The official mantra of the May Day protests this year: No school. No work. No shopping.
“The billionaire class should be afraid of the power of labor and everyday workers across the country,” New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can be heard saying in an official May Day Strong video.
May 1 is known around the world as International Workers’ Day, also known as May Day. The significance of the day dates back to 1886, when the largest workers’ union in the U.S., the Knights of Labor, called for nationwide strikes to secure an eight-hour workday.
The modern take on May Day in the U.S. is more concerned about the “breadth of American inequality,” Northwestern University history professor Kevin Boyle told The Associated Press.
The official May Day Strong website shows a U.S. map with what looks to be hundreds of dots around the country where protests are taking place. The Party for Socialism and Liberation posted on X that “the people’s movements are uniting — the labor movement, immigrant rights, anti-war and anti-Trump.”
Investigative reporting by Fox News Digital discovered that about 600 groups with around $2 billion in combined revenue have assembled nearly 3,000 people nationwide on May 1.
“The protests today represent the rise of a RED-BLUE alliance between far-left socialist groups and Democratic organizations, including the California Democratic Party,” Fox News senior investigative editor Asra Nomani posted on social media. She added that two key funders of the anti-rich protests are “George Soros, a Democratic billionaire,” and “Neville Roy Singham, an American-born tech tycoon living in Shanghai.”
The U.S. is home to the most billionaires at 989, in 2026, according to Forbes. The protests on Friday are said to be in protest of the top 1% and a demand to put the working class first.
Across the nation, schools were shut down for the day as teachers’ unions joined protesters and encouraged students to join.
“We’re kind of sick and tired of our current conditions,” a woman wearing a North Carolina Association of Teachers shirt said in a video on X. “So we’re walking out on May 1 for our kids. To put them first.”
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon responded to the news of some children protesting rather than attending school.
“There’s never an excuse for diverting taxpayer dollars away from students and into political agendas. But when chronic absenteeism is so high and only 1 in 3 students can read at grade level @ChiPubSchools, this is a dereliction of duty," she said on X.