Labor Day
Labor Day was first celebrated in 1882. And on September 5th of that year the first Labor Day parade was held in New York City. After a mass meeting in Union Square* 20,000 cheering and singing workers marched up Broadway with banners that read:
EIGHT HOURS FOR WORK;
EIGHT HOURS FOR REST;
EIGHT HOURS FOR RECREATION!
LABOR CREATES ALL WEALTH
THE TRUE REMEDY IS ORGANISATION
AND THE BALLOT
The demands raised at that first Labor Day celebration seemed visionary and caused the editor of TheNew York Times to warn that an 8-hour day would bankrupt industry and that the resulting idleness would increase crime. But labor has marched a long way since then and without the dire results predicted.
The idea of Labor Day spread rapidly from city to city, from coast to coast. One state after another declared the first Monday in September a legal holiday, and in 1894 the Congress of the United States made it a national holiday.
For many years Peter J. McGuire — the first general secretary of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America — was considered to be the father of Labor Day. However, it is now recognised that Matthew Masuire, a militant leader of a local machinist union, both suggested the idea of Labor Day at the May 7 meeting, and secured passage of a resolution that he circularise all unions to take part in the parade.
But the whole story about Labor Day does not end with Maguire. There is stiH another founder of Labor Day — a Black man.
His name was John P. Green. After graduation from high school, he studied law and was elected Justice of the Peace for three successive terms. In 1881, he was elected to the lower house of the state legislature. He was the first Black to serve in the state senate. In the legislature, he championed civil rights and introduced the state Labor Day Bill. It became law in 1890, making him known as the “Daddy of Labor Day’’.
Thus was Labor Day born — with black and white hands at its cradle.