Thousands of Americans take to the streets to protest President-elect Donald Trump
By Meredith Nestor 11/10/16
As Donald J. Trump became the United States’ newest presidential elect, mass amounts of Americans took to the streets in protest.
Tens of thousands of Americans began to march through the streets of over 10 major U.S. cities on Wednesday night. The rallies/protests were carried into the early hours of Thursday, November 10th, with more and more persistent supporters joining the efforts as the night continued on.
The majority of the cities that protesters marched through were blue states in which Hillary Clinton won. Boston, Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, D.C, and many more saw demonstrations. Reports from the Washington Post also stated that smaller protests were held in red states which Trump took victory of, such as Dallas, TX and Atlanta, GA.
In Boston, thousands of protesters, the majority being young people and college students, gathered in Boston Common with megaphones and signs, and began to parade through the city’s streets. Kasey DiLoreto, a sophomore at Suffolk University in Boston, stated her reasoning for protesting. She said, “Electing Trump is America taking ten steps backwards and I want to show that I will fight for my rights that Trump wants to strip. I do not stand with America’s decision and am honestly appalled someone with no experience has been elected over someone that is overqualified. So this was a way for me to show all of that to the public.” She then went on to say that “This has been a long election season and I have poured my heart and soul in the Clinton campaign and being able to scream out my frustration with America was therapeutic. It also made me come to terms with the fact that the journey to fight for what I believe in just became harder, but also more crucial.”
The Boston Globe livestreamed the Boston protests on their Facebook page, just like many other Americans also did throughout the country.
Carrying handmade signs which read things such as, “Love Trumps Hate” and “Not My President”, the protesters began to let the world know exactly how they felt.
New York City saw the largest amount of protesters. Marching from Union Square to Trump Tower, the protesters shut down several blocks in their way, including the heavily trafficked 6th Avenue. Protesters chanted outside of Trump Tower, shouting, “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Donald Trump has got to go”, and “Donald Trump, go away! Sexist, Racist, anti-gay!” can be heard through numerous videos that bystanders or the protesters themselves posted to social media.
This photo by Twitter user @johnacecil is one example of the many signs protesters held up on Wednesday night.
A video was captured of the New York protests from Phil McCausland, posted by @TheAnonnMessage on Twitter, and currently has 34,000+ retweets, and 42,000+ favorites. While the video speaks for itself, it is unclear whether the number of protesters actually reached 100,000, but Twitter users suggest it hit tens of thousands.
USA Today spoke with 27-year old Brooklyn native, Omar Aqeel, at the protests. The article stated “While he and other demonstrators said they were aware that the protests could not reverse the election, they said they still felt it would have an effect on the future.”
In Los Angeles, protests began outside of City Hall, and slowly moved their way across the downtown area and onto the 101 Freeway, blocking access to any cars. In a tweet by Marcus Yam, @yamphoto, you can see that people who weren’t apart of the protest also got out of their cars to document the action as it happened.
Chicago saw protests go on for about nine hours. It began with several hundred protesters, and grew to over 2,000 as the night continued on. Protesters stood outside of Trump Tower and later made their way toward the downtown area. The Chicago Tribune reported that “Chants of “Not my president” and “No Trump, no KKK, no fascists USA” echoed off the downtown buildings, and some drivers honked their horns and leaned out their windows to raise fists of support.”
The majority of protests were peaceful, but there were instances of arrests. Police officials, especially in New York City, reported arrests in In numbers up to 100. Some protesters also resorted to vandalization, mainly in Oakland, CA, where authorities reported 16 cases of vandalism to the Washington Post.
Washington D.C. also saw a couple hundred demonstrators outside of The White House. The number of protesters eventually rose as they gathered outside of the new Trump International Hotel in D.C. as well.