What to the Black Man or Woman is Labor Day?

Apologies to Frederick Douglass for paraphrasing the title of his famous speech, "<a href="https://medium.com/black-history-month-365/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july-db22f64163e7" rel="noopener">What to the Slave is the Fourth of July</a>?" As was the case with the Fourth of July holiday, Black people didn't share equally in the holiday's creation. We start with the origin of Labor Day. The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City. It was organized by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Labor_Union" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Central Labor Union</a>, which later evolved into the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFL-CIO" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">AFL-CIO</a>—between 10,000–20,000 members marched through lower Manhattan in a parade celebrating the contribution of labor in building America. Labor Day celebrations spread quickly through America. At the same time, labor strikes, organized opposition, and violence against workers occurred. <img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:875/1*vE_OjCpYWIgG66GUO-CkfA.jpeg" style="height:458px; width:700px" /> By Author not known, but more than 100 years old, Image edited — <a href="http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/history/hist225g/images/WCF26.html" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/history/hist225g/images/WCF26.html</a>, Public Domain, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4415760" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4415760</a> On May 3, 1886, Chicago police killed and wounded several workers at the McCormick Reaper Works. Six workers were killed when police attacked unarmed strikers. German immigrant August Spies immediately published a "Workingmen, to Arms" leaflet in the Arbeiter-Zeitung, an anarchist newspaper he edited. A demonstration protesting the killings by police was organized for the following evening at Haymarket Square on Desplaines Street. <a href="https://medium.com/afrosapiophile/what-to-the-black-man-or-woman-is-labor-day-bed2625f6581">Visit Now</a>