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Hidden with code "Submitted as Feature" |
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News :: Labor : Organizing |
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Solidarity shines through on a rainy May Day |
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by Sharkey
(No verified email address) |
02 May 2005
Modified: 10:14:26 PM |
SUNDAY, May 1st- A rainy May Day kept many marchers away but a small and jubilant crowd of celebrants gathered for a march called by BAAM in downtown Boston.
To the peal of a bugle call, marchers waving Anarcho-syndicalist Black and Red flags, beating on plastic drums, and chanting took to the streets. The crowd left the Boston Common, wound around the public garden, and enthusiastically sounded out chants down Newbury.
Along the way standers-by were handed informative, well written flyers about the history of May Day and the Haymarket Martyrs. One group of men, looking haggard and dusty from a morning’s work, read the flyers intently while waiting for a bus. They each admitted it was the first time they had ever heard of the international labor day. |
Others, who did not come close enough to get the flyers, were left curious. One Ms. LaMarche, who stood by to watch the spectacle near Emerson College, almost guessed it, “May day, I know… I know it’s something, but I can’t remember, what is it?”
After passing through the crowd of chanting anarchists, a group of kids carried a stack of May Day flyers and handed them out to everyone they saw in pure imitation. When asked if they knew what they were doing, they replied, “No!” in unison. When asked if they knew what people were marching for, one offered, “Is it because they don’t want to work?” Needless to say, those kids suddenly found themselves in an urgently needed history class.
Police seem to have given in to rallies on May Day. In years past as few as 20 revelers have taken to the streets with no problems, at other times hundreds have shown up making an impressive spectacle. Even when this year’s march halted and about faced to avoid a construction crane, no effort to curtail or guide the march was made. In contrast to the recent March 20th anti-war protest where they pushed a protestor and sparked a short melee and four arrests, police were well behaved.
At the end of Newbury St., near the Hynes convention center the marchers thoughtfully disbanded so that many among them could attend the Immigrants rally without bringing a big crowd of cops along.
(Pictures will follow soon) |
This work is in the public domain |
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