Anyone who attended yesterday’s May Day celebration was aware of a heavy police presence around the event.
The event was a peaceful picnic and showed no signs of being otherwise. The large number of police hovering around can only be understood as intimidation. The police presence prevented members of the local community from enjoying their own park.
Police will do whatever they can to stifle the working class’s self determination. Nothing frightens them more. Nothing reminds them more of their complicity in state violence and class warfare than a holiday that celebrates the working class’s martyrs, achievements, and culture.
If May Day and the celebration of the working class weren’t threats to established oppressors, Donald Trump wouldn’t be trying to popularize May 1st as Loyalty Day, a holiday invented by and not heard of since the Eisenhower administration. The Richmond Democratic Socialists of America, along with every group in attendance at the May Day Celebration, are loyal only to the working class and to our vision of a better society free from capitalism, and we believe that message is stronger than those who would stifle it.
Every successful May Day event reminds the police and their bosses of two facts: we will not be silenced, and we will win.
Solidarity forever!