Protester holds sign along Golf Road in Des Plaines on “May Day”, Thursday, May 1, 2025.
Thousands of rallies calling for raising taxes of higher income earners, denouncing immigration enforcement raids, and protesting against the possibility of federal interference in local elections will be held this Friday (May 1) throughout the country — including in Des Plaines.
The May Day rally will be held at the southwest corner of Lee and Oakton streets from 4 to 6 p.m. It is being organized by the Des Plaines chapter of the Indivisible organization, which organized a May Day rally last year at the corner of Wolf and Golf.
The event page for this year’s rally describes the demands thusly: “Tax the rich so our families, not their fortunes, come first. ICE out. No private army serving unchecked federal power. Expand democracy, not corporate power. Defend free and fair elections.”
Invisible Des Plaines president Lindsay Skarbek told the Journal & Topics that they are pushing for increasing taxes on the rich, investing in public schools and shifting the funding that goes into foreign wars toward creating universal healthcare. That includes both the money currently spent on the war in Iran and military aid to Israel.
Skarbek said the group has no issue with United States military aid to Ukraine.
“We absolutely support military aid to Ukraine,” she said. “In that situation, Ukraine is the underdog, you know. That’s who we want to fight for, that’s who we stand in solidarity with. This is their freedom and fight for independence.”
May 1 is celebrated as International Workers Day in most countries throughout the world, including Mexico. The date was chosen to commemorate the start of the May 1-4, 1886 general strike for an eight-hour workday — a strike that ended violently when an unknown person threw a bomb at the police trying to disperse crowds at the Haymarket Square in Chicago.
While International Workers Day isn’t a national holiday in the United States, it has been a holiday for many labor unions. Over the past 10 years, May Day rallies have been increasingly common in Chicago, with last year’s rally in Chicago attracting thousands.
In addition to Des Plaines, a May Day rally by Indivisible Elk Grove Township is scheduled for 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday at the corner of Biesterfield and Wellington Avenue in Elk Grove Village. While the Des Plaines and Elk Grove Village rallies are two of the only May Day events officially listed within the Journal-area, there are rallies happening in the suburbs further out, including in Evanston and Franklin Park.
Skarbek said that it was important for Indivisible Des Plaines to honor the legacy of the labor movement that ended child labor and successfully pushed for the eight-hour work day.
Skarbek said that the rally will feature a few guest speakers lined up to get folks energized. She declined to name them, saying only that they are “a few union members and folks who are community organizers.”
She said that over the past two years, attendance of the group’s events was anywhere from 20 to 2,000 people. Skarbek said she was hoping for the best for the May Day rally.
“We are radically hopeful, every event we have is radically hopeful, and we hope to remain that way,” she said. “We’re asking people to carve out the time to stand with their neighbors, to stand with their community.”
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