Kansas City students walked out of class on Friday to join dozens of organizers and workers in support of May Day and to protest federal immigration action and data centers in their communities.
Swoo Harter, a sophomore at Plaza Academy, and other students joined protesters with the Missouri Workers Center and Sunrise Movement KC at the corner of Westport Road and Broadway Boulevard with chants of “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here.”
Swoo said one of her concerns is federal immigration agents killing and detaining people in the United States. The other is the increase of artificial intelligence data centers across the country, and in the Kansas City area.
“My generation, we've all pretty much given up on our dreams and our passions and the things that make us happy, because we know that jobs that utilize those skills will be taken by AI,” Swoo said.
The rally joined May Day demonstrations planned across the country, including in Kansas City, where organizers are calling for a boycott of work, school and shopping to protest the Trump administration's policies.
A rally in Kansas City is planned at 5:30 p.m. at Washington Square Park downtown, across from the federal immigration court.
Swoo said young people’s voices also need to be heard because their futures depend on it.
“The future will be built on us and how we present ourselves in protest,” Swoo said. “We have to make our opinions known if we want change. They're not going to know what we want if we don't say it.”
Swoo said rising healthcare costs also motivated her to join the protest after she dislocated her knee and realized what it would cost her family.
That’s also a concern for Maeryn LaCaze, a freshman at Plaza Academy. Maeryn has a sister with disabilities and said their family has a lot of medical debt as a result. They said better pay for workers is a big issue coming from a family of teachers — a job in Missouri where pay lags far behind other states.
“Because my mother is a teacher, she doesn't get paid very much, and just the job, the state of everything is causing her to not be able to find a job teaching where she loves it and is able to be paid to support our family,” Maeryn said.
Those concerns were echoed by Deon Henderson, who said he’s a “voice” with the Missouri Workers Center. He said there’s a lot to protest — unfair pay and work conditions, challenges to voters’ rights and people being detained by federal immigration agents across the country.
Organizers welcomed students from Plaza Academy to Friday’s rally with chants of “Come on out, we’ve got your back.” Henderson said their presence there meant “everything,” and sees his own kids doing the same when they’re old enough.
“It's just to give the next generation a voice, let them know we hear them, we see them, we feel them,” Henderson said. “We've been there, and it takes a lot of courage to do what they're doing so come on out, we got your back.”
Organizers with Sunrise Movement KC said they worked with Plaza Academy students to help amplify their voices. Brooke Bowlin, the climate activist group’s communications lead, said their environmental concerns intersect with the labor movement, especially around data centers.
“Workers are threatened by AI. The environment is threatened by data centers and just the amount of pollution and environmental degradation that comes from that development,” Bowlin said.
Bowlin said they wanted to get students involved in the protest because events like May Day set the tone for what people want the country's future to look like and young people's voices are the most important in that conversation.
For Maeryn, it’s a way to ensure their peers and other young people are aware of what's going on and can't ignore it on social media and in their communities.
“It kind of forces us out of ignoring it and allowing it to happen because ‘it's not directly impacting us. We're just kids,’” Maeryn said.
