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hands off
May Day Rallies Nationwide to Target Trump's Attack on Workers, Rule of Law, and Common Good
"We are demanding a country that puts our families over their fortunes—public schools over private profits, healthcare over hedge funds, prosperity over free market politics," organizers said.
Apr 30, 2025
Organizers expect tens of thousands of Americans to turn out on Thursday for rallies aimed at resisting U.S. President Donald Trump and "his billionaire profiteers" as part of a May Day national day of action, on the heels of mass mobilizations for nationwide "Hands Off!" protests just weeks ago.
"This May Day we are standing united. We are demanding a country that puts our families over their fortunes—public schools over private profits, healthcare over hedge funds, prosperity over free market politics," according to organizing materials from a national coalition of groups. "Stop the billionaire takeover. We are the many. They are the few."
May Day, also known as International Workers' Day, comes as the American people increasingly see and feel the effects of the Trump administration's various policies—from his crackdown on immigration, to targeting of foreign born students who exercise pro-Palestine speech, to the administration's dismissal of tens of thousands of federal employees, to sweeping tariffs.
On Thursday, one of more than 1,100 May Day rallies will be held at Philadelphia City Hall, where Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will join the city's AFL-CIO chapter under the banner, "For the Workers, Not the Billionaires."
Rallies are planned in New York, the District of Columbia, Chicago, and Atlanta, among other cities.
Nearly 200 groups are listed as coalition partners supporting the national May Day actions. They include unions, climate groups, grassroots organizations, and more. Among them is "50501"—a movement that began on Reddit and brought together organizers and regular Americans for a rally to resist the Trump administration back in February. Local and state-level 50501 groups are also listed as partners for the May Day actions.
In addition to mobilization through 50501, protests on Thursday will follow "Hands Off!" actions on April 5, when an estimated one million people turned out nationwide, according to Democracy Now!
50501 spearheaded yet another round of rallies on April 19.
The events are taking place more than two months into Sanders' Fighting Oligarchy tour, during which he and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have drawn crowds of thousands in Republican districts in Nebraska, Iowa, Idaho, and other states.
In addition to the May Day national day of action, the group Free Speech for People, which has launched a campaign to drum up support for impeachment proceedings against Trump, will also hold a day of action on Thursday.
Free Speech for People has partnered with Citizens' Impeachment and the two groups will devote tomorrow to "generating calls and emails to Congress members, urging them to impeach Trump for his grave abuses of power."
"We cannot allow Trump and his allies to destroy our republic," wrote Free Speech for People in a post on X.
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Social Justice and Eclipse: Predicting and Preparing For Change
It is best to approach social justice the same way the world prepares for an eclipse—with foresight, community, and coordination.
Apr 23, 2025
Millions of people across the United States and parts of Canada and Mexico recently witnessed a total solar eclipse—a rare and breathtaking alignment of the Earth, moon, and sun. Scientists had predicted its precise timing and path years in advance, with detailed maps showing where the event would be most visible.
Across the U.S., communities prepared—gathering in fields, schools, and rooftops with protective glasses and cameras in hand. They trusted science. They trusted preparation. They showed up.
In the same week one year later, over 600,000 people across all 50 states signed up to protest against U.S. President Donald Trump and his ongoing threat to democracy for the Hands Off Protests in 1,300 locations. These protests were not spontaneous—they were planned, anticipated, and powerfully aligned. Total estimates for the day’s peaceful protests are 3 million people.
It is not always possible to predict the exact moment of breakthrough, but one can prepare for the shift through mutual aid, political education, youth leadership, and conflict transformation training.
If it is possible to chart the movement of celestial bodies with such precision, then it is also possible to chart the social conditions that produce change. Responses to the conditions that cause criminality, injustice, or violence can also be charted and faced.
A crime can unfold in seconds, but its consequences—especially in marginalized communities—can last a lifetime. The root conditions that set the stage—poverty, childhood trauma, environmental injustice, disinvestment in education, and systemic racism—are all in place and can be addressed.
Knowing the precursors of injustice, it is prudent not to sit still and wait for tragedy before taking action. It is best to approach social justice the same way the world prepares for an eclipse—with foresight, community, and coordination.
Research from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) confirms that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)—like neglect, abuse, or household dysfunction—can have long-term impacts on health, behavior, and justice involvement. Communities with higher poverty rates have higher crime rates, not because of moral failure, but due to decades of disinvestment and inequality.
As someone who has spent decades working for criminal and social justice reform in communities and far beyond, I see that systems and practices can indeed seed meaningful social change.
The Theory of Change is a framework that maps how and why desired change is expected to happen in a particular context. It’s not magic. It’s modeling. And when used correctly, it helps communities anticipate outcomes and align resources toward justice.
Like eclipse chasers who travel to be in the “path of totality,” social justice organizers prepare to be where the change is coming. They build coalitions, train communities, and develop infrastructure so that when the time is right, they do not to miss the moment to act.
At this time in history when daily political efforts are aimed at reversing timeworn, proven paths to social justice, such as defunding financial assistance to federal programs, universities, associations, and individuals based on principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion, it is urgent to prepare and put into place ways to counter the effects.
This preparation involves policymakers, funders, nonprofits, communities, advocates, individuals, families, institutions, and faith-based organizations to work toward the goal of social change of equity, fairness, access, and justice.
You cannot stare directly at an eclipse without special tools. Similarly, you often can’t see the slow build of a movement until it’s in full swing. Yet humans can sense change—like animals do before an eclipse, like trees that darken and cool in response to a shadow overhead.
Similarly, social change is intangible yet deeply felt. It is not always possible to predict the exact moment of breakthrough, but one can prepare for the shift through mutual aid, political education, youth leadership, and conflict transformation training.
Preparation now is crucial. Facing funding cuts nationally to vital services, rollbacks of civil rights protections, and an increasing normalization of political violence, it is urgent to create needed structures that assess possibilities in order to anticipate and respond proactively.
Throughout history, research shows that Black women have sensed these shifts and led people and communities through them—not just during well-known moments—but in everyday resistance throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
For example, Rosa Parks didn’t just refuse to give up her seat one time; she was a seasoned organizer and a supporter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or the SNCC Legacy Project. Shirley Chisholm wasn’t just the first Black woman to run for president—she helped reframe what political leadership looks like.
Barbara Jordan called out President Richard Nixon with such clarity it redefined accountability in American politics. Tennis icon Serena Williams crip-walked across a tennis court and reclaimed joy on a global stage. First Lady Michelle Obama wore sleeveless dresses and shattered expectations of what dignity and leadership looked like in a Black woman’s body.
A 2021 Texas A&M University study reports, “Black women, through their inclusive, community-based activist endeavors, continue to carve out fugitive spaces and counterpublics where counternarratives are actively generated to fight for a more equitable and inclusive democracy that serves all.”
As a Black woman, I see that Black women are the eclipse, the unexpected alignment. They have known through history how to bring light through the dark.
Social change can happen in quiet corners—in small towns, church basements, classrooms, or in the act of mentoring one young person. It doesn’t have to be a massive protest or a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. It can be both.
But when those moments do arrive—like the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the LGBTQ+ rights movement—they are rarely surprises. They are the result of decades of work, layered with setbacks and strategy.
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” But that arc doesn’t bend on its own. It requires intention and action.
It is time not just to watch the changes happening, but to prepare and to make change, witnessing the outcomes together.
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How to Turn the Anti-Trump Resistance Into a Movement
All these protests, marches, emails, petitions, and social media posts will naturally be somewhat anarchic and disarrayed, but if they don’t build toward power, we won’t have much impact.
Apr 17, 2025
The protests are getting bigger and louder. On April 5, about 3 million people joined 1,400 protests and marches across the U.S., unleashing outrage at this country’s most fascistic, bigoted, and destructive president in memory. Resistance to President Donald Trump and billionaire henchman Elon Musk is all over the place—protests in the streets; mass phone calls, emails, and petitions; social media and news flooded with outrage and growing desperation over Trump’s assault on democracy and government.
In Washington, D.C., state capitals, and city halls, resistance is rising, and an array of nascent movements are budding. A nationwide group calling itself 50501 (50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement) has helped mobilize protests at city halls, state capitals, and in Washington, D.C. Local Indivisible groups, the Federal Unionists Network for federal workers, and immigrant rights organizations nationwide have stepped up actions. One small federal agency even blocked Elon Musk’s teenaged “DOGE” coders from entering the building. Resistance is rising.
While most Democrats seem either dormant or lost, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have mobilized massive crowds in their barnstorming “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, drawing more than 34,000 in Denver, Colorado. The urgency of combating Trump fascism and creating an alternative is palpable and inspiring.
Even as we mobilize in the streets and in halls of power, and fight like hell to stamp out fascist fires, we must begin to build toward something.
Now it’s time to ask—where are these actions going, and how can they build power that can help change conditions now and in the future? What are the strategies beyond displaying our rage and disgust with an administration wreaking havoc and harming countless lives? What do we do and where do we all go after the big protests? As resistance rises, where does all this energy, momentum, passion, and potential power go? When will these movements coalesce, at least strategically when and where they can, to amass far greater numbers and impact?
With most Democrats mired in a reactive mode, looking grimly meager, wavering, and inconsistent in their response, grassroots movements and other resistance efforts are largely on their own, which could ultimately be a good thing. Yes, some Democrats are speaking out and pushing back, but so far with little concrete effect.
Don’t count on the Democrats to lead the resistance. Some, like Sens. Sanders, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), and Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas), and others will be allies, but what rises up and builds must be US—all of us. Remember Bernie’s clarion, JFK-like call, “Not Me, Us?” In the face of fast-boiling Trump fascism, everyone who cares about democracy, human and civil rights, and our ecological and existential future, must become some kind of activist, in whatever way we can. Trump’s vicious and vile onslaught is not just a test for the Democrats, it is a test for all of us.
While the initial uprisings provide a torchlight of hope in this dark oceanic tempest, and a growing community of shared outrage and compassion, there must be a move toward greater unity, coalition-building, and strategic thinking that builds concrete impact and power. All these protests, marches, emails, petitions, and social media posts will naturally be somewhat anarchic and disarrayed, but if they don’t build toward power, we won’t have much impact.
Other than blocking or hampering some of Trump’s political and legislative thuggery through the courts, what is the vision? What is the plan?
As I write this, I hear millions of liberals in my ear, insisting the plan is to win back the House, maybe even the Senate, in 2026. I’ll heartily support those efforts. But while winning the midterms will be a steep climb and a ray of hope, there is a real danger—and a dreary loss of power and imagination—in channeling the resistance into the next election cycle. This moment and the emerging movements are far bigger than that.
If the emergent movements can find ways to solidify, coalesce, and build power, they should do it outside of the Democratic Party, even while allying with it. Why? Because the Democratic establishment, while vastly better than Trump and MAGA Republicans for humans and the planet, are profoundly compromised and show no signs of transcending their decades-long immersion in corporate neoliberalism.
Since Bill Clinton captured the party and the presidency in 1992, the Democrats’ enmeshment with neoliberalism and corporate power has been disastrous—giving rise to much of the working-class alienation and rage (no longer just white rage) that helped propel Trump. Think NAFTA and other Democratic neoliberal policies that deepened corporate power and inequality, aiding Trump wins in 2016 and 2024. For anyone wanting a more progressive, egalitarian, and sustainable future, there is a real danger that the Democrats will lean right in 2026 to capture disaffected Trump voters and continue their moribund trajectory away from economic populism.
If the resistance amounts to restoring moderate corporate Democrats in power, while that is undeniably better than Trumpian fascism, it will only bring more neoliberalism with its lesser-evil abandonment of poor and working people and its erosion of social safety nets, economic equity, and populism.
All of this is fraught with tensions. Many moderates and liberals who are outraged by Trump would likely support a “Blue No Matter Who” return to the safe, familiar harbors of Democratic centrism—even though that corporate-abiding agenda failed disastrously under the electoral banner of former Vice President Kamala Harris.
It’s worth remembering that while Biden-Harris did some good domestic things on infrastructure and climate-repairing jobs, and preserved the Constitution, government services, and DEI, they also, hideously, enabled Israel’s genocidal annihilation of Gaza. Although Trump is incalculably more injurious and destructive, our resistance to his fascism and bigotry must not hold space for the Democrats’ support of genocide.
As we rage about Trump’s gutting of federal agencies and workers, the answer isn’t the centrist Clintonian “reinventing government” model that was, in some ways, a precursor to Musk’s grotesquely worse “DOGE.” If we are sickened by Trump’s racist dog-whistling attacks on brown immigrants from south of the border, the response shouldn’t be more Democratic enabling of the false notion that immigration is a problem or a “crisis.” If we are protesting MAGA Republican attacks on LGBTQ people and “DEI”—diversity, equity, and inclusion—then we must support these communities and principles while building a broadly unifying movement.
We are in a critical if confusing and uncertain moment. The resistance movements are just being born, the Democrats are in the wilderness, and we are years and many miles away from a clear political turnaround. We are in a fragile triage moment where democracy itself, and the future of the nation as we know it, is very much in question. There is no quick fix or easy answer.
We must do everything in our power to defy and resist the Trump-Musk-MAGA plunge into fascism. We must block terrible things wherever and however we can, in the name of saving lives and diminishing harm. We will win some battles and lose others. Even as we mobilize in the streets and in halls of power, and fight like hell to stamp out fascist fires, we must begin to build toward something. What emerges will find its own path and won’t be one linear thing. But if we want to save, protect, and support the people and places and ideas being thrashed and eviscerated by Trump, we must come together, coalesce, and strategize how to build a future that is more humane and democratic, and we must start doing that now.
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