Mayday Festival of Resistance

The Mayday Festival of Resistance is a free concert and party in Bushwick, Brooklyn at Maria Hernandez Park that celebrates the powerful movements working towards positive transformative social change. Through art, dance, and music we are creating a joyous event that shows inclusive, empowering political culture. The festival will lift up the people and organizations fighting for a more equitable NYC in the face of our xenophobic, racist and sexist political climate. We will showcase inspiring artists-activists that are using music to spread messages of hope and resistance.

The success of our project will be measured in two ways:

1. Having a large turnout. Our goal is to have 300‑400 people attend the Festival. We believe this is a realistic and ideal number for the size of the park space and the volunteer capacity we’re harnessing.

2. Growing Mayday’s volunteer group. In the lead up to and post-Festival, we’ll measure success by how many people continue organizing and  working with Mayday Space. Our ultimate goal is to have a large base of volunteers who continue to co-create and grow Mayday programs, events, and classes.  

The Mayday Programming Team is led by 4 core volunteers that have built out an initial volunteer committee of 15 people to help us conduct outreach, project planning, and to pulling off the Festival itself. We will be targeting local businesses and sharing our flier every week starting on March 10th. We will be attending our monthly community board meeting to share updates and recruit volunteers from there. We will also reach out to local schools and at other community events leading up to April 28th. Some of the businesses we are already recruiting and will continue to do so include bodegas, laundromats, barbershops/hair salons, latin american restaurants. We will also do extensive outreach on our two main commercial avenues-- Knickerbocker Ave and Wyckoff Ave. 

We believe the current political climate has created a culture of hate that is targeted at immigrants and fueling racial animosity. In the face of this crisis, Mayday will create a joyous, celebratory event that highlights the victories of the immigrant rights movements and encourage more people to join in the effort.

This year’s festival will uplift the work of women in our movements. In particular, the #Metoo movement has brought attention to the struggle against the larger culture of patriarchy and sexism. Our line up of powerful, inspiring women and Native and Latinx activist-musicians is a recognition and tribute to the women who are the backbones of our communities.