It’s May Day!
In Portland, that usually means there’s a massive downtown march or rally planned to celebrate International Workers Day—usually fueled by socialist and immigrants’ rights groups.
Portland made national headlines last May when the annual downtown march turned violent, leaving broken store windows and piles of burning street debris in its wake. The Portland Police Bureau called it a “riot,” and ended up arresting 25 participants, including three on felony charges. The event quickly became a favorite example for right-wing commentators (hello, Infowars) looking to denounce the Antifa movement that’s grown on the heels of Donald Trump’s 2016 election win.
This year’s planned festivities look a little different.
The group behind last year’s rally, the May Day Coalition, has organized a “family-friendly” event at Lents Park to kick off around 3 pm today. According to the coalition, the event will feature speeches by founding members of Portland’s Black Panther Party, members of the Burgerville Workers Union, representatives for the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines, and others. There is no march associated with this east side event.
This year’s event was planned to avoid some of last year’s drama. According to a spokesperson for the Portland May Day Coalition, the group made an “intentional strategic decision” to move the celebration to the east side to avoid the march-permitting process and potential police violence. This decision was not the result of any infighting within the Portland May Day Coalition, the spokesperson stressed.
While this may be this year’s main (and sanctioned) May Day event, we’re not convinced it’s the only action that local socialist and anarchist groups will be taking today. We’re keeping an eye out for more fringe-y celebrations (more paint gobs on cop cars, perhaps?) as the day progresses.
