In the Memorial Day massacre of 1937, the Chicago Police Department shot and killed ten unarmed demonstrators in Chicago, on May 30, 1937. The incident took place during the Little Steel strike in the United States.
The incident arose after U.S. Steel signed a union contract but smaller steel manufacturers (called 'Little Steel'), including Republic Steel, refused to do so. In protest, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) called a strike.
On Memorial Day 1937, unionists, their families and sympathisers gathered at Sam's Place, a former tavern and dance hall at 113th Street and Green Bay Avenue, that served as the headquarters of the SWOC. There was an outdoor picnic lunch, speakers, and songs, and some estimate the crowd was between 1,500 to 2,500 including picketers and their families, strike sympathizers, and curious passersby. The crowd began to march across the prairie towards the Republic Steel mill to picket, but a line of roughly 300 Chicago policemen blocked their path. The foremost protestors argued their right to continue. The police fired on the crowd. As the crowd fled, police shot and killed ten people, four dying that day and six others subsequently from their injuries. Nine people were permanently disabled and another 28 had serious head injuries from police clubbing.
Dorothy Day, who was present, wrote: "On Memorial Day, May 30, 1937, police opened fire on a parade of striking steel workers and their families at the gate of the Republic Steel Company, in South Chicago. Fifty people were shot, of whom 10 later died; 100 others were beaten with clubs."
Ten union demonstrators were killed:
Hilding Anderson, 27, Burnham, Illinois (USW Local 65) (died as a result of his injuries June 3, 1937)
Alfred Causey, 43, Chicago, Illinois (USW Local 1010)
Leo Francisco, 17, Chicago, Illinois (Western Union) (died as a result of his injuries June 15, 1937)
Earl Handley, 37, East Chicago, Indiana (USW Local 1010)
Otis Jones, 33, Lincoln, Illinois (USW Local 1033) (died as a result of his injuries June 8, 1937)
Sam Popovich, 45, East Chicago, Indiana (USW Local 1010)
Kenneth Reed, 23, East Chicago, Indiana (USW Local 1010)
Joseph Rothmund, 48, Chicago, Illinois (WPA) (died as a result of his injuries May 31, 1937)
Anthony Tagliori, 26, Chicago, Illinois (USW Local 1033) (died as a result of his injuries June 1, 1937)
Lee Tisdale, 50, Chicago, Illinois (USW Local 1011) (died as a result of his injuries on June 19, 1937)
In the wake of the massacre, newsreel footage of the event was suppressed for fear of creating, in the words of an official at Paramount News agency, "mass hysteria." Initial news coverage of the event instead framed the crowd as a violent threat to social order, arguing that police merely acted in self-defense. Still photographs were published in major newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune along with captions such as: "At the Height of the Battle--Here are policemen using their nightsticks and tear gas to subdue the attackers." Paramount did release edited clips from the newsreel footage of the massacre that portray the crowd as threatening and riotous.
Years later, one of the protesters, Mollie West, recalled a policeman yelling to her that day, "Get off the field or I'll put a bullet in your back." No policemen were ever prosecuted.
A Coroner's Jury declared the killings to be "justifiable homicide." The press often called it a labor or red riot. President Franklin Roosevelt responded to a union plea, "The majority of people are saying just one thing, ‘A plague on both your houses.’"