August 21 Emma Goldman's Speech

On this day in Labor History the year was 1893. 

That was the day that workers-rights and women’s rights activist and anarchist Emma Goldman gave a speech in New York City. 

Emma Goldman was born in what is today Lithuania. 

She came to the New York in 1885, where she built a reputation as a powerful speaker. 

In New York she addressed a crowd of between 3,000 to 4,000 unemployed workers in Union Square.  

The country was at the beginning of a depression that would sweep the nation. 

Working families were finding it harder and harder to put food on the table.

By the end of 1893 unemployment would soar to nearly twenty percent. 

Undercover agents at the rally reported that Emma had urged the crowd to take bread from the capitalists “by force.” 

Goldman recounted saying, “Well then, demonstrate before the palaces of the rich, demand work.  If they do not give you work, demand bread.  If they deny you both, take bread.”

Ten days later Emma was arrested in Philadelphia for her comments at the New York rally. 

She was sentenced to a year in prison. 

After she was released, Emma traveled to Vienna to study medicine. 

She returned to the United States to continue her lectures on workers’ and women’s rights. 

She spoke out about the need for women to have access to contraception, an opinion that could arouse a backlash at that time. 

Emma was arrested multiple times for daring to speak out on controversial issues. 

In 1919, during the height of the Red-Scare anti-communist hysteria, Emma Goldman was deported to the Soviet Union. 

Emma was courageous defender of free speech. Often called "the most dangerous woman in America"