PORT TOWNSEND — The Unexpected Brass Band and friends will host a Do-It-Yourself May Day pageant at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Union Wharf at the foot of Taylor Street.
The band will help ring in springtime with labor hymns and high-stepping street jazz.
May Day is an ancient spring festival and also a day when working people around the world celebrate collective action, solidarity and mutual aid in memory of labor leaders executed after the 1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago.
The 1886 International Workers’ Day of May Day began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour work day.
An unknown person allegedly threw a bomb at the police as they tried to disperse the gathering, resulting in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians, along with many others wounded. In the legal proceedings that followed, eight anarchists were convicted of conspiracy. Seven were sentenced to death and one to a 15-year prison term. One committed suicide and three were pardoned. Four were executed by hanging.
This May Day celebration will hold up the often-forgotten people who maintain roads, fix cars, care for elders and children, teach, heal, clean, cook, farm, fish, fix boats, build homes, make paper, protect the water and do the rest of the beautiful work and the dirty work that make life possible.
For information, email Luci at maydaypt@ protonmail.com.
