Thousands of protesters swarmed the streets of several major cities
Wednesday to voice their opposition to the election of Donald Trump to
the White House.
Protesters in Chicago chanted "Not my president" and "F*** Trump" outside Trump International Hotel & Tower.
"I'm here today because I'm speechless at what
happened," Rebecca Gomez, 22, told NBC News. "I'm Mexican, but I was
born in the United States. I'm afraid people won't care about that,
though. I'm afraid they will be violent."
In New York, thousands of protesters could be
heard chanting and banging drums as they marched past Rockefeller Center
up Sixth Avenue, barely even acknowledging the rain.
"It's horrible that we have to do this," said
Trevor Wheeler, 18, of North Dakota, who now lives in New York City. "I
identify as a queer person. I will most likely lose my right to get
married ... I will not be able to present myself the way I want to."
Some chanted "Racist, sexist, anti-gay! Donald Trump must go away!" and "F*** your wall!"
At least 30 people were arrested, NBC New York reported, quoting police. Most of the arrests appeared to be for disorderly conduct.
Protests also took place in many other cities Wednesday:
- More than 100 people shut down a major highway through downtown Los Angeles Wednesday night NBC Los Angeles reported. As of midnight local time (3 a.m. ET Thursday), 13 people were arrested.
- A crowd that police estimated at several thousand marched Wednesday night through downtown Seattle chanting "not my president" and carrying signs reading "Fight Racism" and "Impeach Drumpy," NBC station KING reported.
- Dozens of young people chanting "Hey hey! Ho ho! White supremacy's got to go!" burned a U.S. flag on the campus of American University in Washington, D.C., NBC Washington reported.
- At Berkeley High School in Berkeley, California, which has significant populations of Hispanics and African-Americans, students staged a walkout while chanting "Love trumps hate" and "Not our president."
- In the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh, hundreds of protesters chanting "No Trump" and "Not My President" marched down Bond Boulevard on Wednesday night bearing a banner reading, "We must stand together against fascism," NBC station WPXI reported.
- Protesters shut down Interstate 5 in both directions in Portland, Ore., the Oregon Transportation Department said. One protester spray-painted "Impeach" on the side of Moda Center, home of the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers, NBC station KGW reported.
- More than 400 people chanting anti-Trump slogans clogged the streets of downtown Austin, Texas, and marched to the state Capitol, NBC station KXAN reported.
- Scores of students walked out of classes at historically black Fisk University to march through the streets of Nashville, Tennessee, NBC station WSMV reported. The group sat down at the intersection of Charlotte Pike and 6th Avenue and shouted, "This is what community looks like."
Hundreds of sticky notes plastered the walls of New York subway stations Wednesday with messages of support and dissent.
At various points during his campaign, Trump proposed a temporary ban on Muslims' entering the country, vowed to forcibly remove millions of undocumented immigrants from the United States and spoke of African-Americans' communities as crime-ridden and bleak, among other comments.
He also said he would appoint justices to the Supreme Court who would reverse Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark decision that legalized marriage equality across the country.
Although Trump performed better
than Mitt Romney did in 2012 among black and Hispanic voters, the
business mogul's win metastasized longstanding apprehensions among many
Latinos, Muslims, African-Americans and members of the LGBTQ community,
among others who say they don't know what the future holds for them.
For example, 68 percent of black voters told NBC
News during exit polls that they would feel "scared" if Trump won,
compared to 30 percent of white voters.
And despite Trump's attempt to peel away LGBTQ voters with targeted appeals in speeches and even campaign merchandise, many in the demographic viewed those efforts with suspicion, some activists say.
The future of coming out depended upon who we voted in. Today, that
future looks darker," said Hannah Simpson, a transgender activist.
The sentiment resounded throughout the streets of Chicago.
"I'm a queer woman, and I'm afraid that who I am is under threat," said Erin Uttich, 24. "People have to know that even though the Electoral College chose him, he is not my president."
Minority voters worry about whom Trump will pick for his Cabinet and
various other posts, said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at
Emory University in Atlanta. They also worry about how the Trump
administration will tackle issues of voting rights, policing and
immigration.
"The question on the minds of these people is if
Trump will govern the way he campaigned," Gillespie said. "He's said a
lot, but without a track record, it's unclear what he will actually do."
A survey of registered Muslim voters by the Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR, last month reported that 85 percent of respondents
believed Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment had increased in the
past year — a rise the council linked to the divisive presidential
campaign.
Despite the fears, many Trump critics are
refusing to back down. In a statement, CAIR vowed that "American Muslims
are here to stay."
Others took to the streets to express their rage.
"All day long, I've been facilitating between
shock, disbelief, grief, anger, horror [and] shame, and I knew I had to
come out here, because this is not the vision of the world that I can
bear to live in," Edita Birnkrant, 39, said in New York.
Birnkrant said she believed the country was moving backward.
"It's just impossible to even imagine how we can
go forward in the coming days or weeks knowing what's to come and
knowing that the vision of the world and the changes that a President
Trump said he wants to make are truly terrifying," Birnkrant said.
Some groups are banding to use Trump's election as an opportunity to work harder.
"The next four years are going to be hard for
all of us, but this is an unprecedented chance for all of us to fight as
one," said Jonathan Lovitz, a senior vice president of the National Gay
& Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. "Think of the possibilities when all
minorities stand together."
"The resistance begins today," Ben Jealous, past president of the NAACP, wrote in a column for NBC News.
"We must build the most robust movements we have
ever known to defend our rights and those of our neighbors, protect our
planet, end poverty, and shift the world away from war and towards
peace," he wrote.
Safia Samee Ali reported from Chicago. Mohamed Hassan reported from New York. Editor's note: A previous version of this article misspelled the name of the Council on American Islamic Relations.
