Most people know that May brings with it two of the biggest holidays of spring: Mother's Day and Memorial Day. However, if you're looking for a celebration in May, you don't have to wait very long after the month begins because May 1 is a holiday too.
May 1 is also known as May Day. And no, it's not a day about that word you yell when you have an emergency. That would kind of be a weird thing to celebrate, don't you think?
It's OK if you don't know what May Day is all about. Lots of people don't. The fact that there isn't just one holiday but two on this day doesn't make it any easier to understand it either.
So if you see people celebrating in very different ways on May 1, don't freak out. Everything will become clear soon. OK, it will probably just become a little clearer since the origins of holidays and customs we know and love today are often very murky with many theories about how they came to be. But hey, it's better than nothing!
Even if you don't know a whole lot about what May Day actually is, read on and you'll soon see that there is so much more going on with this holiday than just kicking off the fifth month of the year. There wouldn't be a reason to celebrate it if there wasn't.
Here's what you need to know about the history of May Day and why we recognize it so you can make sure you celebrate accordingly.
It started out as a spring celebration
When some people think about May Day, the first thing that comes to mind is little girls wearing wreaths made of flowers on their heads and dancing around a maypole with a ribbon in hand. If that's what you think May Day is all about, you're certainly not wrong. The maypole dance is a traditional part of any May Day celebration, which commemorates the first day of summer in many cultures. It's basically a time to say goodbye to the long, cold, seemingly lifeless days of winter and hello to the warmth, vitality and renewal of spring and summer, according to The Washington Post.
May Day grew out of pagan spring festivals like Floralia in Rome and the Celtic Beltane, which celebrated fertility and virility. Eventually, May Day activities as we know them today began in medieval England when revelers would gather flowers, hang baskets from door handles and appoint a queen or king to watch over the day's festivities.
It then became all about workers
In the late 19th century, May Day came to be about something completely different. By then, the labor movement was in full force with workers uniting to gain an eight-hour work day and improved working conditions. The movement came to a head on May 1, 1886 when more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States went on strike. The protests continued, and on May 4 of that year, about 3,000 workers met in Chicago's Haymarket Square to discuss the police brutality that had taken place during the demonstrations. As the police worked to clear the crowd, an unidentified person threw a bomb at them, prompting them to open fire on the protesters. In the end, at least seven police officers and four demonstrators were killed with about 60 other police officers wounded.
This event became known as the Haymarket Riot, which helped spur anti-labor sentiment in the country. Eight anarchists were deemed responsible for the riot and were convicted of murder, which made them martyrs among some labor activists.
Over the years, members of the labor movement, as well as socialists, communists and anarchists, commemorated May Day every year with protests. Today, May Day is also known as International Workers' Day as a way to bring awareness to workers' rights around the world.
It's a day for patriotism in the U.S.
May 1 is known as Loyalty Day in the U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared May 1 Loyalty Day in the fall of 1958, amid the Cold War and the Red Scare, and it effectively replaced May Day in the country. Every president since then has issued a presidential proclamation for Loyalty Day on May 1 to "reaffirm our allegiance to the United States of America and pay tribute to the heritage of American freedom," according to President Barack Obama's 2014 Loyalty Day proclamation.
People still celebrate May Day with protests
Though you can still see some people dancing around the maypole on May Day, this day has mostly become a day filled with protests in an effort to bring attention to workers' rights around the world. Unfortunately, they sometimes get pretty violent. Some metropolitan police forces, such as the Seattle Police Dept., are preparing for demonstrations on Friday, which could be heightened by protests regarding the death of Freddie Gray around the country. With the fight for a living wage and equal pay still huge labor issues, this May Day could be one of the most tumultuous yet.
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