Alameda D. Afonso Henriques and the Fonte Luminosa

On 27 April 1974, a decree made May Day (1 May) a national holiday — the revolution’s first legal achievement, in the words of the Aljube Museum. Four days later, on the first May Day in freedom, the Alameda D. Afonso Henriques was the meeting point for the Lisbon march.¹ From here it went on to the stadium of the National Foundation for Joy at Work (FNAT), which that day was renamed Estádio 1.º de Maio (May Day Stadium), with Mário Soares and Álvaro Cunhal surrounded by thousands of people and under the slogan “Peace, Bread and Freedom” (Paz, Pão e Liberdade). Across the country, some one million people took to the streets.²

A year later, the mood was different. On 10 July 1975, the ministers of the Socialist Party (PS) resigned in protest at the outcome of the case of the newspaper República, and on the 16th those of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) followed them; the Government fell.⁴ It was the “weekend of the rupture”: the Continental Operations Command (COPCON) set up an “access operation” to control the arrival of “counter-revolutionaries” at the PS rallies in Porto and Lisbon. On 19 July, by the Fonte Luminosa, Soares launched a direct attack on the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), the prime minister Vasco Gonçalves and the Intersindical.³ He demanded the resignation of the head of government, and for its turnout and its speeches the Fonte Luminosa rally is considered one of the decisive moments in the struggle over the direction of the revolution.⁵