Long Beach May Day 2020 Coalition Drives Through the Streets in Solidarity with Renters, Workers, Black Lives Matter, Immigrants

While the Long Beach May Day Coalition, the last several years, has marched through the streets of Long Beach in solidarity with workers, undocumented immigrants and tenants, this year because of COVID-19, it weaved through the streets in a car caravan of about 100 people in about 50 cars, on Friday, May 1, to celebrate May Day and to express their solidarity.

The caravan started out at a 24 Hour Fitness at Town Center Drive in Compton.  Sheila Bates from Black Lives Matter-Long Beach said, “(T)he staging location was actually a 24 Hour Fitness …Black Lives Matter is committed to ending state-sanctioned violence in all of its forms, including economic and physical….24 Hours Fitness is … complicit in state-sanctioned murder as a result of the murder of Dennis Todd Rogers and Albert Ramon Dorsey.”  Rogers was killed by Los Angeles County Sheriffs and Dorsey was killed by the Los Angeles Police Department, after 24 Hour Fitness employees called the police.  She said both deaths were preventable. She said BLM has started a boycott of the company with two demands: the company provide cultural competency training for employees and protocols be developed as an alternative to simply calling the police.

Along the caravan’s path they drove past the houses of Councilmen Al Austin and Dee Andrews, and Mayor Robert Garcia. 

The caravan’s path also passed where a rent strike is taking place and another where Long Beach Residents Empowered and Housing Long Beach have a strong presence.

The caravan ended by driving past the Long Beach Civic Center, the offices of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the headquarters of the Long Beach Police Department.

Marlene Alvarado contributed to this report with her interview of Bates.