LOS ANGELES — About 20,000 people marched in this year’s May Day celebration here. This year’s march was far smaller than previous years. Instead of one unified march, there were several smaller marches that left from different areas of the city at different times. This reflected the splits within the nationalist, reformist and revisionist (unity-with-bosses) organizations. But, there were definitely more friends marching with us this year. We maintained high energy, held up the red flag, and distributed CHALLENGE.
Thirty PL’ers and friends marched in our open contingent. We led revolutionary chants, like “Raise those red flags, raise ‘em high, the PLP is marching by,” and “Las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras, the fight of the workers has no racist borders!”
Several high school students participated by helping lead chants in English and Spanish, even though Spanish is not the first language for some. The best part of the march by far was when the revisionists and the cops attempted to divert the march from joining the other marches that ended in Pershing Square.
As a result of strong leadership and long-term base-building at several local college campuses, we were able to lead a breakaway march of more than 50 workers and students that took the streets, confronted the police, and stopped traffic, chanting “Whose streets, our streets!”
“From Tahir Square to Pershing Square,” and “Capitalism means, we got to fight back!” It was a powerful experience for us and a small taste of working-class power.
Many of the college students thanked us for our leadership and boldness. They took CHALLENGE and exchanged contact information. Much work lies ahead of us for next year. There are new people to follow up with and struggles to continue, but this march was definitely an inspiring moment for our Party and our friends.