With Donald Trump taking state after state in the Republican primaries, New Yorkers gathered at Columbus Circle on March 19, 2016, to let the presidential hopeful that they don’t want him to be their next president. Despite a change in the route — as well as a run-in with a couple of Trump supporters — the protesters marched toward Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue and showed a united front against Trump. As ralliers circled Trump Tower, the NYPD were forced to close off the Fifth Avenue side of the building until the protest was over.
“We hoped in that in a nonviolent manner — which for the most part we’ve achieved that — to tell the general public that he’s a threat. He’s a threat,” says Steven Hamlin,19, spokesperson for Cosmopolitan Antifascists.
Hamlin also added: “He’s incited violence at his rallies. He’s erred on the side of hatred, fascism. We realized it’s a fearful time in this country. We don’t deny that, but we think erring on the divisiveness and hate is not how we should solve our problems in this country.”
Photos by Emily Tan for the Village Voice