Editor’s Note: Mac White has been correctly identified. He is the chairman of the Coles County Democrats, not the Coles County Board.

Members of the Charleston community held a demonstration and rally in honor of May Day at Morton Park on Saturday.  

May Day, also known as International Workers Day, is a holiday to celebrate the work done by workers and laborers.  

From 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., protestors lined the edge of the park holding signs out to the passing traffic on Lincoln Avenue.   

After the protest people gathered in the park pavilion. The speeches were opened by musician Bill Passalacqua’s renditions of “Paradise” by John Prine and “This Land is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie.  

Chairman of the Coles County Democratic Party Mac White spoke about the localness of famous labor figures Mary Jones, more famously known as Mother Jones, who is buried in Mt. Olive, and Eugene V. Debs whose home was in Terre Haute, Indiana.  

“This is local history for us folks,” White said. “We need to channel that historical energy into what’s going on now. Channel Mother Jones and channel Eugene V. Debs.”   

Mac said that both were villainized for their work.  

“They were both named the most dangerous person in America,” he said. “You know who they endangered? The oligarchs. We need to endanger our oligarchs now.”  

Jones was called the most dangerous woman in America by a district attorney during her trial for her organizing of miners in West Virgina. Debs was named one of the most dangerous men in America in 1918 after speaking out against the U.S. involvement in World War I.  

Mac ended his opening speech by telling the crowd to talk to their neighbors whom they may disagree with.  

“There’s a majority here, but we can swing it. It’s going to be hard, but we’re going to do the work. We’re going to talk to our neighbors,” White said.  

The next speaker was President for the American Federation for State County and Municipal Employees Local 981 Kim Pope, representing the workers at Eastern Illinois University.  

“I’m so proud to be part of a community that has a dedicated group of people who keep coming out here in the cold and the rain,” Pope said.  

Pope highlighted the problems she said union workers faced historically.  

“Working people and unions have been villainized, retaliated against, imprisoned and even killed for standing up for their rights,” Pope said.   

May 3 marks the start of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company workers strike in Chicago in 1886 that became the Haymarket riots.   

“They went on strike not out of greed or selfishness but out of necessity,” Pope said. “But the story remains the same here in Illinois.”  

Pope said thousands of federal workers have unjustly been laid off or fired for no reason.  

“In an act of blatant and illegal retaliation, many of the remaining federal workers were stripped of their collective bargaining rights,” she said.  

The administration has also cut diversity, equity and inclusion programs and funding to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that went into efforts to aid health problems obtained by workers.  

Due to cuts, entities at EIU such as WEIU and TRIO are at risk of losing funding.  

“So many of our jobs and protections are being threatened and yet workers are the ones who are being called villains,” Pope said.  

Pope also called out federal cuts to social security. 

“It’s not a handout; it’s a reward,” Pope said. “A hard-earned reward for decades of labor and sacrifice, and it belongs to the people who built this country, not the ones who profit off of it.”  

Pope said to use the holiday to remind people of the work that labor unions have done.   

“What’s happening now is no doubt unsettling and disheartening,” Pope said. “But let’s remember that some of the greatest victories for the labor movement and working people were born from times of struggle.”  

Following Pope was Josh Collins, a candidate for the Illinois House seat for the 102 district.  

“I decided that I was going to run for this state to help insulate it from the federal government’s horrible policies,” Collins said.  

Collins said the Trump administration has created many executive actions with multiply every day.  

“They’re trying to throw so much at us, they’re trying to confuse us and bring us down. What they forget is that there are more of us, so we can catch the crap that they throw at us and we can stop it in its tracks,” Collins said.  

On April 28, Trump signed a executive order calling for the strengthening of law enforcement and to review using the military for local law enforcement he webpage for which has been taken down. Collins called it unconstitutional.  

“It’s his slimy way trying to get around martial law, and we know that’s what he wants, and we’re not going to let that happen. We will fight back.” Collins said. “We will tell him that this is our country, and he can’t have it.” 

Collins said that local protest gives people power.  

“We don’t have to go to Washington, D.C. to send our message to them. We can do it across our entire United States. We have the power, and we must use it. We must organize,” Collins said.   

The next speaker was President of the EIU chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois Billy Hung who discussed why he wanted to become a citizen, which he did in 2017.  

“There are many, many reasons, but I think the most important is the ideal that America is for all,” Hung said.  

Hung expressed his worry about plans to leave the U.S. to visit family and friends over the summer.  

“For the first time since I came to the United States in 1993, I worried if I would ever be able to re-enter this country,” Hung said.  

Hung then went on to talk about organized labor.   

“Organized labor is a fight,” Hung said. “It is the friction point between the folks who trade our work for a livelihood and the people who turn it into profit.”  

Hung highlighted the work unions have done.  

“Labor unions struggled against the exploitation to bring us the eight-hour workdays, five-day work weeks, weekends, holidays, prohibition against child labor schedule and mandated breaks during your workday, work safety standards and much more,” Hung said.  

Hung said that the economic system is set up to pit workers against each other.  

“The challenge is to convince the paramedic making $25 an hour that their enemy is not the coffee baristas trying to get their wage up to $20,” Hung said. “This system is set up to exploit some more than others it is important for us as organized labor to bring everyone in.”  

Hung said that the fight for better working conditions is to also rid workplaces of discrimination.  

“Organized labor, it is the fight it is the struggle to transcend sex and race so that we all fight for fair value of work. It is the fight to undo racism and the sexism and the homophobia and all other exclusionary ideologies,” Hung said.  

Hung highlighted the violence that often came with labor fights including railroad strikes and the battle of Blair Mountain.  

“Labor struggles in the past often ended in bloodshed,” Hung said. “Today we benefit from the blood and the lives of our forefathers, Hung said. “We fight because our lives depend on it, and we fight because we must.”  

The last speaker of the day was Eastern English professor and Director of EIU Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Jeannie Ludlow.   

“We come together today to honor all those who work and whose lives are being dishonored by a small minority of overprivileged people who are not on anyone’s side but their own and our own neighbors who have embraced their abuse of power,” Ludlow said.  

Ludlow highlighted the connection between the holiday and the word “mayday” used to signal an emergency at sea, which derives from the French word “m’aider” or “help me.”  

“Mayday then is a call for help, a call for support, a call for teamwork and collaboration. Help me, we are in a crisis,” Ludlow said. “Crisis of abuse of our governmental systems that people worked really hard to get into place and improve over the last 300 years.”  

May Day is also in many places a celebration of the beginning of summer.  

“In many indigenous cultures, May Day is a day of celebration of the Earth, celebration of nature [and] a reminder that the cold regenerating sleep of winter is always replaced by the productively of summer, by wakefulness, by wokeness,” Ludlow said. “We must not lose sight of any of them as we continue to resist and persist in this moment of crisis.” 

Jason Coulombe can be reached at 581-2812 or at jmcoulombe@eiu.edu.