On Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of protesters walked out of school and work to march in downtown Los Angeles to criticize President Trump’s actions in his first year in office.
The “Free America Walkout” at Los Angeles City Hall was among dozens of rallies taking place across Southern California and the country. The event was coordinated by the Women’s March and aimed to demonstrate opposition to the violent raids of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the proliferation of military personnel in cities, Trump’s dangerous immigration policies and the increasing attacks on transgender rights.
Hundreds of protesters marched on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. Among the slogans on their signs: “Democracy is not afraid of protest, dictators are” and “We choose freedom over fascism.” Meanwhile, similar marches took place in Burbank, Long Beach and Santa Monica. Many students from Garfield and Roosevelt High Schools in East LA left class to join the town meeting.
“I don’t know if he is there [Trump] actually did anything good,” city protester Mario Noguera told ABC7 News. “Everything was about getting rid of everything: resources, rights. I just don’t see that we’re going anywhere.”
The event took place on the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration, an event he commemorated with a nearly two-hour news conference in which he called his first year in office an “amazing time” in which his administration accomplished more than any other in history.
“We have a book that I won’t read to you, but these are the achievements of what we have produced, page after page of individual things,” said Trump, holding a pile of papers. “I could sit here, read it for a week, and we’d be done.”
Among the list of his accomplishments are his tax rates, his crackdown on immigrants, the economy and his actions in Gaza and Venezuela.
The Free America Walkout began at 2 p.m. in cities across the US and was designed to stand apart from weekend actions such as the No Kings protests that are deliberately held during the workday.
Organizers say that while the protests show collective anger, the walk shows collective strength.
“Walking disrupts business as usual,” organizers said. “It shows how much our work, participation and cooperation is taken for granted – and what happens when we pull it together.”
In downtown LA, protesters denounced the effects of ICE raids in the area and in Minneapolis, where a federal agent recently shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a wife and mother.
This month, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Los Angeles as part of the “ICE Out for Good” weekend of action, a national protest movement in response to Good’s murder.
Roxanne Hoge, chairwoman of the Los Angeles County Republican Party, criticized the coverage of local anti-Trump protests on Tuesday.
“Their boring, predictable anger is now a part of the landscape of LA, like the RVs that are falling apart and the dangerous places that are caused by their policies,” Hoge told the Los Angeles Daily News. “We are interested in good governance and public safety, and we wish our Democrat friends would join us in addressing both.”
