Tampa Celebrates May Day with march through Ybor City
Tampa, FL – On Saturday May 3, over 400 workers and community members gathered at Centennial Park in Ybor City to celebrate International Workers Day. The West Central Florida Labor Council hosted the event. For one hour, protesters listened to speeches and led pro-worker and pro-immigrant chants before a one-mile march through the streets of Ybor City.
Speakers included postal workers, electrical workers, an attorney, a teacher, a federal worker and a student. All stressed the importance of fighting for workers, regardless of immigration status, against the attacks from the Trump administration.
The protest happened in Ybor City, located in southeast Tampa, because it is a community with historic importance to both the worker rights and immigrant rights movements. During the 19th and 20th centuries, Ybor had a thriving cigar manufacturing industry fueled by Cuban cigar workers. In their time, these Cuban immigrants led many strikes and fought for equality to their native born counterparts.
To share more about this history, the march stopped at various locations important to the Cuban community. After marching down the Main Street of Ybor City Seventh Avenue, the march approached its first stop. The first stop was Parque Amigos de Jose Marti, a park gifted to the Cuban government, commemorating Cuban independence and the revolutionary Cuban leader Jose Marti. The second stop was what is now known as the goth club the Castle and what used to be the Labor Temple, a place where cigar workers planned many early 20th century strikes. The third stop was back at Centennial Park at the Immigrants Statue, a statue honoring the hard working families who built the Tampa community.
“Workers with our community marched because the class warfare between the working class and the corporate billionaire class is at a boiling point. If we as working people are going to make our country work for us instead of billionaires, now it's the time to unite and fight for a better life,” said Stephanie Yocum, president of the Polk Education Association and emcee of the protest.