Wall Street is War Street: Mayday at the Stock Exchange #SunriseMovement
Ryan invited us to Judson, where Micah, Kate and Ken were going over scenarios, people eating pizza, big pieces of paper about on the floor on Thursday night, who planned to do what, red, green, and yellow roles.
Friday morning, we’d meet there again. Go over everything again and head downtown to Wall Street.
Before we left, we rehearsed singing the song, "Light Is Returning," by songwriter Charlie Murphy.
"Light is returning even though this is the darkest hour
No one can hold back the dawn
Let’s keep it burning
let’s keep the flame of the hope alive
Make safe our journey through the storm
One planet is turning circle on her path around the sun
Earth mother is calling her children home."
Both earnest and playful, we made our way, a little nervous.
Affinity Group 5 took the train to Wall Street. We headed to the Stock Exchange. Flooded to the doors. “My back, my crack, Wall Street is wack!” we chanted. “Tax the rich. The billionaires are destroying our democracy,” we screamed at the Stock Exchange.
Ryan looks great in handcuffs. Police throw him down. Micah earnest and sincere. Tax the Rich, we chant, Memories of Flood Wall Street, a sit-in at the People's Climate March, a riot at Occupy Wall Street.
Activists in the street, the sound of marching bands filled the street, performers, memories of decades of Mayday actions. Wall Street is War Street. The city is unlivable for far too many. The inequality is only expanding exponentially. And it's only getting worse.
Wall Streets a joke, we chant. Police mull about, more and more of them arriving discussing what to do with us.
Finally a police van arrived.
The police keep calling us bodies. 'We've got six bodies to move,' they repeated, over and over.
‘Billionaires are turning our democracy into a plutocracy,’ I declare as I was being taken to the police van. Testimony after testimony. Inequality gone wild. Health care costs up, abortion access restrictions, civil rights eroding.
Naomi would later post: “bad news that dropped while we were all in the streets…us-court-blocks-mail-order-access-abortion-drugs-now-2026-05-01/…if this stands, or as long as it stands, this blocks telehealth abortion which has been especially important for more marginalized communities in states with bans/restrictions..Aid Access pays no attention to US courts but may be less accessible than domestic telehealth for many people.
Eventually, they lined us up and walked us to the vans and took us to the 7th precinct, where they went through our stuff. Micah commented on the white Jesus in a disco suit on the wall. Then to the holding cell, each of us in individual cells. 'If you are reading this, you are never leaving,' said the graffiti. As soon as I was asleep my arresting officer came back to the cell to tell us we had to move. Through the system, I thought. It had happened before in the Giuliani years. No. It's their jurisdiction, said one of the cops on the way back to 1 Police Plaza.
'Welcome back,' said one cop at 1 Police Plaza.
Went through our stuff again. Took our show laces. Put in the group cell with shiny steel bench covers. Micah and I talked about Broadway shows and Marie's Crisis, his favorite, Little Shop of Horrors, mine A Chorus Line. Ryan and I talked about ACT UP. Within a couple of hours they released us. Off for pizza, going through all our charges, catching up arrestees, being released.
And off to the Mayday march, thousands, as arrived at Foley Square. Workers and immigrants, trade unionists with the PSC, anarchists, out in the street, recalling the Haymarket Martyrs.
All you fascists gonna lose, a banjo player sang after the Mayday match.
Time to hit the streets!!!
After the action, Ken Schles, who was part of the documentation teach, posted a note on Mayday:
“A coalition of 100+ activists led by @sunrisemvmtnyc blockaded the @nyse on May Day/International Workers Day, demanding taxation on the rich; end ICE/stop war/eliminate the privatization and profiteering of policing; and additionally a call for the expansion of democracy after the capture of government by the billionaire class and the systematic destruction of our voting rights.
The holiday started 1886 in the U.S. to commemorate laborers striking for an 8 hour work day who were machine gunned down by the National Guard in Chicago. That event became a worldwide call for workers rights that were enshrined in worker protections in countries around the world.
Denying our own history and national shame, the holiday, Labor Day, was moved to September by President Grover Cleveland to disassociate the U.S. holiday with the government massacre.
President Eisenhower renamed May 1st, “Law Day,” countering the populist uprising.
The New York Stock (as you can see in the photo) refers to the day as “National Investing Day,” an absolute co-opting of the day, memorializing a 1975 Securities Exchange Commission decision to eliminate fixed commission rates on stock trades.
Concentration of extreme wealth was the foundation of this country and its unchecked crimes and injustices have accompanied us throughout our history.
A pendulum of promise opened up possibilities for what might be offered in America. The Civil War was a turning point that marked a great shift in freedoms that, sadly, by century’s end were closed again by Jim Crow.
The women’s suffrage movement reawakened possibilities that opened up new possibilities that grew in strength along with expanding labor and civil rights post WWII. But the pendulum swings the other way too.
This week’s loss of the 1965 voting rights act, the ongoing federalization of policing through DHS, the rise of the surveillance society and the destruction of the EPA shows a new entrenchment of oligarchs and a drastic shift towards an authoritarian regime — a dark stain for the nation and the world.
But the deep unpopularity of the current regime gives hope for a better future and a more just, accountable, caring state. Time to take it back.”
Ryan Casey posted a note after the action:
“MAY DAY !
NO WORK ! NO SCHOOL ! NO TRADING !
WORKERS OVER BILLIONAIRES !
BILLIONAIRES ARE CLOWNS !
In honoring May Day, @sunrisemvmtnyc led a nonviolent direct action in coalition with several other organizations to shutdown the New York Stock Exchange.
The Wealthiest 10% of Americans Own 87% of All Stocks !
The 1% Owns Over Half of All Stocks !
The War in Iran has cost Americans over $25 Billion !
$1 Billion to Slaughter 150+ Schoolgirls in MAGA’s Inception of this War !
The New York Stock Exchange
is a dystopian playground
for morally bankrupt billionaires
to nurse their grotesque wealth hoarding
inside Donald Trump’s White Collar Criminal America.
!!! BILLIONAIRES HAVE BOUGHT OUR DEMOCRACY !!!
Elon Musk is set to be the World’s First Trillionaire.
The funding cuts implemented under Elon Musk’s DOGE to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program— is estimated to have killed 17,000 children globally (as of January 2026).
1 Adult Dies Every 3 Minutes.
1 Child Dies Every 30 Minutes.
From AIDS related complications.
Because of Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and RFK JR.
THE AIDS CRISIS IS NOT OVER !
ACT UP ! FIGHT BACK ! FIGHT AIDS !
!!! FIGHT FACISM !!!
With the help from our comrades, 8 Activists called out, “Carpe!” and hopped the NYSE fence declaring, “This is an act of nonviolence!” as we more, or maybe less, chained ourselves to the main entrances.
The NYSE Security Guards brutalized several of us.
Violently escalating the situation.
100+ Activists ensured we shutdown the New York Stock Exchange on May 1st, 2026.
30+ Activists were arrested.
We are in this for the long run.
Carpe Diem, girlies.
Stay safe.
!!! WORKERS OVER BILLIONAIRES !!!”
Says the PSC, my union that marched from Washington Square to Foley Square as we were getting out of jail:
“In the face of oligarchy and repression, May Day is more urgent than ever. So we're mobilizing with partners from AFT Higher Education, New York City Central Labor Council, and The New York Immigration Coalition to say: WORKERS OVER BILLIONAIRES!
Kate’s account of hte day is gripping:
“Activism can be a source of real frustration for me because I come hard up against the limits of what my body can do these days. Yesterday was May Day, and a coalition of activists decided to take a stand against the billionaires who are greedily monopolizing resources, buying our democracy, and destroying the planet for profit.
Sunrise, an organization of mostly young activists, put out the call but in an effort to prevent the info leaks to the police that have plagued several recent actions, in order to get any details other than the date we had to show up at a meeting the evening before.
I ducked out of work early not knowing what to expect and made my way down to Judson, where people were gathering in the former gym. It’s a big, unfurnished space and when I got there, young organizers were kneeling on the floor drawing on big pieces of paper and stacks of pizza boxes covered a table. I grabbed one of the handful of chairs scattered on the far side of the room, which wound up being the section of older activists while everybody else sat on the floor. Looking at them made me remember being a teen activist.
The meeting was supposed to start at 6pm, and then 6:30pm, and Ken and I started to get a little impatient by the time they finally started at 6:45pm. The scenario was presented – blockade all of the entrances of the stock exchange by breaking into five teams.
Ben, Micah and I were all on Ryan’s team, the one assigned to jump the low fence and chain on to the stock exchange. I have done many chaining actions - although usually with a chain around my waist rather than the over the shoulder crisscross they had planned – but there is just no way I can jump even a fairly low fence at this point. Ben wasn’t up for chaining, so Ryan asked us to block a gate on the outside of the fence, and we figured we might be able to intercept and distract some security or cops to buy them time.
This action, as one young queer organizer pointed out, was an echo of the early ACT UP actions, including the one where they got inside and dropped a “Sell Wellcome” banner from the balcony, targeting the pharmaceutical company that was charging exorbitant prices for the first toxic, not very effective anti-HIV drug. Later, finding myself beside them, I told them we also did a stock exchange action for ACT UP’s 10th anniversary. That action was some of the worst police violence I have personally experienced. Half a dozen of us filed a federal civil rights violation lawsuit about their conduct and won, but not until after Bill Thorne, whose head they slammed into the pavement while calling him a “diseased faggot” died of AIDS.
We met back up at Judson in the morning, gathered our signs and props and put on our action t-shirts and then a layer over them. The chainers practiced chaining, we practiced chants and songs, gave our phones and things to support. The plan was for us all to take the train downtown. “Not at all conspicuous,” I said.
Despite the secrecy, I thought the police might know because we all had the tracking devices known as cell phones on us at the meeting, but when we got there, there was no sign of increased security. Ben bent down so some of the others could use his back to boost them over the fence, and then Ben decided to hop the fence too. That was one of those moments when the anger at my body surges through me, but I had the banner in my hand, so I gave the other end to someone else and we stretched it out in front of the fence.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw them take Ryan down hard, sending him sprawling on his back. Then a Reuters photographer next to me started yelling across to somebody, asking if he should call someone for them and I realized they had detained a journalist along with our group (she was eventually released).
The police response was bizarre – there was a lot of wandering around and consulting each other, and additional high ranking white shirts kept arriving until six of them were on the scene. They cuffed the fence-hoppers and then left them standing there in cuffs for a very long time. In the meantime, they left the other groups sitting on the ground in front of various gates and the rest of the people held a raucous rally complete with a Blackrock pinata stuffed full of fake cash. A man in a yarmulke passing by started persistently heckling the rally and wound up surrounded by the RMO musicians drowning him out. Three more young Israeli men – who didn’t know the first – climbed up on the street furniture and joined in the heckling.
Eventually my leg wouldn’t let me stand any longer, so I went and sat on a stone bench with a view of our handcuffed people – after seeing Ryan go down, I wanted to be able to see what happened when they finally came to move them. Once they took them, I went and sat down with another group, next to a young man in a tallis. “I didn’t have Israeli bros heckling the rally on my dance card,” he said. Eventually a tall, white haired white shirt showed up and the police started moving in and grabbed the group at the opposite end. When they got to us, he said, “we’re not going to arrest you for blocking this gate because they don’t use it” and moved on.
We notified the lead organizers and they told us to hold position, so we did until they told us to go join another group. On our way to do that, things started getting chaotic and all of us remaining wound up crammed into a single narrow block. I suddenly realized I had lost track of our close support who had my fleece - and that my passport was in the fleece. In an impressive feat of organizing, the lead I told was able to relay the message and somehow the fleece found its way back to me. While I was waiting, I said to Ken, who had been following all this with his camera, that maybe this was a message from the universe – or my unconscious – saying I shouldn’t get arrested this time.
But then when they handed me the fleece, I went back to my position. They started arresting people at the far end, and a row of young officers formed in front of us and started pushing us back toward the building behind us. We expected they would grab us next, but then they just seemed to give up and left the rest of us there.
By then I had lost track of everyone I knew, so I walked down to bowling green in the warm sun to claim my property from support. Then I made my way back up to West 4th, grabbed a cup of tea to refuel, and went to join Rise and Resist for the big march back down to Foley Square. By the time we got there, my legs were in full rebellion – it was a challenge to hobble to the R train and head home. When I got home, I looked at my phone and realized I had walked 10,300 steps, so I couldn’t be too mad at my legs.
Texting Lucy later while resting my legs, it dawned on me and I typed, “did I just do all that to prove I can still do something?” Her answer was simple, “yes.””
