May Day, Everyday

What’s May Day??? 

May Day has been the day of celebration for the class which creates all that is necessary to live and to live well, the working class. This day has been largely ignored here in the United States. Traditionally the date of May 1st was set by workers' organizations as a day of work stoppage in the fight for the eight-hour workday. In the United States this was historically tied to the general strike of 1886. On Saturday, May 1, thousands of workers around the United States went on strike and marched under the slogan "Eight Hours for work. Eight hours for rest. Eight hours for what we will." Nearly half a million workers from Chicago to New York, to Milwaukee to Detroit marched in solidarity. In Chicago this is often remembered as leading to the infamous Haymarket Affair in which a bombing took place at a labor demonstration four days later, May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois. Eight anarchists would be framed and convicted of conspiracy though only two of the eight were even at the Haymarket at the time and the two could not even be connected to the throwing of the bomb. Seven were sentenced to death and one to a term of 15 years in prison. Eventually four were monstrously hanged on November 11, 1887, one would commit suicide while in prison and the remaining three would remain wrongfully convicted until their pardon in 1893.

In commemoration of the general strike and those workers targeted and imprisoned Socialist organizations and trade unions demonstrate on the First of May for the material demands of the working class, the demand for a living wage, a respectable and decent job, and a Democratic way of life which has shown to be unattainable under the rule of landlords, bankers and bosses embodied within the economic system of Capitalism.  

In efforts to encourage working people to forget this history President Grover Cleveland signed a law making the first Monday in September of each year a national holiday to remove any association of the original May Day. Much later in 1958 President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared May 1 "Law Day" dedicated to the principles of law and order, and in 2021 President Joe Biden declared May 1st "Loyalty Day" further burying the history of the working people in their struggle.  

Many Americans have not forgotten this history, and those committed to Socialism and Democracy still gather to continue the struggle. Today, we remember those working-class fighters that came before us who fought persecution and imprisonment in the battle for Democracy that can only be won with a Workers' Government.