KC May Day rally echoes 1886 labor roots
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Local unions and community groups will rally on Friday for a nationwide No Work, No School, No Shopping day of action.
The big picture: The May 1 protest is part of a long American tradition, and KC helped start it.
Zoom in: The KC rally is one of more than 3,500 actions planned nationwide under the "May Day Strong" banner, with more than 500 labor unions, student groups, immigrant rights and pro-democracy organizations marching behind the slogan "Workers Over Billionaires."
- Organizers are urging Americans to skip work, school and shopping for the day and to boycott Amazon, Starbucks and Target.
- The coalition cites Trump administration policies, ICE enforcement, tax policy and corporate wages as reasons for the action.
Flashback: Workers walking off the job to protest powerful corporations is exactly how May Day started.
- In March 1886, the Knights of Labor launched what became the largest labor action of the 19th century. More than 200,000 railroad workers walked off across Missouri, Kansas and three other states, shutting down Jay Gould's rail empire.
- KC was the negotiating table. On March 19, 1886, Knights of Labor leader Terence V. Powderly met here with the governors of Missouri and Kansas and railroad officials to try to end the Great Southwest railroad strike. The talks failed.
The strike collapsed within weeks, but the eight-hour workday movement it helped fuel did not. On May 1, 1886, workers across the country walked off the job in the strike that gave May Day its name.
- A labor rally in Chicago turned deadly days later in the Haymarket affair, cementing May 1 as International Workers' Day.
The latest: May Day rallies have continued worldwide for more than a century, but turnout in the U.S. has surged under the second Trump administration.
- More than 1,100 May Day events drew crowds in nearly 1,000 U.S. cities on May 1, 2025.
What's next: The KC rally starts at 5:30pm Friday in Washington Square Park.