WASHINGTON — Clad in heavy winter coats and holding signs in mitten-covered hands, hundreds of demonstrators decried President Trump in Pershing Park on Tuesday.
“Free Minnesota, free Chicago, free Gaza, free Puerto Rico, free Venezuela, free all our people,” Free America Walkout protesters chanted during one of many rallies nationwide.
The demonstration marked the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s return to office. While Trump presented a thick stack of papers outlining his accomplishments during a nearly two-hour White House press conference, protesters offered a sharply different assessment of his first year.
Women’s March organized the demonstration in partnership with social justice groups such as 50501 and Free DC. At a Free DC table distributing signs, stickers and handwarmers, Katie Hodge said she volunteered at the protest as a “concerned resident” of Washington.
“You see ICE, people being detained, people being arrested with citizenship, people being shot and a lack of due process that, within the administration, there is a disdain for our social and civil norms, let alone the laws,” Hodge said. “I hope that Congress would pay attention to what citizens in D.C. want, which is to respect our home rule in the city and to speak up for us, as far as National Guard deployments and the [Metropolitan Police Department] cooperating with ICE.”
Attendees waved homemade signs reading “Abolish ICE” and “ICE kills good kids,” referencing the fatal shooting earlier this month of Renee Nicole Macklin Good, a Minneapolis woman who was killed by an ICE agent.
“I had a lot in common with [Good],” protester Rachel Ryal said, pointing to her poster paying homage to Good’s last words. “I was married to a military man. I’m queer, and so is she. She moved from a Republican state to what she thought was a safe blue state, and there was just so much connection with her that I instantly couldn’t stand what was happening anymore. … I made this one for her.”
Protesters also expressed disdain for Trump’s policies in Venezuela. An immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago, Nadine Seiler said she was troubled by Trump “murdering people without due process” in Venezuela. She said two people from her home country were among the 87 who died in the Trump administration’s boat strike campaign.
Seiler, a prominent activist whom The Times has dubbed “Trump’s nemesis,” said she is “perpetually disappointed” in “We the People,” lamenting the lack of public turnout at demonstrations.
“There are 341 million people in this country,” Seiler said. “262 million plus of them are adults 18 and over. This is a decent showing, but Washington, D.C., and all of these government offices should be occupied on a daily basis until this regime leaves office. I am glad that we had a decent showing, but there should be millions of people.”
Still, other attendees reflected on gaining a sense of hope through the gathering.
“When I’m in a group like this, I feel very hopeful,” Hodge said. “Sometimes people say we’re in unprecedented times. Almost everything Trump has done has had some kind of precedent in history. The ugliness we’ve seen, there is precedent in history, and we’ve gotten through it. As long as we’re not complacent, we’ll get through it again.”
