Last week, we joined thousands of people across our country who were rising up and demanding an end to the Trump Administration’s racist and unjust policies!
We stood in the shadow of massive May Day Mobilizations, which date back to 1886 in Chicago, when workers called for a general strike in support of an eight-hour workday. Soon after, it was adopted by workers throughout the world, becoming a global worker holiday by 1890, and was a regular day of worker action into the mid-1900’s.
Eleven years ago, in 2006, May Day was revived by the immigrant rights community, and immigrant and union activists have continued to stand together on May 1st each year.
The Workmen’s Circle’s progressive Jewish community was proud in 2017 to be standing strong across the United States with a coalition of immigrant rights and labor organizations, all of us responding to an urgent call to action—as we have done since our founding more than a century ago–when we ourselves were a new immigrant community rising up each May Day.
As I said when speaking from the stage before thousands of people gathered on Foley Square last week: When he seeks to divide, we rise up to unite.
The oppression that the President and his administration are spreading harms us all! But it is especially cruel to our immigrant community with its ongoing threat to tear apart families. And we can never forget the terrible impact it is having on immigrant children, many of whom are living in constant fear of being separated from their parents.
Standing beside me on the stage in Foley Square were three students from our Workmen’s Circle Midtown School. I was so proud to introduce Ben, a fifth grader in our school, who spoke passionately—to a crowd of more than 10,000 activists—in support for our immigrant brothers and sisters. Ben’s speech—which you can see in this video—was simply inspiring.
As we said from the stage, we will fight Trump’s attacks on immigrants and his inhumane deportation orders. We will fight his attempt to build a border wall and close our borders to those who need us most. We will fight his attacks on our right to collectively bargain. And, we will fight at every turn his agenda of hatred and exclusion.
This May Day, we delivered a message that we will continue to rise up against intolerance, divisiveness and hatred: We are not backing down! We are here to resist and resist and resist—today, tomorrow, next week, and next month. As long as it takes.