Thread by @45thabsurdist

May Day is Saturday, & we’re terribly excited. It’s been 2 years since we had one. A bunch of folks might not know about May Day. So welcome: May Day is one of the fun holidays. (A thread)

May Day is, legit, about as close to an Anarchist festival day as you get. It’s got all the holiday traditions: you spend time with distant relatives, you sing the traditional songs, chant the chants. Someone might ceremonially break something.

May Day (this version of it) started in Chicago in 1886. It is not an exaggeration to say that nearly every other country in the damn world celebrates it. The US doesn’t. Because the United States might be more than a little scared of what May Day implies. officeholidays.com/byday/labour-d…

In its weird way, May Day is the annual acknowledgment that the labor movement knows who its friends are.

135 years ago, 7 Anarchists died for organizing a labor strike for the 8 hour day.

So once a year, the Transit Workers and the SEIU will march with the Black Bloc.

Speaking of 8 hour days, fuck work and all, but May Day also serves as a reminder that, 135 years ago, last time we had capitalism this unfettered, organizing for an 8 hour day would get you fucking executed.

Or shot by cops. Because that’s what happened on the first May Day.

The first May Day was a labor rally on May 1st. Coulda been a one-off.

Instead, a strike kicked off on the 3rd, and Chicago PD got jumpy, and started firing into the crowd of strikers.

The next day, August Spies and Albert Parsons spoke at a rally against police violence.

The rally was peaceful & uneventful. Even the mayor of Chicago (who stopped by) said so.

Albert, Lucy, Lizzie Holmes & August Spies all went home.

Later that night, as the crowd was dwindling, Chicago PD arrived and attempted to forcefully disperse the crowd. A bomb went off.

Correction: 7 were *sentenced* to death. 2 had their sentences commuted. One killed himself in prison awaiting the gallows. And Parsons, Spies, George Engel and Adolph Fischer were hung.

Fischer’s last words were “hurrah for anarchy! This is the happiest moment of my life!”

Anyone who spent last summer at an endless series of rallies called in response to police violence knows how this goes.

Hell, similar things happened twice in portland in the last year. No deaths tho.

Not so in 1886.
one officer down, cops start shooting.

Cops kill 7 people, firing into the crowd. What matters to Illinois is a cop is dead. So they have to kill some Anarchists.

In addition to Spies and Parsons, who had spoken hours earlier, the speaker who was hit by bomb shrapnel while speaking on stage was sentenced to death

The next year, May 1st was declared as International Workers Day. Chicago PD & the carceral system of Illinois managed to brutalize a 1-off labor rally into a global revolutionary holiday.

Many countries have opted to recognize it, give people the day off. Let some steam off.

Not the US though. They’d executed immigrant journalists for speaking at a rally. Kinda hard to soft pedal that into a national holiday whose parade the President can wave at.

So May Day stays close to its roots here.

May Day is the ONLY time that I’ve seen Teamsters, ILWU, the Teachers Union, and blocced-up Anarchists all march in the same parade. The kids in bloc might leave the march at some point, go off and do cool kid shit. Teamsters and ILWU keep with the march...

Cops generally give the Longshoremen some elbow room. ILWU pickets are the only time I’ve seen someone show up to a picket line with a union insignia emblazoned on a shield, carrying a baseball bat.

So the big unions diligently march. And the kids in black run off to do whatever they do. May Day is a proper festival day: once a year, we get to suspend the normal rules, and pretend that we live in a country with a thriving labor movement and a fierce sense of solidarity.

May Day is an Anarchist celebration of solidarity.
because it’s not just about labor rights
(It is)
It’s not just about capitalism.
(It is)
It’s not just about racism.
(It is)
It’s not just about antifascism
(It is.)
And borders, and and the planet, and, and, and

Solidarity is the one thing that Anarchists do. It’s our one move. Anarchism is just looking at the targets of systems of violence, and saying “This shouldn’t be happening to you. This shouldn’t happen to anyone. Let’s stop this shit.”

Lucy Parsons, speaking in Kansas City while her husband waited for execution, said:

“I despise murder. But when a ball from the revolver of a policeman kills it is as much murder as when death results from a bomb.”

Lady did not mince words.

blackpast.org/african-americ…

If you go to any mayday events, you’ll almost certainly hear “solidarity forever.” Or Which Side Are You On. There’s loads of good songs.

But for May Day, nothing beats Bella Ciao.