Organizers of this year’s May 1 protests expected to draw record-breaking crowds. Weeks before the nationwide protests took place, activists predicted that as many as 400,000 would turn out to demonstrate across the United States. With the ongoing resistance to President Donald Trump, organized labor took the reins to show the current administration that the groups it’s vilifying and adversely affecting with its policies form the backbone of the country. Though these march highly focuses on the undocumented community, it also includes women, workers, and LGBTQ rights, according to the New York Times.
Though it’s still too early to tell if today’s marches set records, there’s a sense that people feel charged up to resist Donald Trump’s vision for the United States. “There’s a real galvanization of all the groups this year,” Fernanda Durand of CASA in Action told USA Today. “Our presence in this country is being questioned by Donald Trump. We are tired of being demonized and scapegoated. We’ve had enough.”
Every president since Dwight D. Eisenhower has acknowledged May Day, which spawned from a May 1, 1886 protest in Chicago, where workers fought for an eight-hour workday. As Trump, like Obama before him, celebrated “Loyalty Day” – or a day to “recognize and reaffirm our allegiance to the principles” of the country – protesters gathered in Washington D.C., New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and many more cities. As the hashtag continues to go strong on social media platforms, here are 30 of the most powerful images and videos from the #MayDay2017 protests: