Protesters in a park in Chicago wore shirts urging lawmakers to tax the rich. In Manhattan, they blocked an entrance to the New York Stock Exchange. In Dallas, they showed solidarity with immigrant workers. And in Washington, they appealed for higher wages with a simple chant.
“What’s outrageous? They don’t pay us!”
In dozens of cities across the country on Friday, demonstrators rallied at May Day events to support the cause of workers everywhere and denounce the Trump administration for actions they see as favoring the rich.
Organizers behind the coordinated events, titled May Day Strong, asked participants to abstain from work, school and shopping, and to join protests nationwide, imploring the country to prioritize “workers over billionaires.”
“I took my boys out of school so they can learn that people died to give us these luxuries like a weekend,” said Kate Olsen, a 42-year-old photographer demonstrating in Chicago, referring to the sometimes bloody history of the labor rights movement.
In Washington, Dieter Lehmann Morales, a 34-year-old world history teacher, said he had taken the day off to attend the protest.
“We don’t want this prioritizing of billionaires over the working class that actually built this country,” he said. “But honestly, I just want to be an example for my students, to show them it’s important to stand up.”
Protesters expressed a wide range of grievances, including over the war in Iran, President Trump’s deportation campaign, the rise of A.I. data centers and the need to improve public health.
The activist groups behind Friday’s demonstrations overlapped considerably with those that have organized the ‘‘No Kings’’ protests that have taken place periodically since Mr. Trump started his second term.
Turnout varied from city to city. Several thousand gathered at Union Park on Chicago’s West Side, and protesters packed Washington Square Park in Manhattan. In Washington and Dallas, the events appeared to draw a few hundred.
The coalition behind the May Day Strong events included a long list of labor groups and dozens of chapters of the left-wing Democratic Socialists of America. In Dallas, one protester at City Hall said the event involved about 40 organizations across the area.
Although many events were peaceful, some led to a response by the police. In New York City, officers detained several members of the group after they managed to get behind barricades at the New York Stock Exchange.Chuck Park, a Democrat running for Congress in a Queens district, was also arrested, his campaign said.
A protester in Washington scaled the city’s Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, leading to traffic closures, local media reported. The police said they had sent negotiators to the scene.
The San Francisco police arrested 25 people — including several well known politicians — in connection with the blocking of a roadway at San Francisco International Airport.
Protesters had obtained a permit for a curbside May Day demonstration to call for a better contract for airport workers who clean cabins between flights, push elderly and disabled people in wheelchairs to their gates, load baggage and empty airplane waste.
But when some protesters spilled into the roadway outside the international terminal’s departures area, the police issued a dispersal order and made arrests. Those arrested included Connie Chan, a city supervisor who is running to replace Representative Nancy Pelosi, and Rafael Mandelman, president of the city’s Board of Supervisors.
The police held the detainees at the airport for about an hour before citing and releasing them.
Jane Kim, the former city supervisor who is running for California insurance commissioner, was also arrested. She said in an interview that May Day is a celebration, but also a day on which to fight for workers.
“There’s a growing wealth inequality between billionaires and everybody else,” she said. “We’re seeing more and more billionaires and record profits for corporations while workers are being left behind.”
Friday is International Workers’ Day, a date that many countries have set aside to celebrate working people and that has traditionally served as a day of action for the organized labor movement.
The United States celebrates its own Labor Day on the first Monday of September. But May Day has retained significance in the country as a day of protest for labor unions and activist groups.
The nation has had multiple protests of late. But many participants on Friday said they felt compelled to lend their voices to one more.
“This is the only way I could feel any better about myself going forward,” said James Belez, a 52-year-old organizer with Vocal-NY, a group that helps low-income New Yorkers.
In Dallas, Janiah Benboe, 20, said he felt he had to speak up. “Change doesn’t come from being quiet or scared,” he said.
Reporting was contributed by Eric Berger in New York and Deah Mitchell in Dallas.
