Photos by Bette Lee
Story by Pete Shaw
As I made my way to the bus stop, I could feel my rhythm returning. However, there was still a way to go. Most pressingly, I was not sure how I would pay my fare. Due to health considerations, the last time I rode public transportation was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, Tri-Met has gotten rid of cash fare. The problem, if it was one at all, was easily navigated and put slightly at ease the rebellious nerve endings telling me I have had better ideas and that I should hitch out my thumb as I walked toward downtown. I boarded, said hello to the driver, seamlessly paid my fare, and took a seat. I was on my way to May Day.
I had not been to a large event in over six years. By now, putting on an N-95 mask had become as rote as putting a couple of pens, a notebook, and my camera in my bag. But what about navigating a crowd? Would there even be one? I found out only an hour before leaving that this was Portland’s first May Day event since the pandemic. The world is certainly different than it was six years ago, but then, I am the sort who revels in small things, and so the world is always changing, even if most of my personal moorings remain anchored.
On the ride down, I thought of the many Good people I had met through the various social, labor, racial, economic, and all other movements working for a more just world, most of them showing up for May Day. Friends, comrades, siblings in arms: I was hopeful for faces, old and new.
We live in fascist times. It’s a grim thought. But then I remind myself that we have always lived in fascist times. It’s not a salve, but it is a truth. Stolen land, slavery, Jim Crow with Jim Crow II recently set loose by the second coming of the Taney Court, oppression of migrants–these and so many other ravages of white supremacy. And people have always fought back; both a salve and a truth. As the bus slowly made its way along the downtown transit mall, I pulled out my notebook, one I had not used in over six years, and found inscribed in it a piece of Wisdom granted by an old Friend: The lone person on the street corner handing out quarter-sheets of information becomes three people becomes a five person potluck dinner becomes a meeting in the basement of a house of worship becomes a larger meeting becomes becomes becomes…
Over the years there has been some criticism of the May Day parade. In 2015, a parade that had been thoughtfully organized to insure the security of vulnerable folks, particularly migrants without documentation, from encounters with police, was hijacked. It ended up putting many of these vulnerable people in danger. I have zero doubt that those who took the parade off its intended route meant no harm, but nonetheless, they did harm.
I think it was the following year that the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) organized a May Day that did not include a parade. The point of May Day, the A-APRP said, is organizing, and I recall a larger than normal amount of tables engaging in education. People talked seriously, and people laughed. They enjoyed each other’s company. The speeches engaged, riveted. It was not at all boring. However, quite a few people who had wanted to take to the streets were not pleased at the lack of a parade. The A-APRP had long prior announced it would not be organizing a parade, but it was not opposed to other folks putting one together. The complaining perhaps highlighted the A-APRP’s point about how poorly organized we were on whatever it is we call The Left.
This year’s May Day gathering, as per usual over the past couple of decades, centered itself at the South Park Blocks. Sponsored by over 50 groups across the economic, labor, social, and racial justice spectrum, it approached the best of both worlds. In Shemanski Park, a large clutch of speakers spoke of their struggles, and more importantly, what organizing they were doing to resist and overcome their oppressors. Crossing Main Street from Shemanski, the next two blocks were full of tables helmed by activists and organizers dispensing information and education. It felt, as it always has to me, downright homely.
After a few hours of all this updating and reaching out, it was time to march.
I don’t enjoy watching parades. The rare times I have taken one in, I find myself wondering why I am there. But walking in the May Day one, being a participant and not a spectator? It’s wonderful. It’s invigorating. I get to see people I have not seen in a spell, and I get to spend some time walking with them, catching up, and making plans that will hopefully reach fruition. I get to see Good people doing Good, standing in solidarity with each other and other groups composed of similarly Good people doing Good. I meet people, sometimes not by choice, but always joyfully. I get to hear their stories. We get to hear each other’s stories. We remind ourselves that we are not alone. And if you are in the right part of the parade, you can do it to the infectious backbeat of The Unpresidented Brass Band’s Preservation Hall sound.
With no offense to the A-APRP, that is why I think the parade is so important. Organizing is hard work no matter how you engage it, and the news is often so desultory that at times it seems a better idea just to give up and go sit in a dark corner of the basement with some beer and sandwiches. It is easy to feel defeated and alone. But after hearing so much about the work other people and groups are doing–work perhaps different in character and scope, but pushing toward something more just–we get to walk together in each other’s company, reveling in this lighter but still very serious moment of solidarity. And it is fun, an always needed reminder that the antidote to fascism is Community.
My Friend and colleague Bette Lee was there with her camera, as usual. Bette, like our Friend and colleague Kendall, is a photographer, and between milling about and taking my own pictures, I got some free education as I watched how she positioned herself for her shots. The photos with this article are hers, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed watching Bette take some of them.
