May Day: looking back at Portland's red past

By Michael Munk, The Portland Alliance, June 2000

Until this year [2000], recent MayDay observances in Portland have been low-key affairs, largely ignored by ruling class media. But during the 1930s "Red Decade," the city witnessed annual militant demonstrations and parades. A typical handbill from those years shows they usually started at today's Lownsdale Square (then called Plaza Park) at SW Main between 3rd and 4th Avenues.  Earlier, MayDay 1920 featured Louise Olivereau, a poet and teacher just released from two years in prison for opposing World War I speaking at Finnish Hall (now part of the Kaiser Permanente Interstate Medical Center at 3800 N. Interstate Avenue).

MayDay 1934 was especially dramatic.  MayDay dawned on a large red flag flying proudly over City Hall.  Demonstrators gathering at nearby Lownsdale Square were delighted that the flag remained most of the day due to a "malfunctioning" pole mechanism that defeated authorities efforts to remove it. The Portland section of the Communist party announced the parade against "hunger, fascism and war" would enjoy a technological advance. "For the first time in Portland on May Day," its leaflet declared, " the workers have arranged a PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEM."  The Unemployed Councils called on all working class organizations (and "sympathizers") to meet at 2519 SW First Avenue an hour before the 3pm demonstration and march to Plaza Park for unemployment insurance and social security, free milk for children, "more and better relief" and the "release of all class war prisoners."

The United Front May Day Committee organized observances in the late 30s, including in 1938 an indoor rally in the Civic Auditorium (still in the same location) to aid the Spanish Republic, then under fascist attack.  Red Squad spies reported that this "was a complete change in tactics as experienced in former years when parades and soap boxing were the main events of May Day."

Portlanders returned to the Plaza Park Blocks for May Day 1939, when the Portland May Day Action Committee (working from room 324 of the Governor Building, still at 408 SW Second Avenue) reminded the public that the tradition grew from an 1886 Chicago demonstration for the 8-hour day. The marchers called for  "Labor Unity," WPA and social security and urged the public to "Back President Roosevelt."

In the midst of World War II, Communist leader Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the "Rebel Girl" of Joe Hill's famous song, spoke to a MayDay 1943 Victory Rally sponsored by the Multnomah County Communist Party at the appropriately named Redmen Hall. Then Oregon CP headquarters, it remains at 916 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Flynn, who lived in Portland for almost 10 years beginning in the late 1920s, returned for May Day 1946, speaking against "The Menace of World War III" at the Shattuck School (now part of the PSU campus). In 1948,Trinidad native Claudia Jones, secretary of the CP's Womens Commission, spoke at Norse Hall (111 NE 11th Avenue).  Jones was an important spokesperson for Black and women's rights-as well as a "relentless critic of male chauvinism." She was imprisoned under the infamous Smith Act in 1951 and deported to England.

For more info: The Portland Police Red Squad files in the City Archives contain more handbills and spy reports on local MayDay observances. Newspapers from the next day usually briefly note the events, and at least one Portlander recalls participating with his girlfriend at a meeting after the march at the ILWU Hall (then at NW 10th and Flanders) in the late 30s.