DC celebrates Mayday with march, festival in Malcolm X Park

On May 1, DC area activists celebrated International Workers' Day with a march into followed by a festival in Malcolm X Park. This was overshadowed by the high drama at the Embassy of Venezuala, and those at the Mayday march closely monitored events there as the appearance of False Ambassador Carlos Vecchio generated warnings of a possible raid.

International Worker's Day commemorates the Haymarket Martyrs, anarchists wrongly convicted for throwing a bomb that killed several cops during the Haymarket Riots on May 4, 1886. Nobody ever found out who threw the bomb. Unions had been on the streets of Chicago fighting for a reduction of factory working hours to 8 hours a day since May 1. This fight was eventually won but not before four activists were EXECUTED for an act it has been conclusively proven they played no role in. The Haymarket Martyers include Engel, Fischer, Parsons, and Spies, who were hanged plus Louis Lingg, who committed suicide in his cell to deny the government their execution. Three of the other defendents were pardoned by the Governor just a few years later, and the case is regarded as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in all US history.

It says much today that all over the world workers celebrate Mayday openly with everything from family friendly festivals (e.g. DC 2019) to raging street battles (e.g the Storming of the Gap DC 2013), while the Chicago police cannot display their statue commemorating their losses at Haymarket openly. Every time that sculpture has been left in a publicly accessable place it has been damaged or destroyed, while police have been powerless to destroy the Mayday celebrations of victory in obtaining the 8-hour workday. The cop statue has been rammed with a streetcar in 1927, blown up twice during the Vietnam War, and finally moved to the lobby of a Chicago police headquarters where it has been ever since.

It is also worth noting that the Haymarket prosecutions had much in common with the failed J20 prosecutions. Having no evidence whatsover of who did what, prosecutors instead built a conspiracy case with novel extensions of previous conspiracy law and court precedent. Unlike J20 they won convictions, only to be considered among the worst of all US miscarriages of justice too late to save those the hangman had murdered. Capitalism has been paying the price ever since. Unions: the folks who brought you the weekend.