Annual May Day rallies proclaim the cause of workers in the United States and across the globe. But this year, demonstrations in the United States were supercharged with the breadth of the anti-Trump movement, as outcry continued to grow over the president’s agenda and expansion of executive power.
Protesters denounced the administration’s effort to roll back workers’ rights — a particular sore spot on a day dedicated to celebrating organized labor — as well as plans to cut education funding and carry out mass deportations.
“We’re here to support our workers and our union,” Jena Olsen, a 63-year-old who has worked as a flight attendant for 39 years, said at a large rally in Chicago’s Union Park. But demonstrators said they were also angry about the “threat to democracy” posed by President Trump.
For that reason, this May Day was different, said Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.
“Workers are under attack; immigrants are under attack,” Ms. Wheeler said, after addressing a densely packed crowd of thousands in downtown Los Angeles. “There is chaos and confusion everyday.”
Behind her, the sound of beating drums and blaring vuvuzelas mingled with cheers extolling labor and immigrant rights leaders delivering remarks from the back of a modified pickup truck.
A diverse array of flags — American flags, flags of several Latin American countries and Pride flags — hovered over an equally diverse sea of people. Workers held up signs and banners scrawled with the acronyms of their respective unions.
Similar scenes unfolded across the country, as the police closed streets for the crowds in major cities including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington.
But protesters also rallied in small communities that voted overwhelmingly for President Trump, including Norman, Okla.; Sauk City, Wis.; and Hendersonville, N.C. Groups held signs in front of municipal buildings and public schools, and some demonstrators wore red to indicate their support for public education.
A rally in Los Angeles began early on Thursday and focused largely on rights of migrants, who in California also make up the ranks of workers.
Jose Servín, 31, an organizer for a statewide coalition of advocacy groups who helped set up for the rally, held a sign that read, “Come for one of us, come for all of us.”
Mr. Servín immigrated to the United States as a child, he said. “I found a place here where I can succeed, where I can thrive, where I can plant roots — I’m a father now — and I’m going to fight like hell to protect that,” he said.
A separate effort, which organizers billed as a National Law Day of Action, brought legal professionals to the Supreme Court in Washington and federal courthouses across the country on Thursday to push for judicial independence and oppose efforts by the Trump administration to intimidate law firms.
The lawyers demonstrating at the Supreme Court reaffirmed their oaths to serve with integrity and to protect the rule of law — principles that do not appear to interest Mr. Trump, said Fabiola Gretzinger, 28. “He thinks he’s above it,” she said.
The protests — more than 1,000 were expected across the country — were planned to coincide with traditional May Day labor rallies by 50501, a loose coalition of grass-roots activist groups, as well as by labor, nonprofit and civil rights organizations. May Day commemorates the struggle for an eight-hour workday, which was won by labor organizers in 1886 only after clashes in Chicago resulted in the deadly Haymarket Riot.
The Trump administration has sought to quell dissent in corporate America, universities, government agencies and the news media. But in recent weeks, demonstrations opposing the president’s agenda, as well as resistance from some of the institutions targeted by Mr. Trump, have increased in size and frequency.
Labor groups made up a significant portion of the demonstrators at the rally in Chicago on Thursday, though pro-Palestinian activists and anti-Trump demonstrators swelled their ranks, and many saw their concerns as overlapping.
“He’s tearing apart our Constitution,” said Bill Hincks, 40, a union official from the Chicago suburb of Oak Forest, who faulted Mr. Trump for firing officials at agencies that regulate workplace safety, including at the National Labor Relations Board. One name that was uttered and written across signs held by protesters across the country on Thursday was that of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was erroneously deported to a prison in El Salvador.
Mr. Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez, spoke to several thousand people at a rally in Lafayette Square in Washington. “My husband was illegally detained, abducted and disappeared, thrown away to die in one of the most dangerous prisons in El Salvador with no due process because of an error,” she said.
“Stop playing political games with my husband’s life,” Ms. Vasquez said.
Listening in the crowd were fellow immigrants from Central and South America, including those who knew people who had recently been deported.
“It helps our undocumented community,” said Nelly Bautista-Hernandez, an immigrant rights organizer who wrangled her young children to come to the rally. “I march for all of those who are not here.”
Prominent politicians also joined demonstrators at some events.
In New York City, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, implored attendees to keep on G.O.P. lawmakers the pressure on G.O.P. lawmakers that was seen through the first 100 days of Mr. Trump’s presidency.
She appeared at Foley Square in Manhattan with news: A vote by House Republicans on the future of Medicaid had been delayed.
“They have stopped and suspended next week’s Medicaid cuts, because they’re getting too scared,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez said. “They see you, New York, they see the gathering.”
In Philadelphia, after a speech from Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, dozens of demonstrators locked arms and sat down at an intersection near a highway entrance for about 30 minutes before the police began to make arrests.
“We shall not be moved,” they sang.
Katie Benner contributed from Washington, Joel Wolfram contributed from Philadelphia and Cassidy Jensen contributed from New York.
