About 100 people joined a May Day protest in downtown Richmond Friday afternoon as part of a national effort organized by Bay Resistance, which pointed to recent actions, such as Trump’s Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act, as a reason to stage a day of “economic non-cooperation.”
The effort, which included the WCCUSD teachers union, United Teachers of Richmond, asked school districts to shut down and consumers to not shop. Also targeted were airports in the Bay Area and shipping operations.
“They want us isolated, paralyzed, invisible,” said Bay Resistance in a press release. “They want us to keep our heads down and try to ride this wave of hate out. But history shows us: the communities that stayed silent did not stay safe. The communities that organized together, that knew their neighbors, that stood together, those are the communities that protected each other. May Day is how we build that protection.”
Protests took place in several other cities, including in Berkeley where a couple hundred students, who had walked out of class to protest at the park, joined a demonstration by unions representing campus workers outside California Hall, which holds Chancellor Rich Lyons’ office.
Demonstrators chanted pro-union slogans and listened to speakers who called for better contracts for Cal workers and the end of U.S. military aid to Israel, and demanded the UC system end its investments in the firm Blackstone.
Richmondside freelance photographer Maurice Tierney documented the local action in images.
Berkeleyside reporter Nico Savidge contributed to this report.
