1937 Memorial Day Massacre

On Memorial Day, May 30, 1937, striking steelworkers, their families, and sympathizers gathered at Sam's Place, a former tavern serving as headquarters for the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), near 113th Street and Green Bay Avenue in Chicago. The gathering, estimated at between 1,500 and 2,500 people, included an outdoor picnic, speeches, and songs. The strike had begun after U.S. Steel signed a union contract with SWOC, part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), while smaller manufacturers known as "Little Steel," including Republic Steel, refused to sign, prompting the strike.

The crowd began marching across open ground toward the Republic Steel mill to picket. A line of roughly 300 Chicago police officers blocked their path. After protestors at the front of the march argued for their right to continue, police opened fire on the crowd. As people fled, police continued shooting, ultimately killing ten people — four on the day of the event and six more who died in the following weeks from their injuries. Nine additional people were permanently disabled, and 28 others suffered serious head injuries from police clubbing. Witness Dorothy Day, who was present, wrote that fifty people were shot, of whom ten later died, and about 100 others were beaten with clubs.

The ten people killed were identified as Hilding Anderson, Alfred Causey, Leo Francisco, Earl Handley, Otis Jones, Sam Popovich, Kenneth Reed, Joseph Rothmund, Anthony Tagliori, and Lee Tisdale, most of whom were affiliated with local steelworkers' union chapters.

In the aftermath, newsreel footage of the event was reportedly suppressed out of concern it would create "mass hysteria," according to an official at Paramount News. Initial newspaper coverage, including in the Chicago Tribune, framed the crowd as violent, with photograph captions describing police as "subduing" attackers. Paramount later released edited newsreel clips portraying the crowd as riotous.

A Coroner's Jury ruled the killings "justifiable homicide," and no police officers were ever prosecuted. Press coverage at the time often described the event as a labor or "red riot." President Franklin Roosevelt, responding to a union appeal, remarked, "The majority of people are saying just one thing, 'A plague on both your houses.'"

Decades later, survivor Mollie West recalled a police officer threatening to shoot her if she did not leave the field. A memorial plaque listing the names of the ten victims was dedicated on May 30, 1967, at the site of the former United Steel Workers Local 1033 union hall. A separate memorial sculpture created by former Republic Steel employee Edward Blazak was dedicated in 1981 and later relocated in 2008.