Tomorrow is May Day — that beautiful, rowdy, global holiday for workers, anarchists, anti-authoritarians, and everyone who knows damn well that the bosses need us more than we need them. But before we storm the streets again, let’s talk about the day millions already did — and barely anyone remembers.

On May 1, 2006, the U.S. witnessed one of the largest single-day mass mobilizations in its history — between 2 and 3 million people took part in what was essentially demo This wasn’t just a march — it was a full-blown shutdown. Restaurants closed. Meatpacking plants ground to a halt. Fruit rotted on trees. LA’s port barely moved. In some cities, classrooms were empty as students, teachers, and school workers walked the hell out.

This was in direct response to the racist-as-hell anti-immigration bill known as H.R. 4437, sponsored by Congressman James Sensenbrenner from Wisconsin. The bill would’ve criminalized undocumented people and anyone who supported them. But immigrant communities — mostly Latinx, but including people from all over the world — organized themselves, fast and fierce, and made it crystal fucking clear: we are not disposable.

They called it El Gran Paro Estadounidense — The Great American Boycott — and also A Day Without an Immigrant. In Los Angeles alone, estimates range from 1 to 2 million people in the streets. Across the country, folks wore white shirts as a symbol of unity — and so that the overhead shots from helicopters would show the true scale of what was happening. And it was breathtaking.

But of course, if you blinked you probably missed it — because the mainstream media mostly ignored it. This huge act of resistance was deliberately memory-holed. Luckily, some of us saw what was happening. I was a producer for Democracy Now! and in NYC that day, and it was absolutely unreal. The streets were packed — a sea of people, chanting, marching, holding it down.

Around that time, my comrade Sasha Costanza-Chock asked me to join a project to preserve this moment. We knew history was being buried in real time. So we gathered up the DIY videos that people were uploading online, and we turned it into a DVD called ¡Gigante: Despierta! (Giant Awake!). You can still find it online, including on archive.org — and at the top of this blog is a YouTube embed with some of that footage.

May Day didn’t start in Europe or come from a union hall — it started in Chicago, in the bloody struggle for the 8-hour workday, and it belongs to the workers, the migrants, the radicals, and everyone who says fuck your borders and your bosses.

So wherever you are tomorrow — don’t go to work. Don’t buy shit. Join your people in the streets. Make noise. Hold space. Build power. And remember: this world runs because we make it run.

Happy May Day.