On Nov. 9, less than 24 hours after Donald Trump won the presidential election, anti-Trump protesters took to the streets of Atlanta to show their disapproval of the election results.
An event called “Atlanta Does Not Stand With Hate” had been scheduled on Facebook earlier, but was later cancelled because of the “unforeseen size of the gathering,” according to Alex Espinosa, a co-organizer of the event.
“We are currently in a critical meeting to produce a more effective event in the near future,” Espinosa announced. “We plan to update with the details of that event tomorrow.”
But that didn’t stop a group of around 400 citizens, according to AJC, to gather by Piedmont Park to protest around the time of the would-have-been gathering.
The protesters marched through Midtown and Downtown to Phillips Arena and then back to Piedmont Park, all the while chanting anti-Trump slogans.
Tara Dixon, a Georgia State student and member of Georgia State’s International Socialist Organization and Progressive People’s Party, said the two organizations helped organize the march.
“We’re fed up with Trump. But he’s not the end, there’s still hope, we’re organizing, we’re doing things in Atlanta, and we’re f*cking sh*t up,” Dixon said.
Dixon said she believes Trump is bad for Georgia State students because of their diversity.
“Our campus is one of the most diverse campuses in all of the nation and he wants to attack anyone who’s different from him,” she said.
Another Georgia Student in attendance, Rebecca Reagan, said she was marching to stand with her peers.
“I’m here to represent myself as a woman and I’m here to represent all my friends who identify as Muslim, LGBTQ, as people of color, anything,” she said. “I’m here standing with them today because they truly need it.”
Reagan said she hopes that nothing negative will happen at Georgia State now that Trump has been elected. She said students need to “stick together to stand strong against the hate.”
Once the group arrived at Piedmont Park after marching through the city, the crowd formed a circle in the street and individuals came forward to voice their concerns about Trump being elected. People spoke about the power of young people in the political system and how citizens of Atlanta should be proud of the protest that they put on Wed. night.
Anti-Trump chants resurfaced during the discussion and police officers began to move protesters out of the street and onto the sidewalk. One woman, Alexis Mikayla Johnson, was arrested. Her friend Thomas Schoolcraft described the scene.
“She was standing in the bike lane in the Piedmont Park entrance. A cop came up and said ‘you’re standing in the street, you need to get off the street.’ She held her fist in the air and said no, so he’s just like ‘Put your hands behind your back.’ Threw her in the car, just like that.”
Once Johnson was taken away, the crowd began to yell at the police on the scene by shouting phrases like “f*ck the police state” and asking why they supported Trump. The police officers did not respond to the chants and remained still and silent in the street to prevent the protesters from re-entering.
Protesters began to disperse at around 11:30 p.m.
Georgia State student Christina Fortier said, “[Trump’s] the worst person to ever be elected to office.”
“I really wish Hillary would’ve won. He doesn’t like diversity. He hates anyone with a different color, a different sex. He ran his whole platform on hate,” she said.
