19371776 Club
Chicago police open fire on steel strikers; four lie dead in the grass at Republic's South Chicago mill
The march began as a picnic, with families and songs, but 300 officers block the road and the shooting starts before the afternoon is out.
The picnic started peacefully enough — families, songs, speeches, and a march across the prairie toward Republic Steel's South Chicago mill. When a line of roughly 300 Chicago police blocked the way on May 30, 1937, the demonstrators argued their right to proceed. The police fired. By the end of the afternoon, four people lay dead in the grass; six more would die of their wounds in the weeks that followed. Not one officer was ever prosecuted…
