The Radical Origins of May Day, International Workers’ Day

By Felicia Gustin
Millions of people and hundreds of unions and organizations across the U.S. are gearing up for a massive May 1st day of non-cooperation—No Work! No School! No Shopping! In our previous blog, we explored what non-cooperation means and laid out the goals of May Day, International Workers' Day 2026.

As we look to the future, it’s worth revisiting the roots of this day and how it still inspires movements across the globe. Sparked by the state killing of U.S. labor leaders in the fight for the 8-hour workday, May Day continues to be celebrated nearly 150 years later, even without recognition as an official holiday in the U.S.

Chicago 1887

“If you think by hanging us, you can stamp out the labor movement, the movement from which the downtrodden millions who toil in want and misery, expect salvation—if that is your opinion, then hang us! Here you will tread upon a spark, but there and there, behind you and in front of you, and everywhere, flames blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out.”

Those words of labor leader August Spies were uttered from the gallows where he and three others—George Engel, Albert Parsons, and Adolph Fischer—were hung in Chicago on November 11, 1887.

Their deaths did, in fact, ignite what today is celebrated worldwide on May 1st as International Workers’ Day.

It all began in Chicago when labor leaders and anarchist organizers held a protest in Haymarket Square on the evening of May 4th, 1886. Several thousand people showed up to denounce the police killings of six striking workers at a McCormick Harvesting Machine Factory the day before.

That strike was part of a growing labor movement for better working conditions that emerged in the years following the Civil War. At the time, workers in the U.S. averaged 10-hour workdays and labored six days a week, often for very low pay and often in dangerous conditions—injury and death were common."

There were widespread strikes and slow-downs as the demand for the 8-hour day spread across the United States. The response from employers was brutal. Union supporters were fired, lockouts were widespread, and strikebreakers were brought in. Police, along with private security forces like the Pinkertons, were used to violently break up strikes. Newspapers amplified the anti-worker positions of the bosses. In Chicago, tens of thousands of German and Eastern European immigrant workers fueled labor’s demands for better working conditions.

Haymarket Square
It was against this backdrop that the Haymarket Square protest was called. It was peaceful, with a number of speakers addressing workers’ grievances from a wagon that served as the stage. A large group of police watched from the periphery. As the final speaker, Samuel Fielden, was addressing the dwindling crowd, the police marched into the square, demanding that people disperse. “But we are peaceful,” Fielden pleaded, just as someone threw a bomb into the ranks of the approaching police, killing a sergeant. Police then opened fire on the crowd, killing 11 people (seven of them policemen), with as many as 70 people reported wounded.

A brutal anti-union hysteria followed, with police raiding homes and offices of dozens of labor and anarchist activists. Many people were arrested without any connection at all to what went down at Haymarket Square. Newspapers whipped up sensationalist stories about anarchist bombers who sought to undermine civil society.

In the end, seven men were charged for the death of the one policeman killed by the bomb, even though only two of them had even been present when the bomb went off: Samuel Fielden and August Spies. The others—Albert Parsons, Michael Schwab, Louis Lingg, George Engel, and Adolph Fischer—were indicted for their associations and known militant radicalism.

On November 11, 1887, after many failed appeals, Parsons, Spies, Engel, and Fisher were hung to death. Lingg reportedly committed suicide in his cell, and the remaining organizers were pardoned six years later thanks to a worldwide movement on their behalf.

The Haymarket affair sparked protests across the country. There was a funeral march of 25,000 in Chicago alone. As the late historian Howard Zinn wrote in his seminal book, A People’s History of the United States, “It seemed that the weight of Haymarket had not crushed the labor movement. The year 1886 became known to contemporaries as ‘the year of the great uprising of labor.’”

International Workers’ Day Goes Global

It wasn’t just in the United States that the Haymarket martyrs inspired the workers’ movement. On July 14, 1889, leaders from organized labor and socialist movements from 20 countries meeting in Paris, the “Second International,” voted to designate May 1, 1890, as International Workers’ Day, calling for worldwide demonstrations for the 8-hour workday.

The resolution also honored the memory of the Haymarket martyrs. International Workers’ Day, May Day, was officially born: the following year, demonstrations took place in dozens of countries where it became an annual event, still celebrated to this day.

“The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!" August Spies’ prophetic words from the gallows still ring true across continents and decades.

May Day 2026
Over a century later, millions of us have pledged to continue the struggle for social, racial, and economic justice, incorporating non-cooperation into May Day.  This year we’re flexing our collective muscle by committing to the call—No Work! No School! No Shopping! Together we’ll send a message to the Trump regime that the spirit of the Haymarket martyrs lives on and that people power is taking on the billionaires. Join Us!

Sign the May Day Pledge!   

Learn more about the Oakland Mobilization led by Sin Fronteras. Follow Sin Fronteras on Instagram

Join the SURJ Contingent at May Day in Oakland!

Learn about the San Francisco Mobilization from Bay Resistance.

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