05/01/2026
Blessed Beltane ❤️🔥🌸 and Full Moon in Scorpio! 🌕♏️🦂🌀 // Happy May Day, the original Labor Day, and Blessed Be this day of the General Strike! 🔥
On this day, 140 years ago, the American Federation of Labour proclaimed by resolution that “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labour.” Workers came together across race, language, and cultural barriers in the months leading up to that date—drawn into the struggle for a shorter workday.
The day that the resolution took effect, hundreds of thousands of workers were out in the streets on strike. Chicago was the epicenter, where 40,000 workers were striking, with anarchists in the forefront of the public’s eye. The names of many—Albert Parsons, Johann Most, August Spies and Louis Lingg—became household words in Chicago and throughout the country. Parades, bands and tens of thousands of demonstrators in the streets exemplified the workers’ strength and unity.
Two days later, May 3, 1886, workers called for a public meeting to address escalating police brutality and the murder of two striking workers that occurred the day prior. Police marched on the meeting, a bomb was thrown, and police began shooting into the crowd, killing an estimated seven or eight civilians, and wounding up to forty.
Eight anarchists—Albert Parsons, August Spies, Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe, Michael Schwab, George Engel, Adolph Fischer and Louis Lingg—were arrested and convicted of murder, though only three were even present at Haymarket and those three were in full view of all when the bombing occurred. On November 11, 1887, after many failed appeals, Parsons, Spies, Engel and Fisher were hung to death.
Ironically, May Day is an official holiday in 66 countries and unofficially celebrated in many more, but rarely is it recognized in this country where it began.
May all Martyrs be honored and may all systems of oppression and cruelty crumble and succumb to the fire of transformation; may their ashes be used as compost, alchemized for tending to the fields of a new reality that yearns to blossom.
(Content adapted from: https://archive.iww.org/history/library/misc/origins_of_mayday/)
