May Day
The term
May Day can refer to any of several
holidays celebrated on
May 1 or in the beginning of
May.
There are several traditional secular, Christian, and
Pagan holidays by this name. Their common element is the commemoration the height of spring or coming summer. The earliest May Day celebrations appeared in pre-
Christian Europe, as in the
Celtic celebration of
Beltane, and the
Walpurgis Night of the
Germanic countries. Although the Pagan oriented celebrations faded as Europe became Christianized, a more secular version of the holiday continued to be observed in the schools and churches of Europe well into the 20th century. In this form, May Day may be best known for it's tradition of dancing the
Maypole and crowing of the
Queen of the May. Today many
Neopagans, especially
Wiccans, celebrate reconstructed versions of the old Pagan holidays on May 1st, most often calling their Holy Day after the ancient Celtic Beltane.
Internationally however, among non-Pagans, May Day is now more commonly celebrated as a commemoration of the
Haymarket Riot of 1886 in
Chicago, Illinois,
United States which occurred on May 1st. The date consequently became established as a
socialist holiday during the
20th century, and in these circles it is often known as
International Workers' Day or
Labour Day. In this form, May Day has become an International celebration of the social and economic achievements of the
working class and
labor movement.
International Workers' Day (a name used interchangeably with
May Day) is the commemoration of the
Haymarket Riot of 1886 in
Chicago, and a celebration of the social and economic achievements of the international
labor movement. May Day commonly sees organized street demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of working people and their
labor unions throughout
Europe and most of the rest of the world â€" though, as noted below, not in either the
United States or
Canada. More
radical leftist groups such as
communists and
anarchists are also given to widespread street protest and violence on this day as well.
The
1 May date is used because in
1884 the
Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, inspired by labor's
1872 success in Canada, demanded an
eight-hour workday in the
United States to come in effect as of
May 1,
1886. This resulted in a
general strike and the riot in Chicago of 1886, but eventually also in the official sanction of the eight-hour workday.
In
1889, the first congress of the
Second International called for international demonstrations on the
1890 anniversary of the Chicago riot. These were so successful that May Day was formally recognized as an annual event at the International's second congress in
1891. The
May Day Riots of 1894 and
May Day Riots of 1919 occurred subsequently.
In
1904 the International Socialist Conference meeting in
Amsterdam called on "all Social-Democratic Party organizations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on May First for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace." As the most effective way of demonstrating was by strking, the congress made it "mandatory upon the proletarian organizations of all countries to stop work on May First, wherever it is possible without injury to the workers."
May Day has long been a focal point for
demonstrations by various
socialist,
communist, and
anarchist groups. In some circles, bonfires are lit in commemoration of the
Haymarket Riot usually right as the first day of May begins. [
1]
In countries other than the
United States and
Canada, resident
working classes fought hard to make May Day an official holiday, efforts which eventually largely succeeded. For this reason, in most of the world today, May Day is marked by massive street rallies led by workers, their
trade unions and various
socialist and
communist parties.
The
Red Scare periods ended May Day as a mass holiday in the United States, somewhat ironic given that May Day originated in Chicago.
Image:1Mai-Berlin.jpg|Graffiti in Kreuzberg, Berlin: "May 1st: Cars burn, pigs die".Image:Agartala-mayday151.jpg|May Day meeting in Agartala, IndiaImage:1maj medborgare2006.jpg|May Day demonstration in Stockholm, Sweden, 2006Image:1maj2006soc.dem.sthlm.jpg|Social Democratic May Day demonstration in Stockholm, Sweden, 2006Image:1majmumbai.JPG|A May Day rally in Mumbai.Image:Pflpmayday2005.jpeg|PFLP May Day posterImage:Forstamaj.jpg|A rally in Stockholm, Sweden 1899.Image:1 May Polish PRL poster.jpg|1st May poster, Communist Polandhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4961554.stm - Asia's May Day
People's Republic of China
May Day is still a particularly important official holiday in the remaining
communist states. In the
People's Republic of China, International Workers' Day marks the start of one of the country's three so-called
"seven-day holidays". Three days holiday are given, and the surrounding weekends are re-arranged so that workers in Chinese companies always have seven continuous days of holiday starting on the first and ending on the seventh. This holiday, known as "Wu Yi" (äº"一, literally "5.1") also includes
Youth Day on May the 4th, and is the peak period for Chinese citizens to travel around China and abroad.
May Day received a similar degree of acknowledgement during the existence of the
Soviet Union, where its celebrations often consisted of large
military parades and state-organized popular demonstrations. China and
Cuba tend to follow suit.
Germany
Berlin,
Germany traditionally has yearly leftist demonstrations on May Day. There is little political or religious connection to the
Walpurgisnacht celebrations that are traditional on the night before May Day in the Brocken mountains. The Berlin demonstrations became yearly riots during the
1980s. While left wing socialist groups still demonstrate on May Day, it has also become a focal point for the NPD (
Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands), an extreme right wing nationalist party, and for
Neo-Nazis. Some
Burschenschaft (university fraternities) are also connected to the NPD. The NPDs most likely choose May 1st to demonstrate to antagonize the left wing socialists by appropriating their holiday. Streetfighting frequently occurs between the right wing Neo-Nazis and NPD and the strongly anti-Nazi and anti-nationalist left wing demonstrators, often associated with the
punk rock subculture. As the years go on, the Berlin May Day rioting has become less overtly political and more oriented towards generally destructive behavior by individuals with little interest in politics, though political demonstrators are still a factor.
Berlin rioters have been dealt with severely by police, though in recent years an official nonescalation policy was implemented, which seems to have reduced the overall level of May Day violence in Berlin.
United States
The United States has its own
special Labor Day celebrated on the first Monday in
September instead of on May Day. Many Americans are not even aware that May 1 is when Labour Day is celebrated throughout the rest of the world. However, in
2006, May 1st was chosen by
immigrant groups in the
United States as the day for the
Great American Boycott, an attempted
general strike of immigrant workers to protest
H.R. 4437. In various news media, the strike actions were publicly said to have been timed to coincide with International Workers' Day â€" one of the few known modern instances where this day was mentioned by this name in the U.S. press. Other news media somewhat erroneously used the term "Mexican Labor Day".
In the United States, various efforts to officially switch Labor Day to the international date of May 1 have failed.
The U.S. version of Labor Day was a creation of the 1880's
Knights of Labor and was adopted officially in 1887 in the U.S. in an attempt to disassociate labor activism from the
radical left. In 1958, President
Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed May 1st both as
Loyalty Day and as
Law Day. Each year, the sitting president proclaims these observances on May 1st.
Canada
When socialist delegates in
Paris in 1889 appointed
May 1 as the official International Labour Day, the
Government of Canada — fearing that allowing the proclamation to take hold in Canada might strengthen the socialist movement — quickly moved in
1887 to support the position of the
Knights of Labor and their September date for
Labour Day. The date was adopted in Canada in
1894 by the government of
Prime Minister John Sparrow David Thompson. Another major reason for keeping the current September date is economic: the
United States celebrates its Labor Day on the same day, reducing possible inconvenience for businesses with major operations on both sides of the border.
The origins of Labour Day in Canada can be traced back to a printer's revolt in 1872 in
Toronto, where labourers tried to establish a 54-hour
work week. At that time, any union activity was considered illegal and the organizers were jailed, at the behest of
George Brown. Protest marches of over 10,000 workers were formed in response, which eventually led to
Prime Minister Sir
John A. Macdonald repealing the anti-union laws and arranging the release of the organizers as well.
United Kingdom
In the
United Kingdom in recent years the
anti-capitalist movement has organised a number of large protests in
London,
Glasgow,
Edinburgh and
Doncaster. In London these have resulted in clashes with the police. (see footage [
2]) In 2000 the clashes ended with a branch of
McDonalds being smashed and a statue of
Winston Churchill being given a grass
mohawk as a protest at his alleged crimes, the
Cenotaph was also defaced with
graffiti (See [
3])
The last few years, however, have seen little trouble, with protests consisting of peaceful marches and gatherings, particularly in central London. (See [
4]) This downturn in civil disorder is usually attributed to either popular distaste at the events of 2000 or a tougher stance by the British government on violent protest, or a combination thereof. This process has been satirised by the
Space Hijackers who in
2006 organised a
Mayday Police victory partyNew Zealand and Australia
In
New Zealand Labour Day is a public holiday held on the fourth Monday in October â€" but the traditions of this October day are borne of International Workers' Day and are not the situation of Canada or the United States.
The origins of this day in New Zealand are traced back to the eight-hour working day movement that arose in the newly founded
Wellington colony in 1840, primarily because of carpenter
Samuel Parnell's refusal to work more than eight hours a day. He encouraged other tradesman to also only work for eight hours a day and in October 1840 a workers' meeting passed a resolution supporting the idea. On
28 October 1890, the 50th anniversary of the eight-hour day was commemorated with a parade. The event was then celebrated annually in late October as either
Labour Day or
Eight-Hour Demonstration Day. In 1899 government legislated that the day be a public holiday from 1900 onward. The day was celebrated on different days in different provinces. This led to ship owners complaining that seamen were taking excessive holidays by having one Labour Day in one port and then another in their next port. In 1910 the government
"Mondayised" the holiday so that it would be observed on the same day throughout the nation. See:
Labour Day: A History - from NZHistory.net.nzIn
Australia, the Labour Day public holiday is fixed by the various
states and territories' governments. Depending on the territory in question, the celebrations involved may or may not be connected to International Workers' Day. The day is on the first Monday in October in the
Australian Capital Territory,
New South Wales and
South Australia, while in
Western Australia, Labour Day is the first Monday in March, and in both
Victoria and
Tasmania, it is the second Monday in March (Tasmania calls it Eight Hours Day). In both
Queensland and the
Northern Territory, Labor Day is the first Monday in May (though the Northern Territory calls it May Day}.
Jamaica
In
Jamaica Labour Day is a public holiday held on 23 May, which is the anniversary of a speech made in 1938 in Kingston by
Alexander Bustamante regarding workers rights and the strikes that were occurring throughout Jamaica. The strikes began at Frome Sugar Estate in Westmoreland and the Kingston docks three days earlier. The events surrounding this speech played a pivotal role in the rise of trade unionism in Jamaica. See:
Equal Rights and Pay: The Founding of the BITU and the JLP - from www.jamaica-gleaner.com.
It was the
Nazis, not the
social democratic parties of the
Weimar Republic, who made May Day a holiday in
Germany, calling it the "day of work", which is its official name in the country. Through this proclamation, the Nazis tried to take up the connotations of International Workers' Day, but did not permit
socialist demonstrations on this day. Instead, they adapted it to
fascist purposes. Then, on May 2, 1933, the Nazis outlawed all free
labour unions and other independent workers' organizations in Germany, which subsequently formed their own secret amalgamation.
In the
United States,
Labor Day is celebrated on the first Monday in
September instead of on May 1st. This Labor Day was a creation of the 1880's
Knights of Labor and was adopted officially in 1887 in the U.S. in an attempt to disassociate labor activism from the
radical left. In 1958, President
Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed May 1st both as
Loyalty Day and as
Law Day. Each year, the sitting president proclaims these observances on May 1st.
Canada follows a similar course. While Labour Day parades and picnics are organized by unions, many Canadians simply regard Labour Day as the Monday of the last long weekend of summer. Non-union celebrations include picnics,
fireworks displays, water activities, and public art events. Families with school-age children take it as the last chance to
travel before the end of summer. Some teenagers and young adults view it as the last weekend for parties before returning to school.
In a separate May Day-related proclamation, the
Roman Catholic Church added another
Saint Joseph's Day in
1955 that
Christianized 1 May as the day of "
Saint Joseph, the Worker".
In
Poland, May 1 was renamed "State Holiday" in
1990;
see: Holidays in Poland.
€uroMayDay is a recent attempt to "update" May Day for
pan-european purposes. Since
2001, €uroMayDay has become part of the celebration of the first of May, but its point of reference is not the working class; rather, it is those Europeans who feel anxious about their social position or "
precarity." EuroMayDay claims to create visible opposition against this precarization of labour and life.
€uroMayDay originated in
Milan, Italy, from where it first spread to
Barcelona in
2004 and then to over a dozen cities all over
Europe in
2005. In 2005, approximately 200,000 people took part in the Europe-wide €uroMayDay. In 2005, the €uroMayDay network used the slogan
Precarious people of the world, let's unite and strike 4 a free open radical Europe. An estimated 200,000 partcicpants were involved in a number of cities restricted to
Western Europe. By
2006 many people who were previously enthusiatic about the concept no longer wished to be involved.
May Day is a
cross-quarter day, associated with the
Celtic festival of
Beltane and the
Germanic festival of
Walpurgis Night. May Day falls exactly half of a year from
November 1, another cross-quarter day which is also associated with various northern European
pagan and
neopagan festivals such as
Samhain. May Day marks the end of the uncomfortable winter half of the year in the Northern hemisphere, and it has traditionally been an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations, regardless of the locally prevalent political or religious establishment.
As Europe became Christianized, the pagan holidays lost their religious character and either morphed into popular secular celebrations, as with May Day, or were given new Christian interpretations while retaining many traditional pagan features, as with
Christmas,
Easter, and
All Saint's Day. Beginning in the
20th century, many
neopagans began reconstructing the old traditions and celebrating May Day as a pagan religious festival once more.
Roodmas was an explicitly Christian mass celebrated in Britain at midnight on May 1st, presumably to diminish the popularity of traditional Walpurgis Night celebrations.
Traditional English May Day
rites and
celebrations include
Morris dancing, crowning a
May Queen, celebrating
Green Man day and dancing around a
Maypole. Much of this tradition derives from the
pagan festival of
Beltane. May Day has been a traditional day of festivities throughout the centuries. It is most associated with towns and villages celebrating springtime fertility and revelry with fetes and community gatherings. Perhaps the most significant of the traditions is the May Pole, around which traditional dancers circle with ribbons. The May Day
Bank Holiday was traditionally the only one to affect the
state school calendar, although new arrangements in some areas to even out the length of
school terms mean that the
Good Friday and
Easter Monday Bank Holidays, which
vary from year to year, may also fall during term time.
Also, the 1st May 1707, was the day the
Act of Union came into effect, joining
England and
Scotland to form the
Kingdom of Great Britain.
=
Padstow in Cornwall holds its annual '
Obby-Oss' day of festivities. This is believed to be one of the oldest fertility rites in the country; revellers dance with the Oss through the streets of the town and even through the private gardens of the citizens, accompanied by accordion players and followers dressed in white with red or blue sashes who sing the traditional 'May Day' song. The whole town is decorated with springtime greenery, and every year thousands of onlookers attend.
=
In Oxford on
May Morning, many
pubs are open from sunrise, and some of the college bars are open all night.
Madrigals are still sung from the roof of the tower of
Magdalen College, with thousands gathering on
Magdalen Bridge to listen. Traditionally, revellers have jumped from the bridge into the
River Cherwell below as part of the celebrations. About one hundred people did this in 2005. The river, however, was then only three feet deep in places and more than half of those who jumped needed medical treatment. In 2005, people suffered injuries ranging from broken ankles and legs to back injuries and large gashes on the bottom of feet.
St Andrews has a similar student tradition — some of the students gather on the beach late on April 30th and run into the
North Sea at sunrise on the 1st, occasionally naked. This is accompanied by torchlit processions and much celebration.
Germany
In rural regions of Germany,
Walpurgisnacht celebrations of pagan origin are traditionally held on the night before May Day, including
bonfires and the wrapping of
maypoles, and young people use this opportunity to party, while the day itself is used by many families to get some fresh air, wurst and beer. Motto: "Tanz in den Mai!" (
"Dance into May!").
The Americas
May Day was also celebrated by some early
European settlers of the
American continent. In some parts of the
United States (and possibly
Holland), May Day baskets are made. These baskets are small and usually filled with treats are left at someone's doorstep. When you ring the bell, you are supposed to run away. If you are caught then the other person gets to kiss you.
In
Hawaii, May Day is also known as
Lei Day, and is normally set aside as a day to celebrate island culture in general and native Hawaiian culture in particular. While it was invented by a poet and a local newspaper columnist in the 1920's, it has since been adopted by state and local government as well as by the residents, and has taken on a sense of general spring celebration there. The first Lei Day was proposed in 1927 in Honolulu. Leonard "Red" and Ruth Hawk composed "May Day is Lei Day in Hawai‘i," the traditional holiday song. Originally it was a contemporary
fox trot, later rearranged as the Hawaiian
hula song performed today.
Modern May Day ceremonies in the U.S. vary greatly from region to region and many unite both the holiday's
Green Root (pagan) and
Red Root (labor) traditions. Among the larget is the May Day Parade and
Pageant created by
In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, an event that has happened every year since 1974 in
Minneapolis and now attracts some 35,000 people.
For Additional Political and Ideological References:
*
Industrial Workers of the World*
Lustleigh May DayFor Additional Secular and Religions Holiday References:
*
May crowning*
May Queen*
Maypole*
Beltane*
Sabbat (neopaganism)*
Wheel of the Year*The Ritual Occasions heading under
Wicca*
Some photographs about the french May Day in Paris 2006*
Magdalen College description of May Morning in Oxford*
May Day: Festival for the Workers,
Keith Flett,
Socialist Review, May
2002
