How Indivisible Is Organizing Rural America

With the May Day protests, the group shifts tactics ahead of the midterms

Originally published in Barn Raiser, April 30, 2026

On Friday, May 1 — International Workers’ Day — more than 500 organizations representing labor and community groups from across the United States are calling for a day of “No Work. No School. No Shopping.” The coalition goes beyond the resistance groups that helped organize the March 28 No Kings 3 rally. That event was the largest single-day protest in American history, with an estimated 8 million people at 3,300 events showing up to push back on the Trump administration’s autocratic rule.

But unlike inviting people to a protest on a Saturday afternoon, May Day 2026 reflects a shift in tactics — an attempt to flex the economic power of everyday people against political elites and the corporations and billionaires that back them, who appear to be breaking all the rules.

Demonstrators packed downtown Belfast, Maine, on March 28 for the third No Kings protest. Organizers with Indivisible Waldo County estimated some 1,770 turned out in the town of about 7,000. (Indivisible Waldo County)

One of the most prominent groups mobilizing their members to join in local solidarity marches, pickets and rallies is Indivisible, the nationwide grassroots progressive organization that was the principal organizer of the No Kings demonstrations.

The group’s website explains its involvement in May Day 2026 as “an opportunity to test…