radical journal the Alarm. It was in Chicago that Parsons developed his anarchist (libertarian socialist) ideas, became a labor activist, and eventually became a founding member of the International Working People's Association (IWPA).