Los Angeles At least 15,000 people marched at protests on May 1 in Los Angeles. These thousands consisted of many “organized labor” union contingents, pro-immigrant organizations, and left-wing political groups.
The May 1 march was majority Latino. In addition to unions and organizations several thousand “everyday” Spanish language masses as well as people of diverse nationalities and backgrounds also participated. It is being reported in Spanish language media, for example in the periodical La Jornada, that 1000’s of businesses closed across the U.S. participating in the May First Strike.
A sea of NO! posters were spread throughout the May First march and Refuse Fascism in Los Angeles led a dynamic contingent of 120 people at its height in the large march that traveled from MacArthur Park to LA City Hall. The Refuse Fascism contingent also had an important presence in the march that started at Olympic and Broadway and fed into the LA City Hall convergence point. Many people and a range of organizations enthusiastically took up the chant “NO! NO! NO! NO! NO ACEPTAREMOS UN AMERICA FASCISTA! during the marches.
Refuse Fascism had joined all the main May 1 Coalitions in Los Angeles, with the orientation of contributing all it could to the power, breadth and potential social impact of the protests. The goal of making a big leap in this period in the objective of driving this fascist Trump/Pence regime from power was the cutting edge of its politics in these coalitions and its challenge to all organizations and people.
May 1st was a powerful and well organized march and rally in Los Angeles! At the same time May1st didn’t involve huge throngs of Spanish speaking immigrant masses or other immigrants from around the world, in a city of millions of immigrants, in a situation of unprecedented fascist, Nazi-like assaults on immigrants by the Trump/Pence regime. All the reasons for this are complex, and beyond the scope of this short report. On one level there is “fear” and “sheltering in place” as the lives of millions of people and families hang in the balance in the face of these government attacks. May 1 wasn’t able to “open the floodgates” in the way needed, but, again, this is a complex question that includes, for example, how very broad sections of immigrants view the potential of altering the policies of the current regime (which is not the same as driving out the regime, which wasn’t the principal call of these May 1 marches). Also, there were not significant numbers of student organizations at this May 1 march, nor a major turn out of people who’d participated in recent outpourings like the Science March on April 22, when tens of thousands protested in Los Angeles.
This May 1 action in Los Angeles righteously called for the people to RESIST! – and, in the face of fascism, it is very significant organizations and a section of Spanish speaking immigrants and others DID step out, even on their own and with their families! Two main stages featured a broad range of speakers from organized labor, democratic politicians and several socialist organizations, pro-immigrant, civil, human, legal, Women, LGBTQ and racial justice groups. Refuse Fascism in LA spoke at each of the stages and Isabel Cardenas, a national co-initiator, gave an impassioned speech on the steps of LA City Hall. Her speech identified the Trump/Pence regime as “illegitimate and fascist…a danger to the whole planet earth,” and called for “demonstrations of tens of millions of citizens demanding the Trump/Pence Fascist Regime be driven out now! In the name of humanity we cannot wait until 2018.”
Spanish-speaking immigrants were attracted to a vibrantly decorated Refuse Fascism Los Angeles tent in the middle of the LA City Hall rally, a tent decked out with NO! posters and banners and t-shirts calling for driving out the Trump/Pence regime. Intense conversations went on with many who put on NO! t-shirts right on the spot and went out amongst the crowd distributing organizing packets that included Refuse Fascism’s Call to Action and other organizing kit material.
“What is fascism?” was a very serious question asked by these immigrant masses especially, at the same time as they took up the challenge of distributing the Refuse Fascism material to hundreds of people. Numerous people voiced to us they’d never considered themselves “organizers” – had a certain notion that such a person was not someone like them – but had come to see “we” have to be the people that make the change and stop Trump/Pence.
At the same time there were a lot of people who had a basic idea that this regime was indeed fascist and because of that a grave danger to the entire world and its people, and were searching for organization that could lead a struggle to change the direction of the country and the world. One young man who ran with the Revolution Club during May 1 – which had a contingent in the march which distributed HOW WE CAN WIN – How We Can Really Make Revolution from the Revolutionary Communist Party and featured a giant Red Flag – said “the fear immigrant communities feel is real, but unfortunately ‘fascism’ has been watered down in a lot of people’s minds because been just used as an insult or taken to mean just an oligarchic, corporatist government.” People came to the Refuse Fascism tent wrestling with how fascism ha been “coalescing for some time…” and urgently felt the need to distribute the Call to Action way out in society so people could really find out what it meant that the Trump/Pence regime is fascist and so they could get organized with others to drive out this fascist (for example, people would commit to take the Call to Action “to Van Nuys and throughout the San Fernando Valley” and other areas of Los Angeles with very explicit and urgent plans).
Some people, when challenged about this regime being fascist and joining Refuse Fascism to lead a struggle to drive this regime out, might make a donation and think twice before they took up Organizing Kits, but much more representative of the people who gravitated to the tent were people deeply wrestling with the seriousness of the situation and ready to buy t-shirts, take up Organizing Kits, make basic plans for their distribution of the Call to Action, sign up with Refuse Fascism and join RF on the spot. A lot of these people met Refuse Fascism for the first time at May 1 and were looking for an organization with the objective of stopping this fascist juggernaut, others had seen the NO! posters at events or in society and came to the tent to get organized.
A couple of hundred pro-Trump reactionaries organized a pro-fascist rally at the LAPD headquarters right across the street from the main rally at LA City Hall. They were challenged by hundreds of people who refused to let their hateful rally occur without protest and outrage over their anti-immigrant message and the horror their fascist politics represent for people in the U.S. and all around the world.