Happy May Day from Jesse Jackson Jr.!

Here’s the full May Day greeting from Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.):

“Today is May 1 which is more often known around the world as a celebration of May Day.  But there are two broad traditions of May Day – one religious and seasonal that transformed itself into more benign social traditions and one more political that focused on workers rights.

“In pre-Christian societies May Day was a celebration of pagan religious traditions while in other cultures it was a public holiday and a festival of spring – e.g., the festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers.  May Day was originally associated with the ancient Celtic festival of Beltane and a Germanic festival known as Walpurgis Night.  Various northern European pagan festivals and a Northern hemisphere divided the calendar year and the beginning of the seasons into different quarters: February 1 (spring), May 1 (summer), August 1 (fall) and November 1 (winter).  Historically, May Day was a very popular day – the first day of summer – often associated with raucous celebrations.

“As Christianity gained ground in Europe, the pagan holidays lost their religious appeal and were transformed into celebrations of the arrival of summer with the tradition of presenting women with baskets of flowers.  Christians also created new religious holidays as replacements – e.g., Christmas, Easter and Pentecost.

“In the United States May Day established International Workers’ Day because of an event that took place in Chicago known as the Haymarket Massacre (1886).  Workers were engaged in a general strike – fighting for an eight-hour work day – and during the protest a demonstrator threw a stick of dynamite into the ranks of the police.  In response the police opened fire killing dozens of demonstrators.  Three years later at a Paris meeting of the First Congress of the Second Socialist International, while celebrating the centennial of the French Revolution, the body called for international demonstrations in 1890 in remembrance of the Haymarket Massacre.  May Day for workers was formally initiated as an annual celebration at the Second Congress in 1891.

“May Day Riots occurred in 1894 and in 1904 the International Socialist Conference called on ‘all Social Democratic Party organizations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on May 1 for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day and for universal peace.’ The congress made it ‘mandatory upon the proletarian organizations of all countries to stop work on May 1 wherever it is possible without injury to the workers.’  In keeping with this May Day workers celebration the 99% Occupy Movement today called on workers to conduct a national strike or to do something – read, discuss – the original meaning of May Day for workers.

“Fearing that the celebration of May Day would remind workers of the 1886 Haymarket Massacre and the on-going struggle for workers’ rights, President Grover Cleveland in 1887 decreed the First Monday in September to be Labor Day in keeping with the first labor organized parade in New York City by the Knights of Labor.

“In 2008, May Day was chosen by Latino immigrant groups to protest H.R. 4437 an anti-immigrant bill they saw as anathema to their interests and called on Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration bill that protected immigrant rights, workers rights and amnesty for undocumented workers.  It was this kind of protest and remembrance of the Haymarket Massacre that President Cleveland feared.”