By Martin Bennett, Marion Malcolm and Dennis Reynolds
May 1 or May Day is the annual global commemoration of workers’ rights and the struggle against labor exploitation, poverty wages, unsafe working conditions and long hours. It is celebrated in more than 100 countries.
This year, a national coalition, May Day Strong, is calling for a day of “no work, no school, no shopping” to protest the “billionaire takeover of our country.”
Actions in Eugene and elsewhere are expected to oppose the American intervention in Iran and the forever war in the Middle East, the bloated military budget, and cuts by the federal government to health care, education, clean energy and climate-driven disaster relief.
Undoubtedly, the slogan “immigrant rights are worker rights” will resonate this May Day too, given the sustained attack by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security on immigrant workers who are the backbone of the low-wage service sector, residential construction and agricultural industries. May Day actions will underscore the necessity for collective action and labor solidarity to protect workers’ rights for all.
The May 1 commemoration in Eugene is rooted in a rich history of labor and social movements to defend workers’ rights and oppose war, militarism and racism.
In the spring of 1971, student leaders, including Ron Eachus, University of Oregon Associated Students president, and representatives of Eugene faith, veterans, labor, civil rights and women’s organizations, formed a coalition to support the “People’s Peace Treaty” proposed by the National Student Association. The purpose of the treaty was to initiate a direct dialogue between a broad range of U.S. civic, religious and student organizations and the North Vietnamese and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam regarding the conditions for peace.
On May 1, 1971, 2,500 Eugene residents converged downtown after assembling at the UO’s Erb Memorial Union and at the Lane County Fairgrounds to support the treaty and oppose continued escalation by the Nixon administration. Throughout the week, nonviolent protests and sit-ins temporarily shut down the downtown offices of the Selective Service, Internal Revenue Service and other federal agencies.
Simultaneously, during the week of May 1, tens of thousands demonstrated in Washington, D.C., with the slogan “If the government does not stop the war, we will stop the government.” The D.C. police arrested 12,000 demonstrators for nonviolently blocking entrances to federal buildings.
This history is now documented by the UO Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives, which recently published a digital collection of interviews conducted between 2023 and 2025 with 19 Eugene residents who participated in the movement to oppose the Vietnam War between 1967 and 1973. In addition to the audio recordings and interview transcripts, the collection includes an events timeline, interviewee biographical notes and a bibliography of Eugene Register-Guard articles about the anti-war movement.
The interviews are most relevant to contemporary politics and movement building.
The oral histories reveal how Vietnam anti-war activists from both the community and campus grappled with many of the same issues confronting opponents of the authoritarian Trump regime and Israeli genocide in Gaza today: the challenges of building broad-based progressive coalitions; the merits of civil disobedience and disruptive tactics; the importance of public education and alternative media; the stresses and strains endured by both leaders and activists; and the difficulties movements confront when facing repression, legal battles and university disciplinary actions.
The interviews also provide a window into the development of a robust anti-war movement in a single city. The oral histories analyze the strategic twists and turns of the movement, describing the contributions of young people, students, clergy, women, and veterans who became organizers and leaders, and their testimony takes us inside the anti-war organizations that were the movement’s pillars in Eugene.
Moreover, the interviews demonstrate how the anti-war movement profoundly affected activists who remained committed to creating a more equitable society and to opposing American intervention in the Third World.
More than half a century later, there is much to learn from this collection of interviews. The interviews can be accessed at UOregon.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3464.
Martin Bennett is instructor emeritus of American history at Santa Rosa Junior College. Dennis Reynolds is a UO alumnus and a Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) activist on campus. Marion Malcolm was a leader in the local chapter of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the first person hired to staff the local chapter of Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam, later CALC.