WORCESTER — Amid the forest of protest signs that lined the sidewalk in front of Worcester City Hall on April 19, one phrase kept popping up: “No Kings!”
A crowd of Worcester-area residents filled up the block outside City Hall to protest against President Donald Trump and his policies that afternoon, meeting with loud cheers from passing drivers on Main Street.
“It’s not just his policies. It’s everything,” one protester said.
Many of the demonstrators carried signs criticizing Trump as a would-be dictator and marking the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which took place 30 miles away on April 19, 1775, and ignited the American Revolution.
“Red hats = redcoats” was the message on one protest sign, comparing the red “Make America Great Again” hats often worn by Trump’s supporters to the red uniforms of the British soldiers that Massachusetts militiamen defeated 250 years before.
At Main and Front streets, Rob Ledoux of Grafton stood in a bright yellow wig, a suit with an overly long red tie, and a papier-mâché orange mask in a Halloween caricature of Trump’s face.
Ledoux said he was there to protest the actions of Trump and his Republican Party, including the Safeguard Voter Eligibility Act, a bill recently passed by the majority-Republican House of Representatives that, if signed into law, would require voters to provide a U.S. passport or birth certificate at an election office.
USA Today reported that the SAVE Act would require that the names on a voter’s passport and birth certificate must match, disqualifying the more than 69 million married American women who took their spouse’s last name after marriage, as well as the half of U.S. citizens who do not have a valid passport.
“(The SAVE Act) is just a way to stop women from voting. I hate seeing people illegally kicked out of the country. I’m 64, so I fear Social Security being wiped out,” Ledoux said “(I am here for) a myriad of reasons.”
Demonstrators hold signs reading “Hands off my neighbors!” and “Hands off our rights!” at an April 19 protest in downtown Worcester against President Donald Trump and his policies.
One woman standing on the corner near Ledoux said she was deeply concerned about censorship, declining to give her name.
“What made me come out is the far reach of these terrible policies and the quality of life for people,” she said. “I’m appalled at the cutting of student lunches while (Trump is) having people at his facilities in Florida who give him millions of dollars. I worry that we’re going to get into a war because he’s unable to negotiate.”
The woman said she plans to visit relatives in another country next month and worries that if she is publicly identified as a dissident, customs officers might harass or detain her when she returns to the United States.
Another protester, who identified herself only by her first name, Tessa, stood a few rows back from the curb and led chants of “This is what democracy looks like!”
Tessa said she had attended a “Hands Off” protest in her home city of Fitchburg two weeks before, and when she saw a social media post about April 19 protests across the state, she and her friends decided to join the Worcester demonstration, particularly concerned about the rights of transgender people.
“I’m here for my trans friends,” she said, holding a sign that read, “Hands off my neighbors!”
The crowd stretched the entire block in front of City Hall between Front and Franklin streets, and included all ages from young children to white-haired elders. Many of the protesters waved American flags.
A steady stream of drivers passing by honked their horns in support, including a handful of delivery trucks, and a passenger in one car unfurled a sign out the window that read “Love one another — no exceptions.”
At one point, a driver waiting at a traffic light raised his middle finger to the demonstrators, and as he drove away, one protester shouted, “We love you anyway.”
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: ‘No Kings’ anti-Trump rally held outside Worcester City Hall