UT Austin students rally for May Day

Austin, TX – On May 1, about 50 people, including students, labor organizers and community members, rallied outside the University of Texas at Arlington Tower for May Day around 5:00 p.m. The rally was organized by the Austin Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), with help from UT’s chapter of YDSA, to stand up for workers and immigrant rights.

After a round of chants, Kira Small from SDS started off the program by speaking on behalf of a friend who, according to her, “no longer felt safe speaking herself.” Small stated, “Trump ran on a campaign of fear mongering – about migrants, about crime, about law and order. And in order to escalate this crackdown, his administration needs to convince the nation that immigrants are a threat to our safety. They are hoping to buy our apathy with the inflated currency of fear.”

Austin SDS has spent the past semester organizing around immigrant rights for their “ICE Off Campus” campaign, putting an emphasis on immigrant workers for May Day and drawing connections between the struggle for workers’ and immigrants’ rights.

Jules Lattimore, a member of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), told the crowd, “We are seeing increased attacks on working people in the U.S., the richest country on earth. The ruling class has selected a madman for president, and now protects their wealth like a rabid, cornered animal. U.S. hegemony is rapidly weakening across the globe, but we need to make permanent change here too.”

Lattimore continued, “Through our strength in numbers and determination, we will defeat Trump’s agenda, but we must also plan and fight for a future where the racist chauvinism of today is as alien as the witch burnings of the past are to us now. The FRSO has a strategy for revolutionary change born out of its decades long study and practice of Marxism-Leninism, and we invite all who oppose the billionaire regime to join us in carrying it out.”

Tim Wu, SDS member and international student, closed out the rally, stating, “It’s the administration and the capitalists who are the enemy of national security, not the immigrants and international students.” He ended off his speech by saying, “We have to speak out to protect free speech, we should stand up and fight back!”

Austin SDS plans to continue working with both student and community organizations in the fight against Trump’s reactionary agenda.