1937 Memorial Day massacre

The incident arose after U.S. Steel signed a union contract but smaller steel manufacturers (called 'Little Steel'), including Republic Steel, refused to do so. In protest, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) called a strike.

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| image1 = Victim of Chicago steel strike riot. Washington D.C. June 30. Attending today's hearing of the Senate Civil Liberties Committee, Harry Harper of Chicago, claims he was a vicitim of the LCCN2016871938.jpg

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| caption1 = A victim of the incident waits to testify before the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee of the U.S. Senate (June 30, 1937)

| image2 =Senate Civil Liberties Hearing. Washington, D.C., July 2. The Senate Civil Liberties Committee played to a full house today as they screened the moves of the Memorial Day Chicago riot at the LCCN2016871947.jpg

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| caption2 = Paramount News footage of the 1937 Memorial Day massacre screens before the La Follette Committee (July 2, 1937)

| image3 =Defends Chicago police in strike riot tactics. Washington, D.C., June 30. Testifying before the Civil Liberties Committee today, Capt. John C. Prendergast chief of the uniformed force of the LCCN2016877934.jpg

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| caption3 = Chicago police defend their riot tactics at a hearing before the La Follette Committee (June 30, 1937)

| image4 =Testimony of Chicago cop climaxes stormy session of Civil Liberties Committee. Washington D.C. July 1. Testimony of Sergt. Lawrence Lyons, Chicago police officer in charge of one of the LCCN2016871945.jpg

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| caption4 = A Chicago police sergeant clashes with chairman Robert M. La Follette Jr. during testimony before the Senate Civil Liberties Committee (July 1, 1937)

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On Memorial Day 1937, unionists, their families and sympathisers gathered at Sam's Place, a former tavern and dance hall at 113th Street and Green Bay Avenue, that served as the headquarters of the SWOC.{{Cite journal |last=Quirke |first=Carol |date=2008 |title=Reframing Chicago's Memorial Day Massacre, May 30, 1937 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40068502 |journal=American Quarterly |volume=60 |issue=1 |pages=129–157 |doi=10.1353/aq.2008.0009 |jstor=40068502 |s2cid=144193808 |via=J-Stor}}{{cite book|last=Dennis|first=Michael|title=The Memorial Day Massacre and the Movement for Industrial Democracy|publisher=Springer|location=New York, New York|date=2010|page=115|isbn=978-0-23-011472-2}} There was an outdoor picnic lunch, speakers, and songs, and some estimate the crowd was between 1,500 to 2,500 including picketers and their families, strike sympathizers, and curious passersby. The crowd began to march across the prairie towards the Republic Steel mill to picket, but a line of roughly 300 Chicago policemen blocked their path.{{Cite journal |last=Quirke |first=Carol |date=2008 |title=Reframing Chicago's Memorial Day Massacre, May 30, 1937 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40068502 |journal=American Quarterly |volume=60 |issue=1 |pages=129–157 |doi=10.1353/aq.2008.0009 |jstor=40068502 |s2cid=144193808 |issn=0003-0678}} The foremost protestors argued their right to continue.The American Century, Harold Evans, Jonathan Cape, London, 1998 p. 278 The police fired on the crowd.{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}} As the crowd fled, police shot and killed ten people, four dying that day and six others subsequently from their injuries. Nine people were permanently disabled and another 28 had serious head injuries from police clubbing.

Dorothy Day, who was present, wrote: "On Memorial Day, May 30, 1937, police opened fire on a parade of striking steel workers and their families at the gate of the Republic Steel Company, in South Chicago. Fifty people were shot, of whom 10 later died; 100 others were beaten with clubs."Dorothy Day, Selected Writings

Ten union demonstrators were killed:{{cite book|last=White|first=Ahmed|title=The Last Great Strike: Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley, Calif.|date=2016|page=143|isbn=978-0-52-028561-3}}{{cite web|title=District 7 SOAR holds Annual Commemoration of 1937 Republic Steel Memorial Day Massacre|last=Marshall|first=Scott|url=https://www.usw.org/news/media-center/articles/2018/district-7-soar-holds-annual-commemoration-of-1937-republic-steel-memorial-day-massacre|website=United Steelworkers|date=June 6, 2018|access-date=May 31, 2019}}{{cite book|last=Dennis|first=Michael|title=Blood on Steel: Chicago Steelworkers and the Strike of 1937|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|location=Baltimore, Maryland|date=2014|page=59|isbn=978-1-42-141018-0}}{{cite news|last=Avila|first=Larry|title=2007 Legends inductees 'Memorial Day Massacre' victims|newspaper= The Times of Northwest Indiana|date= December 10, 2017|url= https://www.nwitimes.com/legends-inductees-memorial-day-massacre-victims/article_8d92d548-f707-5cc6-819a-f6a89319d8e6.html|access-date= June 2, 2019}}

• Hilding Anderson, 27, Burnham, Illinois (USW Local 65) (died as a result of his injuries June 3, 1937)
• Alfred Causey, 43, Chicago, Illinois (USW Local 1010)
• Leo Francisco, 17, Chicago, Illinois (Western Union) (died as a result of his injuries June 15, 1937)
• Earl Handley, 37, East Chicago, Indiana (USW Local 1010)
• Otis Jones, 33, Lincoln, Illinois (USW Local 1033) (died as a result of his injuries June 8, 1937)
• Sam Popovich, 45, East Chicago, Indiana (USW Local 1010)
• Kenneth Reed, 23, East Chicago, Indiana (USW Local 1010)
• Joseph Rothmund, 48, Chicago, Illinois (WPA) (died as a result of his injuries May 31, 1937)
• Anthony Tagliori, 26, Chicago, Illinois (USW Local 1033) (died as a result of his injuries June 1, 1937)
• Lee Tisdale, 50, Chicago, Illinois (USW Local 1011) (died as a result of his injuries on June 19, 1937)

In the wake of the massacre, newsreel footage of the event was suppressed for fear of creating, in the words of an official at Paramount News agency, "mass hysteria." Initial news coverage of the event instead framed the crowd as a violent threat to social order, arguing that police merely acted in self-defense. Still photographs were published in major newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune along with captions such as: "At the Height of the Battle--Here are policemen using their nightsticks and tear gas to subdue the attackers."{{Cite journal |last=Quirke |first=Carol |date=2008 |title=Reframing Chicago's Memorial Day Massacre, May 30, 1937 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40068502 |journal=American Quarterly |volume=60 |issue=1 |pages=129–157 |doi=10.1353/aq.2008.0009 |jstor=40068502 |s2cid=144193808 |issn=0003-0678}} Paramount did release edited clips from the newsreel footage of the massacre that portray the crowd as threatening and riotous.

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Years later, one of the protesters, Mollie West, recalled a policeman yelling to her that day, "Get off the field or I'll put a bullet in your back." No policemen were ever prosecuted.

A Coroner's Jury declared the killings to be "justifiable homicide." The press often called it a labor or red riot. President Franklin Roosevelt responded to a union plea, "The majority of people are saying just one thing, ‘A plague on both your houses.’"The American Century, Harold Evans, Jonathan Cape, London, 1998 p. 279

A memorial plaque at the base of a flagpole with the names of the 10 people who were killed is located at 11731 South Avenue O, the former United Steel Workers Local 1033 union hall, which is now occupied by the United Auto Workers Local 3212. Thirty years to the day of the massacre, it was dedicated on May 30, 1967. As of November of 2021, the flagpole base with plaque is still at the Avenue O location, but the flagpole is missing. The United Steel Workers/United Auto Workers building at the site is occupied by someone, but there was no signage anywhere.

The Republic Steel Memorial Day Massacre Sculpture, created by former Republic Steel employee Edward Blazak, was dedicated in 1981. Originally located near the main gate at 116th Street and Burley Avenue, it was rededicated in 2008 and relocated to 11659 South Avenue O, at the southwest corner of the grounds of a Chicago Fire Department station housing Engine #104.{{cite web|title=Memorial Day Massacre|url=http://www.illinoislaborhistory.org/labor-history-articles/memorial-day-massacre|website=Illinois Labor History Society|date=22 January 2016 |access-date=June 1, 2019}}

• Republic Steel Strike Riot Newsreel Footage (1937 documentary film)
• Chicago in the 1930s
• Murder of workers in labor disputes in the United States
• List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States
• List of homicides in Illinois

• Auerbach, Jerold S. Labor and Liberty: The La Follette Committee and the New Deal. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1966.
• Baughman, James L. "Classes and Company Towns: Legends of the 1937 Little Steel Strike." Ohio History. 87:2 (Spring 1978).
• Bernstein, Irving. The Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941. Paperback edition. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1970. {{ISBN|0-395-11778-X}} (Originally published 1969.)
• Blake, Benjamin. "Ohio's Steel Mill War The Little Steel Strike of 1937." Crooked River. December 2001.
• Brooks, Robert R. As Steel Goes... Unionism in a Basic Industry. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940.
• Dennis, Michael J., "Chicago and the Little Steel Strike," Labor History 53 (Spring 2012): 167-204.
• Dennis, Michael J. The Memorial Day Massacre and The Movement for Industrial Democracy. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010.
• Quirke, Carol. "Reframing Chicago's Memorial Day Massacre, May 30, 1937." American Quarterly 60.1 (2008): 129-157. [https://www.academia.edu/download/33007543/reframing_memorial_day_massacre.pdf online]
• Sofchalk, Donald G. "The Chicago Memorial Day Massacre: An Episode of Mass Action." Labor History. Winter 1965.
• Speer, Michael. "The 'Little Steel' Strike: Conflict for Control." Ohio History. Autumn 1969.
• Stolberg, Benjamin. "Big Steel, Little Steel, and C.I.O." The Nation. July 31, 1937.
• White, Ahmed. The Last Great Strike: Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America. University of California Press, 2016, pp. 130–146. [https://archive.org/details/lastgreatstrikel0000whit_e2f9 online]

• Mitchell, Greg. MEMORIAL DAY MASSACRE: Workers Die, Film Buried (2023) A Companion to the 2023 PBS Film) [https://www.amazon.com/MEMORIAL-DAY-MASSACRE-Workers-Companion/dp/B0C2SMCSFY/ excerpt]
• Pursuant to S. Res. 266 (74th Congress). A Resolution to Investigate Violations of the Right of Free Speech and Assembly and Interference with the Right of Labor to Organize and Bargain Collectively. Part 14: The Chicago Memorial Day Incident. Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor. United States Senate. Seventy-Fifth Congress, First Session. June 30, July 1 and 2, 1937. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1937.

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• [https://web.archive.org/web/20140228084227/http://www.illinoislaborhistory.org/memorial-day-massacre.html "Memorial Day Massacre of 1937." Illinois Labor History Society. no date]
• [https://jacobinmag.com/2017/05/memorial-day-massacre-little-steel-strike-violence-police Memorial Day, 1937]. Jacobin. May 29, 2017
• [https://chicagology.com/notorious-chicago/1937steelriot/ 1937 Memorial Day Steel Mill Riot] at Chicagology

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Category:Anti-union violence in the United States

Category:Labor disputes led by the United Steelworkers

Category:Riots and civil disorder in Chicago

Category:Massacres of protesters in the United States

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Category:Police brutality in the United States

Category:Chicago Police Department

Category:Mass murder in Illinois

Category:Labor disputes in Illinois

Category:1937 labor disputes and strikes

Category:Massacres in 1937

Category:1937 riots

Category:1937 in Illinois

Category:May 1937 in the United States

Category:Mass murder in the United States in the 1930s

Category:Mass shootings in Illinois

Category:1930s mass shootings in the United States

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