“This is the happiest day of my life.”

— Adolph Fischer, convicted of murder, hanging, Illinois.
Executed November 11, 1887

An anarchist and labor union activist, Fischer was present at an organizing meeting the night before what has been called the Haymarket Square Riot, Haymarket Massacre, or Haymarket Tragedy. At this rally in Chicago’s Haymarket Square, a few thousand people showed up to protest the killing of two workers the previous day, when police had broken up a clash between union workersand their replacements at a local reaper factory. In the square, someone threw a bomb that killed police officer Mathias J. Degan and incited a riot. Officers fired into the crowd. Some accounts say police shot back at armed members of the gathering; others say it was unclear why the officers fired. The Chicago Herald newspaper estimated at least fifty civilian dead, while the Chicago Tribune reported, “A very large number of the police were wounded by each other’s revolvers.”

Seven more officers would die of wounds sustained during the incident. No single person was clearly proved to be the bomb thrower, but German immigrant Fischer was held responsible for the event, along with seven other men.

Haymarket became a symbol of the labor rights struggle and helped set May 1 as International Labor Day.

“I just want to tell my family I love them, and I thank the Lord Jesus for giving me another chance and for saving me.”

— Anthony Cook, convicted of kidnapping and murder, lethal injection, Texas
Executed November 10, 1993

Upon Cook’s arrest, he wore the watch and carried the wallet of law student David Dirck VanTassel, the man Cook and an associate kidnapped and who Cook shot four times in the head.  After his conviction, he later refused the opportunity for his lawyers to seek an appeal for his death sentence.  Born in Louisiana, Cook claimed to have found Christ and was prepared to die.

“It’s in God’s hands now.”

— Nat Turner, convicted of murder, hanging, Virginia.
Executed November 11, 1831

Born a Virginian slave in 1800, Turner witnessed a solar eclipse, which he took as a sign from God that he should strike out against slavery. From childhood Turner believed he was “intended for some great purpose.” In 1831 in Southampton, Virginia, he led one of the largest U.S. slave uprisings, in which more than fifty-five whites and two hundred slaves died. Turner hid in the woods for more than two months after the revolt but was hanged, beheaded and skinned two weeks after his capture. Reportedly, fifty-five slaves were executed by the state in retribution for the revolt.