A crowd of more than 100 gather for a May Day rally in downtown at Dallas City Hall at 1500 Marilla St., on Friday May, 1, 2026.
Suryatapa Chakraborty
A crowd of more than 100 people gathered outside Dallas City Hall on a windy Friday afternoon for a planned May Day rally, part of a worldwide movement to advocate for workers and commemorate the labor movement.
Over 30 organizations and labor unions from across Dallas-Fort Worth came together to take part in the day of action, according to a Mobilize page.
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May Day rally goers in Dallas march down Ervay Street in downtown while holding a “National Workers Day 2026” banner on Friday, May 1, 2026.
Suryatapa Chakraborty
“We are organizing to disrupt business as usual,” the page said. “No school. No work. No shopping.”
According to the event page, the demands of the protest include stopping billionaires from taking over the government, protecting and defending Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs for working people, and stopping the crackdown on immigration.
The crowd gathered in front of City Hall to the backdrop of drumbeats and chants of “Stand up, fight back!” and “Money for health and education, not for war and occupation.”
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People held up signs and flags with messages about ending the war with Iran, fighting for workers’ rights, immigrants and more.
Dallas resident James Gregory Cisneros, 66, grew up in South America. He said seeing the United States going in this direction makes him sad. His ultimate hope is for people to have equal rights, he said.
“That’s what the country was supposedly founded on,” Cisneros said. “It’s failing miserably, and nobody seems to care.”
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He said people used to look at the United States as a place of hope, but that has disappeared.
‘We’re going to stand up’
The Rev. Frederick Douglas Haynes III, the pastor at Dallas megachurch Friendship-West, made an appearance at the rally and took the stage to address rally-goers. Haynes is also the Democratic nominee running for Texas’ 30th Congressional District, a seat currently held by Democrat Jasmine Crockett until January 2027.
“Right here we have got the power on May Day,” Haynes said, as the crowd erupted in loud applause. “They’re trying to tackle us because we got the ball.”
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Haynes said the gathering on May Day signifies a tradition of standing up for justice and righteousness.
“We are not going to lie down and take this lying down,” he said. “We’re going to stand up.”
Bradley Evans, 26, from Oregon, said he has been living in Dallas for the past decade. Evans said there are a lot of opportunities to improve the lives of people in the country, and the only way to do that is to come together as one nation.
“People in power try to divide us against each other,” Evans said. “I think it is important to just get out there and show that we are all standing as one.”
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Evans said he hopes in the future, people from all walks of life come together with a common purpose to respect each other’s freedom and dignity.
“That’s the only way America works,” he said.
At about 2:40 p.m., after the completion of the speeches, the crowd made its way from City Hall and marched down Ervay Street toward the heart of downtown.
The crowd continued chanting to drumbeats as people from the sidewalks cheered on the demonstrators.
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“When I say worker, you say power,” the crowd chanted as they held flags up high.
The march ended at City Hall about 45 minutes later, where the crowd stood on the grass facing the plaza as organizers shared closing remarks and thanked everyone for joining.
May Day around the world
Activists around the world held similar rallies and street protests Friday.
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May 1, also known as May Day and International Workers’ Day, is observed around the world and is a public holiday in countries including India, South Africa, China, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, and Greece, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
In Turkey, authorities in Istanbul detained hundreds of demonstrators after trying to march in areas declared off-limits, most notably central Taksim Square, the epicenter of the 2013 protests.
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In France, unions called for demonstrations in Paris and elsewhere under the slogan “bread, peace and freedom,” linking workers’ daily concerns to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
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Rallies were also held in South Africa, where the head of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Zingiswa Losi, said workers were “suffocating” under the rising costs of food, electricity, transport and healthcare in “a crisis of dignity for the working classes.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.