Join the May Day Collective in building toward a Festival of Resistance.

The May Day Collective recently formed with the aim of collectively organizing a Festival of Resistance for May 1st in Washtenaw County. Made up of different communities, projects, and political tendencies, we are acting in solidarity with calls issued for A Day Without Immigrants, the Movement for Black Lives, and the Women’s Strike Committee.

The Movement for Black Lives has announced:

Fifty years ago in Dr. King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech he called for us to confront “the fierce urgency of now,” and demand that this country “undergo a radical revolution of values.” In doing so he expanded his civil rights platform. On the anniversary of that speech (April 4th) and on May Day we will go beyond moments of outrage, beyond narrow concepts of sanctuary, and beyond barriers between communities that have much at stake and so much in common. We will strike, rally and resist. Our aim is to build a mighty movement of all people dedicated to freedom. That means we don’t deny our differences, we embrace them and build a movement bold, broad and big enough to include our many realities.

The Women’s Strike Committee has declared:

The violence of ICE against immigrants is part of the systemic police violence against Black people, Latinx and Native Americans, and the mass incarceration of people of color. This violence and systemic sexism and racism oppresses and humiliates women of color, including Native women and immigrant women, every day of our lives. To those who want to narrow down feminism, we say feminism cannot be narrowed down only to demands over reproductive rights and formal gender equality. Feminism is a struggle against poverty, racism and immigration raids…. To those who say immigrants have no right to be here, we say that we have fled countries that were bombed, occupied and impoverished by the US military industrial complex and the brutal governments they imposed or supported. U. S. wars are stealing land and resources, exploiting, raping, imprisoning, and torturing people – from Afghanistan and Iraq to Egypt and Syria, from Palestine and South Sudan to Haiti and Honduras. On May Day we strike to reclaim the wealth we immigrants helped produce and to establish our right to be here.

On May Day here, our Festival of Resistance will celebrate social struggles and liberatory movements, past and present. It will also urge people to engage together in a day of “no work, no school, no shopping, no business as usual,” striking for justice and freedom.

At 1 p.m., we will gather at Liberty Plaza to make signs and banners.

At 2 p.m., we will march through the streets, ending at the UM Diag.

At 2:30 p.m., we will hold an Open University on the UM Diag. All are welcome to contribute to this event by hosting a workshop, creating signs and banners, sharing skills, offering a performance piece, coordinating children’s activities, contributing to a clothing/book swap, giving out free literature/zines, and/or speaking from the soapbox. To support local sanctuary city efforts, those present will also be able to sign up for a Washtenaw County ID. To propose an event for the Open University calendar, please contact the event coordinators.

At 5 p.m., we will move into the streets of Ann Arbor for a block party.

If your group, project, or community would like to join the May Day Collective to help organize the Festival of Resistance, email washtenawmayday@gmail.com.

In addition to these activities, we are interested in composing a “calendar” of local May Day actions. If your group is planning an action for that day in keeping with the “Principles of Solidarity” below and would like to have information about your action included in our calendar, please write a message to us on Facebook or washtenawmayday@gmail.com.

Principles of Solidarity

The May Day Collective has adopted the following principles of solidarity that we hope will guide those who participate in the Festival of Resistance.

* In planning for May Day, we will not coordinate with the city or police in any way, including by requesting permits or sharing march routes ahead of time.

* Our Festival of Resistance is not meant to provide a platform for elected officials, political parties, or their candidates. We are here for working-class and oppressed communities, and want our soapbox to be a platform for those struggling—against capital, the state, and white supremacy—for an egalitarian society.