Makayla Walker waves a Black Lives Matter flag during a caravan to celebrate May Day, also known as International Workers Day, in Downtown Oakland. Photo by Zack Haber on May 1st.
Hundreds of workers and a coalition of over 25 Bay Area groups celebrated May Day in Oakland with a car / bike caravan, block party, and an art installation that explored ways of opening and occupying vacant housing units.
The celebration started as about 80 vehicles and about 40 people on bicycles gathered at Lake Merritt’s Bart Station. Standing on a flatbed truck behind a red and white sign that read “MAY DAY WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE,” Minister Cherri Murphy, with Gig Workers Rising, was the first to address the crowd.
May Day 2021 – International Workers’ Day!
By Martha Grevatt posted on May 4, 2021
May Day began in the U.S. in 1884 after labor federations called for worker strikes and protests for the eight-hour day. 400,000 workers answered the call countrywide on May 1, 1886. That year eight worker organizers, some immigrants, were arrested and framed for the May 4 bombing of a Haymarket Square rally in Chicago. Five were sentenced to death; four were executed and a fifth died in his cell. An 1889 international socialist conference declared May 1 International Workers Day, in part to honor the Haymarket Martyrs. The day was revitalized in the U.S. in 2005 by the Black-led Million Worker March, and in 2006 by the Latinx immigrant workers’ mass strike. In 2021 the day was commemorated around the world; Workers World Party helped organize a number of actions across the U.S.