As was mentioned in the entry about Haymarket, there are still commemorations nowadays in honor of the Haymarket Strike and the sacrifices made as part of it. In 1889, the Second International(a worldwide confederation of socialist groups) met for their First Congress in Paris. At this meeting it was decided that there should be a commemoration the following year of the Haymarket Affair. The holiday became a routine occurrence following the Second Congress in 1891.
By 1904, the holiday was going along strong, when the International Socialist Conference called upon all workers to stop work on May 1 so as to demonstrate for an 8-hour workday. Over the years, the working classes in many different countries tried to have May 1 recognized as an official holiday. In most of those countries, May 1 became officially recognized as Labor Day, a day set aside each year to celebrate the contributions of workers to society.
However, one obvious exception is the United States of America. In this case, President Grover Cleveland was worried that observing Labor Day on May 1 would give different Labor groups a reason to politicize the holiday as a commemoration of the Haymarket Affair. So instead, the United States adopted the first Monday in September as the official Labor Day holiday(this may or may not have been in commemoration of the recent cessation of the Pullman Strike). However, that hasn't stopped the date from being known as an annual day of protest. On May Day you can find groups organizing in support of many different causes. In 2006, the day was selected as the date of the Great American Boycott, a march advocating for Immigration Reform, and in 2012 it was celebrated with several marches and rallies, some of them led by members of Occupy Wall Street.
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