May Day 2019 in NYC

This May Day, the New York City chapters of the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement, Anarchist Black Cross, and Shut it Down called for a noise demo at Brooklyn Detention Center. Action had started earlier that day in Union Square, where antifascists separated a flag and swastika from a neo-Nazi, pummeling him in the process.

In the evening, over fifty people turned up with noisemakers, flags, and banners demanding both prison and state abolition. Demonstrators held their ground in the face of the police line. At the top of the detention center, which serves as a rec yard, prisoners saw the crowd below raising fists and voices in solidarity. They waved and jumped, clearly hyped.

Here’s some more pics of the noise demo outside of the Brooklyn Detention Center for #MayDay. #MayDay2019 #FireToThePrisons pic.twitter.com/PIDxzhQ2de

— Ash J (@AshAgony) May 2, 2019

Around the world, throngs of anarchists took to the streets to celebrate the revolutionary holiday of May Day. This massive show of our forces is an inspiration for all of those who seek a better world.

• In Dortmund, Germany; San Salvador, El Salvador; Thessaloniki, Greece; Istanbul, Turkey; Hamburg, Germany; and Bandung, Indonesia, hundreds of anarchists filled the streets.
• In Valparaiso and Paris, burning barricades and incendiary attacks articulated a powerful resistance.
• From Madrid to Bangladesh to Helsinki to Cleveland, Brooklyn and Portland, anarchists marched.
• In Barcelona, demonstrators supported a new squat to house migrants.
• In West Virginia, anarchists called for prison abolition while showing solidarity with comrades who have been arrested for disrupting construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
• In Portland, anarchists revved up their Block the Wall campaign against the construction of a wall on the imposed US-Mexico border and bravely fought fascist thugs.
• A testament to our intransigence, meddling Nazis were dealt with summarily in Gothenburg and New York City.
• West Papuans in Yogyakarta came out in support of anarchists arrested in Bandung.
• Kurdish solidarity groups across Europe supported the hunger strikers.
• The anarchists of the past were honored in tributes, while recent martyrs of our struggle were memorialized. Tekoşîna Anarşîst, the anarchist brigade in Rojava, honored fallen fighter Lorenzo Orsetti.

This powerful rising is a tangible demonstration of those who have dedicated themselves to the struggle. RAM is proud to be part of this growing network of fighters committed to international liberation. The actions of all these comrades inspire the struggle to continue with the same tenacity we have seen this May Day!

We want to thank everyone who came out, and take this moment to remember those who have come before us, as well as those who have fallen in the struggle.

Together we stand with all of those who have chosen to fight back, and we will not stop fighting until slavery has been destroyed once and for all.