Thousands of people joined demonstrations across the United States Thursday for May Day, widely celebrated as International Workers’ Day around the world. Protesters rallied for the rights of workers, immigrants and Palestinians, with much of their anger directed at the Trump administration and the “billionaire takeover” of Washington, D.C. This is Layan Fuleihan, education director at The People’s Forum.

Layan Fuleihan: “What the Trump administration is doing right now is, in fact, trying to reorganize the system of governance and the organization of society in the United States, that would actually take more wealth from the working class to line the pockets of the billionaire class. He’s trying to aggregate powers into the executive branch. He’s doing this by attacking hundreds of thousands of federal workers, attacking unions, stripping people of their bargaining rights and going after all of the small concessions that the ruling class has been forced to give the people of the United States because of the pressure that came from grassroots struggles over the past decades.”

In Philadelphia, police arrested 70 people for blocking a highway as part of May Day protests, while Senator Bernie Sanders rallied protesters outside Philadelphia’s City Hall as part of his Fighting Oligarchy tour.
In Maryland, 16-year-old high school student Zion Parras joined protests in Baltimore.

Zion Parras: “I’m here because my friends and my family and my community have seen the injustices that have occurred because of the second Trump administration. And we believe that as students with voices, that we should be able to stand up and fight for those rights.”