Updated May 1, 2026 at 7:58 PM EDT
Thousands of people have turned out for May Day demonstrations across the country on Friday, with organizers calling for a boycott of work, school and shopping to protest the Trump administration's policies — and what activists describe as a billionaire takeover of government.
The "May Day Strong" protest events in various cities mark International Labor Day. They follow anti-Trump protests under the "No Kings" banner that organizers say have drawn millions of people nationwide.
A loose coalition of protest groups is calling for shifting the nation's tax burden from the working class to the wealthy, eliminating Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ending war and limiting corporate influence in elections.
In Washington, D.C., near the National Mall, people held hands at the front of protest lines, with signs reading "NO ICE" and "Stop the deportations" trailing behind them. Protesters switched between chants of "The people united will never be defeated" and "Get up, get down. D.C. is a union town."
Empower DC, a grassroots community group focused on helping low- and moderate-income residents, is helping organize some of the events.
"We're trying to increase awareness and make sure our voices are heard, especially as D.C. natives and long-standing communities," says Anthony David, a community organizer with the group.
"There's a lot of investment happening, but those investors often aren't aware of — or don't prioritize — the people who've been here for generations. Those residents are being actively displaced," David says.
In St. Louis, Shayne Clegg, 23, is with the Missouri Workers Center, one of several groups helping organize the protests.
"Workers in this country are fed up. We're tired. We're facing a lot of issues from this current authoritarian regime that we are under," Clegg tells NPR. "Billionaires are ... getting all of the control. Workers are suffering. We're having to pay more. We're not able to afford things to feed our families."
Unlike the Labor Day celebrations in the U.S. each September, May 1 has traditionally been reserved as a day of protest. In the U.S., May Day goes back to the 19th century movement to establish an eight-hour workday at a time when it wasn't unusual for Americans to work shifts of 12 hours or more. The shorter, standardized workday was first proposed in the early 1800s. But it wasn't until 1938 that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which set a workweek of 44 hours, and then became 40 hours in 1940.
The National Education Association — the nation's largest labor union, with 3 million members — is a key organizer of Friday's protests. NEA President Becky Pringle told NPR that the message this year is that the country should be "focusing on workers over billionaires."
"We know there are bus drivers in New York and teachers in Idaho and nurses in Louisiana who are feeling the impact of a system that has decided … to put billionaires ahead of everyone else," she said, while "cutting services like public education that this country has made to our kids and impact our future."
Organizers say more than 500 labor unions, student groups, community organizations and other groups will participate. One of those student groups, Sunrise Movement, which bills itself as "young people fighting fascism to win a Green New Deal," said that more than 100,000 students were expected to miss school, in what it called a "strike."
In North Carolina, where the NEA says per-pupil spending and teacher salaries rank near the bottom nationwide, some 20 public school districts will be closed due to planned staff absences. The NEA says educators and school workers, such as bus drivers, cafeteria workers and maintenance staff, are planning to rally in the capital, Raleigh, to pressure the state legislature for more education funding.
In North Carolina's biggest city, Charlotte, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education issued a statement saying it had voted to call off school on May 1 due to the number of staff absences expected that day.
"The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools know that teachers want to live in the communities they serve and to continue doing what they love: teaching children. We want the same for the sake of our staff and our students," spokesperson Tom Miner said in an email.
Bryan Proffitt, a North Carolina teacher and vice president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, said Friday's planned rally in the capital will mark the third time in eight years that educators have demonstrated for an increase in funding as part of the "Kids Over Corporations" campaign. Proffitt told reporters the movement's aim is "more investment in public schools, an end to corporate tax cuts, a restoration of our democracy, and the expansion of union rights."
But not everyone is happy about the school closures. North Carolina state Sen. Amy Galey, a Republican, said shutting down the schools for a day "is not going to benefit students."
"We have less than 20 instructional days left in the school year, and the teachers are taking time to come to Raleigh on one of those really important critical instruction days," she said, according to WFMY.
Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Chicago Teachers Union, said billionaires need to pay their fair share. "Not taxing the ultra-rich leaves schools without teachers, libraries without books, unsafe bridges, shuttered hospitals, and the rest of us paying more," she said in a statement. "We want a different future where students and communities have what they need. It's going to take all of us organizing together to make that happen."
Nica Delgado, 22, is a graduate student at Kent State University in Ohio. She attended and helped organize a May Day protest on campus, where about 100 students turned out despite the cold, rain and wind, she told NPR.
She said students paid tribute to a previous generation of protesters who rallied against the Vietnam War at Kent State in May 1970. Members of the Ohio National Guard were deployed to the campus in response, killing four students and injuring nine more.
On Friday, Delgado and other students were protesting changes the school has made in line with state law that stripped the institution of its diversity, equity and inclusion offices and related scholarship programs. The legislation came as the federal government threatened to withhold funding from schools with DEI initiatives.
"It's made it kind of impossible to feel loved and supported on campus," she said. "I truly believe that when we come together we can build that again."
May Day events are also planned in Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Los Angeles, San Francisco and Albuquerque, among other cities.
In his first term, President Trump followed his predecessors going back to Dwight Eisenhower, declaring May 1 "Loyalty Day" — a time to celebrate the country's loyalty to individual liberties.
The White House said in a statement that the Trump administration "has never wavered from standing up for American workers, from renegotiating broken trade deals to securing trillions in manufacturing investments to slashing taxes on overtime to securing our border. President Trump will always have the backs of American workers."
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