Red Flags at May First Immigration Protest

One hundred thousand people demonstrated in San Francisco on May 1. Whole schools were nearly empty as students of all nationalities joined the protest. Throughout the Bay Area and Northern California hundreds of thousand more took to the streets. Millions more marched across the country. The stores in the Mission district were almost all closed. (Even the McDonalds on 24th and Mission was cerrado). A great, unprecedented upsurge of protest for immigrant rights is shaking the U.S.

May First is the revolutionary holiday of the international proletariat--the worldwide class with nothing to lose but its chains, and the class that can lead all humanity to a world without slavery in any form. On May First, the proletariat affirms its internationalist outlook: The proletarians have no country, and a mission to bring about a world where no more borders define relations of exploitation and oppression.

The red flag of the international proletariat was boldly present at the May First demonstrations. Two large yellow and red banners declared in English and Spanish: “We Are Human Beings. We Demand a Better World. We Will Not Accept Slavery in Any Form.” Approximately 2,000 people took up red flags during the demonstration in SF. And works by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party were distributed.

In its special May 1, 2006 issue Revolution Newspaper spoke of the significance of this: “As people engage in the sharp struggles of today it must be understood that there is a flag that represents the fundamental interests of the people, but it is not the flag of one nation. It is the red flag of communism and proletarian revolution. It is the flag that links the exploited and oppressed the world over as opposed to dividing them. It is the flag that represents the historic mission of the proletarian class to liberate itself and all of humanity. It represents lifting our heads up beyond the interests of any one nation, to a world without nations or borders. It represents casting our vision to the furthest horizon of a whole new world that is possible and necessary. The red flag is the flag of nothing to lose and a world to win—and it’s got to be more the case that when people rise up in struggle and rebellion they raise up the red flag!”

I hope that these pictures capture some of this revolutionary internationalist spirit at the San Francisco action as well as the powerful sprit of the entire action.