|
|
May Day - International Workers' Day
May 01, 2016
May Day has been celebrated as a spring festival in the northern hemisphere since ancient times. It was associated with Walpurgis Night celebrations in Germanic countries, with the Roman festival for the goddess Flora, and with the Gaelic Beltane.
Its origins as International Workers’ Day grew out of the 1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago, when a bomb was thrown at police at a rally for the eight-hour day, an act for which four anarchists who were present in the crowd are subsequently hanged. The execution of the four men despite the lack of any evidence linking them to the bombing causes international outrage.
In 1889 the founding conference of the Socialist International called for international demonstrations on May 1, 1890 to commemorate the Haymarket Affair.
The event drew large crowds in several countries, and became an annual affair, as workers in countries around the world began to mark May Day as International Workers' Day. Governments and employers often resisted the recognition of May Day as a holiday, and early May Day marches were frequently attacked by police. In the United States and Canada, governments declared the first Monday in September as a "Labour Day" holiday in order to undermine May Day. In many other countries, workers eventually succeeded in having May Day made an official holiday.
Location:
Website: https://www.connexions.org/CxLibrary/Docs/SeedsofFire-May-01.htm
Categories: Social Change, Social Justice, Alternatives
Back to main calendar listings
Request a username and password to submit your events (free)
Find out about distributing your news releases (membership)
Please note that Calendar listings are submitted by a variety of organizations. Connexions does not endorse events or organizations, and Connexions cannot screen individual listings to ensure that they are accurate, or appropriate for your needs. If you have questions about an event, please contact the sponsoring organization.
Individuals and organizations are welcome to make use of the Connexions Calendar by contributing events or by putting the Calendar, or a link to it, on your website. (Download a banner here or here.) If you would like to contribute to the Calendar on a regular basis, please contact us so that we can arrange to issue you a username and password.
The Calendar is a joint project of Connexions Information Sharing Services and SOURCES. SOURCES helps organizations publicize their issues, get media attention, and send out unlimited media releases: to learn about becoming a SOURCES member see this page or the online form.
Terms of Use: Connexions and the Connexions Calendar exist to support individuals and organizations working for freedom and social justice. We try to feature a wide variety of events and resources reflecting a diversity of viewpoints and approaches to social change within our overall mandate of support for democracy, civil liberties, freedom of speech, universal human rights, secularism, equality, economic justice, environmental responsibility, and the creation and preservation of community. Connexions reserves the right to decline listings on the basis of appropriateness or quality, or if in our judgement they conflict with our policies against hatred, racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism or other forms of discrimination such as those based on gender, sexual orientation, age, and ethnicity.
|
Connect with Connexions
Newsletter Facebook Twitter
|
