The Day Will Come
First issued in 1994, this Illinois Labor History Society publication contains a map and brief biographies of the men and women who are buried or have their ashes scattered alongside the Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument. The title of the booklet "The Day Will Come" comes from the inscription at the base of the Haymarket Martyrs Monument: "The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today." These were the last words spoken by August Spies from the gallows. Spies is among the five Haymarket Martyrs who are buried at the monument.
A collective effort
The Haymarket Martyrs Tour was developed with the input of numerous people. Joe and I referred to ourselves as "seat-of-the-pants historians" or "citizen historians." What this shows is that if one has a true passion for a project and persistence--one can make a contribution to history.
Putting this booklet together was frustrating and fun--it was Pandora's Box for progressives! We made many dramatic discoveries, some inadvertently, and then there are even more stories untold that were just a few steps away from where our search ended.
The first edition
Joe Powers and I authored the first edition of The Day Will Come in 1994. For many years, we had taken friends to nearby Forest Home Cemetery to tour the Haymarket Monument and nearby gravestones. We would tell stories of the Haymarket Affair, the frame-up of the activists, the fight for the eight-hour workday, and of all the progressive people that are buried or who have their ashes scattered alongside the monument. They were communists and socialists, trade unionists, anarchists, and unaffiliated activists and humanists – some of whom clashed on the issues of their day but all of whom regarded the cause for which the Haymarket Martyrs died as a unifying force.
One day, Joe stopped by my house and said, "Let's update the Bill Adelman book on the history of the Haymarket – Haymarket Revisited and gather additional biographies on the radicals buried near the Monument." So began our two-year journey through decades of working-class movements.
The second edition
I knew the booklet, The Day Will Come, needed to be updated for the 125th Anniversary of May Day. Only this time, the booklet and tour are dedicated to Joe Powers who died in 2001. In this updated version, you will find additional biographies, a more detailed map, and updated information about the cemetery. We have compiled brief biographies of each activist buried, interred, or whose ashes were scattered near the monument. Much more could have been told about each person. Family members provided invaluable information, as did volunteer researchers, librarians specializing in history and organizations, to make this edition even more detailed and historically accurate. This edition is available for purchase at the cemetery, and can also be found at the Historical Society of Forest Park bookstore.
