Comic Strips

Sometimes I think a lot of people just aren’t paying attention in class.

Or...in a country as big as the US there are many differing levels of education depending on where the school is located and how rich the zip code is.

Some people may have been taught this and others weren't.

I was in AP US History so yes we talked about Pinkerton battles and all that, but it really falls on deaf ears for high schoolers. Once you become an adult and participate in the workforce, we should have to learn it again. America needs to celebrate its socialist and worker's rights cultures, but it doesn't by design.

I wasn't taught past WWII in public high school.

This was for an AP US History class, so the teacher was teaching to the test... And of course, whoever controls the test controls what's taught.

And that is deliberate

The history of that is pretty straightforward:

• In 1886, the Chicago labour unions organized for protests on May 1 to demand an 8 hour day
• On May 3rd strikers tried to confront strike breakers, police fired into the crowd of strikers, killing some
• An anti-police, anti-big-business rally was organized for the next day in Haymarket Square
• The May 4th rally was mostly peaceful, but there were police standing by
• At 10:30 the police moved in en masse to break up the rally
• As the police advanced, someone (it was never determined who) threw a homemade bomb into the path of the advancing police, killing 1 and injuring many
• There was a huge gun fight, involving some protesters and a lot of police, many more people were killed, including police, many shot by their own fellow cops
• The bomb throwing was blamed on the anarchists, the anarchist leaders were rounded up, found guilty in quick and massively unfair show-trials, and hanged
• There was massive backlash against the unions and the anarchists, and the cause of the 8 hour work day was massively set back
• Labour unions kept fighting for an 8 hour day, and decided to keep the May 1st date for their actions, with the first being 4 years later on May 1, 1890, but this time it was international, with strikes in Europe, Central and South America
• As a movement representing workers, communist parties around the world adopted May Day as a significant day
• After WWII, the US was in full-on anti-communist mode, and May Day came to be seen as a communist holiday, so they moved it to September 1st and made May 1st "Loyalty Day" instead.

Edited to add: the only really confusing part about the whole thing is the names. One of the main guys involved was named "Spies", and another peripheral figure was named "Most". That makes it really confusing when you get phrases like "Most thought hat..." or "Spies believed..."

Does China celebrate or even acknowledge the Tiananmen Square Massacre? Same thing

Yeah I agree mostly, but also it is actually a different time in many ways. The same problem and solution are still there and the American public should do more, but there are some significant differences.

Great question, and I'm also curious. Something worth researching.

That's US. American exceptionalism!