May Day Rally: ​“Enough Is Enough”

Wilbur Cross drumline bass drum players Aniya, Andrea, and Talia were exhausted — and energized — as they kept the beat while marching down Chapel Street with hundreds of fellow New Haveners to mark an international day of worker solidarity.

Students, immigration activists, educators, labor union members, and elected officials all stood side by side flooding New Haven’s Green to celebrate the community’s annual May Day rally.

Advocates came with long agendas highlighting their discontent with local, state, and national issues like public education cuts, increased deportation efforts, and organized labor’s diminishing rights. 

The mass message from all the advocates was: ​“Enough is enough.” 

Dozens of booths decorated the Green Thursday around 5 p.m for New Haveners to sign petitions, write letters to the governor, or join different organizations’ fights. 

Hundreds then marched through downtown’s streets chanting, ​“We are the many! They are the few!,” and, ​“When we fight, we win!” 

Click here and here to watch parts of Thursday’s speakers and march. 

Cross junior Aniya and sophomores Andrea and Talia thought about the current condition of their East Rock school building and used their frustrations to keep marching on Thursday. 

Cross’s drumline of ten led Thursday’s marchers while drumming to the rhythms of New Haven’s concerns. 

Aniya kept New Haven Public Schools’ (NHPS) potential budget cuts at the forefront of her mind to keep her energy up during the march. She fears losing her drumline teacher and drama club, two things that she said ​“made me who I am today.” 

Andrea described the march as exhilarating. ​“Even though I’m a bit in pain, it’s really nice to be a part of something so important,” she said. 

She too said she worries about school cuts due to the district’s financial struggles. She also hopes to go to college and worries whether she will get the financial assistance to attend. ​“Seeing people target the arts hurts because that’s what I care about most,” she added. 

She concluded that ​“it’s hard to stay happy in these times” while trying to be a teenager but also charged with advocating for her and her peers’ educational rights. 

“Since we were little, older generations have put the pressure on us that, ​‘You’re going to fix everything,’ ” she said. 

Talia added that her drums did the speaking for her Thursday as she marched through New Haven with her peers and community. ​“I’m afraid of the teacher who made me who I am getting cut. It’s a very scary feeling,” she said. 

The trio agreed that they marched Thursday to demand a change particularly for their classrooms that are falling apart, lack of a working pool at Cross, and access to arts clubs. 

“I felt really powerful. People walking out their shops made it feel like if we speak up they’ll listen,” Aniya said. 

New Haven’s many activism efforts united into one May Day rally call of: ​“This is what democracy looks like.” 

Attendees’ signs denounced President Donald Trump and top federal advisor Elon Musk, attacks on immigrants, cuts to public education, and anti-worker efforts. Attendees from the audience continuously called out, ​“Shame!,” as speakers discussed their concerns with the current federal government.. 

Metropolitan Business Academy sophomore Brandon Daley shared that while the ​“world is going crazy,” it feels good that New Haven’s community is not being torn apart and is rather united to be even stronger.

​“When we come together like today we have a bigger voice and can accomplish something,” he added. 

He said that he hopes to follow in his older brothers’ and mother’s footsteps one day by attending college. 

He said his mother is a single mom of three who immigrated to New Haven from Jamaica. She was kicked out of her mother’s home at age 15 with her 17-year-old sister. From there, she sought out the necessary supports to graduate high school and college to become the nurse practitioner she currently is. 

Daley said he fears federal education cuts will limit his ability to go to college, especially because he is looking to get financial aid. 

Michael Furlow, who has worked as a licensed practical nurse (LPN) for more than 20 years, took the stage Thursday to share about the current struggles of healthcare workers. 

As an LPN at a local nursing home, Furlow compared his colleagues’ struggles now to when healthcare workers faced didn’t have access to enough personal protective equipment (PPE) at the start of the Covid pandemic. He recalled healthcare staff at nursing homes making safety gowns out of trash bags because of the lack of PPE to protect themselves and elderly residents. 

“Fast forward to today, five years later, we are still in crisis,” he said. 

Rather than trash bag gowns, he said, his CNA co-workers are having to buy soap for their entire nursing home because the facility has run out. He said he must buy his own safety gloves to work because his workplace only has one size of medium gloves, which don’t fit his hands. He continue that healthcare staff have had to cut and tape together two small adult diapers to make a larger diaper for residents because facilities are ​“cutting corners” and putting lives at risk. 

“Did we not learn anything?” he asked. 

He and his colleagues are no longer carrying the burden of the lack of investment in keeping health care staff and seniors safe. 

“Enough is enough,” he chanted Thursday. 

He concluded that earlier on Thursday, a 10-day strike notice representing 5,700 caregiver union members was delivered to the governor’s office making him aware that those facilities intend to go on strike on May 19. 

“We will not be pushed aside any longer,” he said. ​“We will no longer be brought to tears as they suffer in silence. They deserve real quality of care. They deserve dignity. They deserve respect. And so do we.” 

New Haven Rising leader and local labor advocate Rev. Scott Marks also called on every elected leader to support the striking workers bill, House Bill 5760, which would ​“allow striking workers to receive unemployment benefits for the duration of a strike.”