Clarence Thomas will explain the origins of May Day and how one of the most renowned radical labor organizations in the country initiated the movement to reclaim May Day, recognized around the world as International Workers’ Day, as the commemoration of the real Labor Day in the US. He will cover how in 2005, a resolution calling upon the ILWU Longshore Division, all trade unions, and working people, both organized and unorganized, to reclaim May Day as a central and pivotal part of our history and to recapture the spirit of the struggle that it represents; of which the government and corporations have sought to conceal and deny the memory of May Day and suppress the class struggle that it embodies.

Further, Thomas will outline how for nearly two decades ILWU Local 10 has withheld its labor for 8 hours on May 1st , has held rallies, and put forward working class demands that reflect the concerns of working people.

Bio:

Clarence Thomas is a third-generation retired member of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 in San Francisco and a radical African American trade unionist. A past secretary-treasurer and executive board member of his Local, he has led or been a part of many rank-and-file struggles and solidarity actions at the point of production. A labor and community activist, Thomas has championed the struggles of African Americans, the oppressed, and the working class at home and abroad. Clarence's activism started in the late 1960s as a member of the Black Student Union at San Francisco State College and as a member of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California.   During his college days at San Francisco State, he was a part of the leadership of the longest student strike in American History which resulted in the establishment of the first Black Studies Department and School of Ethnic Studies in the country, and both still exist today.  

Clarence organized and lead such courageous rank-and-file actions such as the Million Worker March Movement in 2004, calling for workers to break away from the Democratic and Republican parties and organize independently mobilizing and organizing in their own name;  in 2008 shutting down all 29 West Coast ports on May Day to oppose wars in Iraq and Afghanistan;  in 2010 shutting down 5 Bay Area ports action for Justice for Oscar Grant and Jail for Killer Cops; in 2011 on the 43 rd  anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. shutting down Bay Area ports for 24 hours as a Day of Solidarity with Wisconsin Workers; also in 2011 shutting down docks on December 12 th   in solidarity with West Coast Occupy Wall Street; in 2014, port shut-down solidarity action for Palestine; in 2015, May Day port shut down action for Resisting Police Terror; and on May Day 2016, rally and port shut down in Support of Black Lives Matter; and Juneteenth 2020, West Coast ports shut down to commemorate emancipation from slavery in Texas on June 19, 1865. Clarence Thomas is the publisher and author of the anthology Mobilizing in Our Own Name: Million Worker March, www.millionworkermarch.com. Although he is retired from the waterfront, he is not retired from the struggle.