May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day, stands as a working-class celebration originating from the Labor Movement.
This May 1, thousands organized across the country to rally against the Trump administration’s attacks against legal and undocumented immigrants, students and workers. The group 50501 rallied people in all 50 states to stand in solidarity with workers across the nation alongside the people of Palestine.
Civic Center Plaza boomed with chants like “When immigrants are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!” “The people united will never be defeated” and “Money for kids and education, not for bombs and deportations.”
Across the Bay Area, rallies and events were held earlier in the day. This rally started at 4 p.m., and over 3,000 people filled the plaza, many toting signs like “Hands off children,” “Labor for Palestine” and “Fund our schools, not the Pentagon.”
Musicians, singers and chanters were abuzz before the rally started in full. Speakers then made their way atop a truck adorned in a banner that read “We Fight Back” to broadcast their messages through amps hooked to the sides of the vehicle.
Roberto Hernandez, who ran for District 9 supervisor last November, kicked things off as he guided the crowd through a ritual, “the four directions,” which holds significance in Lakota culture.
“I want to offer prayers and ask you to join me in offering prayers for all the children right now that are suffering,” Hernandez said. “The ones that have been deported, the ones that are being detained, the ones that are fearful, the ones that are scared… I ask you to take the responsibility to talk to children, to give them hope and to give them courage and to let them know that they are not by themselves.”
Tony Thurmond, the state superintendent of public instruction, took to the mic to stand up for the country’s education department after Trump’s executive order to close it.
“Donald Trump wants to take the money from the Department of Education and give it to all of his buddies, and a tax credit,” Thurmond said. “We are not going to let the U.S. Department of Education get abolished, not on our watch. Education is the backbone of our society. It is how we allow everyone in our community to live the American dream.”
Thurmond also stood in support of immigrants amid deportations.
“We will not allow ICE [Immigrations and Customs Enforcement] to be on our school campuses. Stay away from our schools. I will invite you to court on legislation SB48, that says ICE can never be on a school campus,” Thurmond said. “Give our kids a chance to get an education. Stand up for education, we’ll fight for education.”
Speakers received thundering cheers from the audience. When District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder took to the stage, she emphasized the history of workers and how past struggles tie into San Francisco’s current status as a sanctuary city.
“Today is one day in a long history of a fight for workers, for immigrants, that started so long ago,” Fielder said. “Immigrant workers have always been the backbone of the United States, of California, of San Francisco. It is immigrant hands that have tilled our fields, harvested our food and built our roads. It is labor power, people power, immigrant power, that has pushed this city and my colleagues, all of us, to stand by unanimously behind our city as a sanctuary city.”
Fielder continued speaking to an enlivened crowd as she brought up labor struggles of the past and present.
“Our fight is a fight for workers’ rights, for our labor, for freedom of expression, freedom of speech. Our fights are intertwined,” Fielder said. “We absolutely need to remember that we stand together against the corporations and the billionaires trying to raid public office, not just in D.C., but here in the city of San Francisco.”
Ramsey Robinson, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, closed out the rally. Robinson underscored the undervaluing of laborers and their labor as a central part of the entire May Day event.
“If the saying is true that ‘you are what you repeatedly do,’ it says what I’ve done repeatedly since I was 15 years old, and every year of my life after that, is work,” Robinson said. “All of us here today, that makes us, more than anything in our lives, workers… There’s nothing wrong with work, but if we look all around us, all that we see is built by and run by workers. Is that right?”
After Robinson wrapped up, attendees marched down Market Street with the truck leading the path.
A call and response echoed through Civic Center Plaza as volunteers shining with neon vests guided thousands of attendees to Embarcadero Plaza.
“Who got the power?”
“We got the power!”
