May Day Coverage from New York, San Francisco and Chicago

Across New York City, People Honor May Day 

By JA Myerson, Truthout | Report
01 May, 2012 

Protesters with the Occupy Wall Street movement during a
march in New York, May 1, 2012. (Photo: Ozier Muhammad / The
New York Times)Walter Hillegas marches with a scale-model of
the former World Trade Center. "I was there for the first
five days after the tower came down," he tells me, "doing
debris-recovery and victim-removal. I got sick and lost my
job." Hillegas is beset by sarcoidosis and lower lumbar
spondylosis, both of which he attributes to his first
responder work in the days after September 11, 2001. "These
guys taught me how to stand up," he says of the Occupy Wall
Street (OWS) protesters in whose midst he marches. Hillegas
had his day in court this week and won: "I’m here to honor
them."

As I write this, Hillegas and thousands of other New Yorkers
continue to stream into Union Square for this year’s May Day
celebration, for which OWS has called for a General Strike.
As the afternoon draws on, we approach the day’s biggest
action, a march from Union Square to Wall Street that will
have the endorsement and participation not just of the
thousands already participating, but of a large list of labor
unions and activist groups to boot.

To read more, go to
http://truth-out.org/news/item/8849-across-new-york-city-people-honor-may-day

* * *

May Day Celebrations Continue in Oakland, San Francisco

By Susie Cagle, Truthout | Report 
01 May 2012

Last fall's General Strike in Oakland was a historic event,
as thousands of Bay Area residents converged on downtown from
the very start of the day. Protesters ruled the town and
police were relatively hands off until the evening.
 
Today, a fraction of that crowd - several hundred at its peak
- has attempted to shut down the town, while police have been
more aggressive.
 
A few minutes ago, I was going to file a story for Truthout
about how this morning's fierce but relatively small Oakland
march felt like far less of a "general strike" than that warm
November day. But that was a few minutes ago, and things
change fast here. As I write this, about 100 police are
ordering several hundred Occupy Oakland May Day marchers to
get out of the streets and onto the sidewalks. They've fired
tear gas and flash bang grenades to disperse the crowd that
converged when a small squad of police moved swiftly and
aggressively into the march to detain one protester who was
on a bike.

To read more, go to
http://truth-out.org/news/item/8850-may-day-celebrations-continue-in-oakland-san-francisco

* * *

Chicago's May Day Takes the Streets

By Yana Kunichoff, Truthout | Report 
01 May 2012 

The birthplace of May Day celebrated the workers' holiday
Tuesday with an Occupy-led action against Bank of America and
a thousand-strong march chanting for immigrant rights and
justicia for the 99 percent.
 
"Unionize, Organize, Papeles Para Todos [Papers for All]" was
the slogan of this year's May Day, bringing together two
traditional strongholds of the march in Chicago - immigrant
rights and labor.
 
The morning started out with an Occupy-led action, small in
numbers but big in ambition, which attempted to block the
entrance of a Bank of America branch in downtown Chicago.
 
A number of activists tried to enter the bank before they
were stopped by police on bikes, and while the police
surrounded the entrance, between five and eight protesters
sat on the ground chanting "Bank of America, Bad for
America," and "Hey, let's face it, these banks are f-ing
racist."

To read more, go to
http://truth-out.org/news/item/8848-chicagos-may-day-takes-the-streets

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