The Graphic History Collective is pleased to release Volume 2 of The Little Red Colouring Book, just in time for May Day 2017.
The activist colouring book is available as a FREE DOWNLOAD. Volume 1, which focuses on labour activists, is also available for FREE DOWNLOAD.
Volume 2 focuses on the Haymarket Martyrs. Many people are not aware that May Day, International Workers’ Day, or May 1, commemorates the 1886 Haymarket affair. The event involved eight anarchists in Chicago who were wrongly convicted of throwing a bomb at police during a labour demonstration in support of workers striking for the eight-hour day. On shaky evidence, seven men (Samuel Fielden, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer, August Spies, George Engel, Michael Schwab, and Louis Lingg) were sentenced to death while another (Oscar Neebe) was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Of the eight men, four were executed by hanging. As historian Mark Leier explains in the afterword of this colouring book, the Haymarket affair played an important role in shaping the development of the left in North America and the world. Activists today can similarly reflect on and learn from the lessons of Haymarket and its legacy to struggle for a better world.
We hope that this activist colouring book, created by donated union labour from members of the Graphic History Collective, will help people de-stress and relax but also inspire folks to use the radical past as a resource to guide our struggles for social transformation today.
In love and solidarity,
The Graphic History Collective