Why we celebrate May Day

May Day is a holiday rooted in the history of collective worker action. But that’s not all it symbolizes. 

The brave organizers who, 140 years ago, fought for an eight-hour workday in Chicago sparked a flame that still carries on today. Across the globe, May 1 is celebrated as International Workers’ Day. This day stands as a commemoration of the sacrifices those organizers — and the generations who came after — made to improve the lives of working people everywhere. 

It also represents a fight for a different vision of society: one where the working-class majority strips power away from the ultra-rich who hold sway over our politics and economy. This is so we can make the decisions that impact our lives, not a billionaire minority. That’s the vision In These Times has advanced for 50 years, ever since the publication’s founding in 1976. 

As a movement journalism outlet, In These Times is amplifying the voices helping drive the revival of May Day as a pro-worker day of both protest and celebration. We’ve published pieces from leaders of the groups behind the growing May Day Strong coalition, and we’ll continue to always cover stories from the perspective of workers, never the bosses. 

We are only able to make this type of journalism possible because of the support of readers like you who value independent media that’s free from corporate control. Today you can show that support by making a tax-deductible donation to In These Times.

This year, protesters will be taking to the streets in more than one hundred cities and towns throughout the United States, both reclaiming May Day’s too-often forgotten history of class warfare from below and demanding a future free from enforced drudgery at work, inhumane policies that ravage our communities, and the Trump administration’s increasingly authoritarian rule.

At a time when billionaires are gobbling up more and more of this industry, In These Times stands as an uncompromising independent outlet that champions labor organizing as a key vehicle for social change. Playing that role hasn’t won us friends among the capitalist power brokers, but we know it’s more important than ever to have a media that holds the powerful to account, and that tells the inspiring stories of working people fighting back against injustice — and winning. That’s what In These Times exists to provide. 

May Day has also traditionally been celebrated as a spring holiday marking rebirth and renewal. This year, working people across the country and the globe will be renewing the potency of solidarity against division, and carrying on the centuries-long fight for justice, for freedom, for life. 

As Marxist historian historian Peter Linebaugh wrote decades ago in A May Day Meditation: ​“With our comrades we remember recent victories, and we mutter against, and curse, our rulers. We take a few minutes to freshen up our knowledge of what happened there in Chicago in 1886 and 1887 before striding out into the fight of the day.”

Let’s stride together today. With your support, In These Times will continue to be a press not for the billionaires, but for the workers of the world.