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 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.
Tax the rich. The billionaires are destroying our democracy, we chanted at the Stock Exchange. 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. Great to be in the streets with this broad coalition.
Affinity Group 5 took the train to Wall Street. We headed to the Stock Exchange. Flooded to the doors. 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.
Wall Streets a joke, we chanted. Police mull about, more and more of them arriving discussing what to do with us.
Finally a police van arrived.
‘Billionaires are turning our democracy into a plutocracy,’ I declared as I was being taken to the police van.
We shared stories about why we were here, on the way 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.
The police kept calling us bodies. 'We've got six bodies to move,' they repeated, over and over. 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. 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, 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, 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.
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!
