New Yorkers take part within the Individuals’s March on Jan. 18, 2025 vowing to combat for democracy.
Picture by Gabriele Holtermann
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Two days earlier than Donald Trump’s second inauguration as president, a number of thousand New Yorkers took to the streets Saturday for the “People’s March,” reminding the incoming administration that they’ll proceed to combat for reproductive rights, local weather motion, smart gun legal guidelines, and LGBTQIA+ and immigration rights.
The occasion, which coincided with different Individuals’s Marches in Washington D.C. and different cities throughout the nation, kicked off in Foley Sq. with a rally. The demonstrators then headed up sixth Avenue to Washington Sq. Park, the place the present of solidarity in opposition to Trump’s right-wing agenda commenced.
The Individuals’s March developed from the Ladies’s March, which was born in 2017 when Trump first turned President. Jay W. Walker, a member of the political motion teams Rise & Resist and Gays In opposition to Weapons, advised New York News Metro that rebranding the march was vitally essential.
“Because right now, with this incoming administration, everyone who is not a rich, straight, cisgender, white Christian male is under threat,” Walker stated.
Two days earlier than President Trump is sworn into workplace, New Yorkers collect in Washington Sq. Park for the Individuals’s March, vowing to combat for democracy.Picture by Gabriele Holtermann 
Two days earlier than President Trump is sworn into workplace, New Yorkers collect in Washington Sq. Park for the Individuals’s March, vowing to combat for democracy.Picture by Gabriele Holtermann
Walker predicted the Trump administration would do the bidding of organizations just like the Council for Nationwide Coverage and the Heritage Basis from day one.
The Heritage Basis, a hyper-conservative suppose tank, drafted Challenge 2025, a 900-page manifesto that, amongst different issues, requires the elimination of the Division of Training, a ban on abortions and entry to contraception, increasing immigrant “detention” facilities, an “expedited removal” of undocumented immigrants, rollbacks of authorized protections for the LGBTQIA+ group, together with gender-affirming medical look after transgender minors, and eliminating local weather insurance policies.
“[Trump] is going to start attacking immigrants. He’s going to start attacking queer and trans people. He’s going to start attacking our education system. He’s going to try to get Planned Parenthood completely shut down, which means not just abortion, as we all know. It means mammograms; it means reproductive health care,” Walker defined.
New Yorkers collect in Washington Sq. Park after the Individuals’s March, vowing to combat for democracy.Picture by Gabriele Holtermann 
New Yorkers collect in Washington Sq. Park after the Individuals’s March, vowing to combat for democracy.Picture by Gabriele Holtermann
Manhattan resident Lynn Altman joined the march to point out the nation that folks nonetheless had a voice, though many felt defeated.
“I’m afraid of irreversible change of women’s rights and human rights and immigrant rights being taken away, systematically to the point of no return. And I’m worried that hatred and fear will take over this country and be unleashed even further than it already is,” Altman advised New York News Metro.
Estella Sandifer, 17, feared the nation was getting into a “really dark time” and, in addition to LGBTQIA+ rights and local weather justice, marched for reproductive rights.
“I’m fearful that I won’t have those rights by the time that I’m an adult, and I want to protect my rights now because I feel like it really matters that us, as women, we stand together, and us as a society, stand together to protect one another,” Sandifer stated.
17-year-old Estella Sandifer fears the nation was getting into a “really dark time.”Picture by Gabriele Holtermann 
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams calls on New Yorkers to face up for democracy.Picture by Gabriele Holtermann 
New Yorkers collect in Washington Sq. Park after the Individuals’s March, vowing to combat for democracy.Picture by Gabriele Holtermann
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams joined the gang in Washington Sq. Park, urging individuals to be the “bright light during dark times” and exhibiting a united entrance. Williams predicted the subsequent 4 years can be a “hell of a doozy.”
“In a few days, people who purport to be Christians, I don’t understand what book they read from, but they’re going to be talking about mass deportation and a scale that we have never seen,” stated Williams, referring to the incoming Trump administration’s plans of large-scale immigration raids as quickly as Tuesday.
Lorelei Crean, a transgender youth from Washington Heights, recalled that Trump spent $215 million on anti-transgender marketing campaign advertisements.
“As a trans child, I know my rights are on the chopping block on day one,” Crean stated. “I’m scared, but I have to remember that Donald Trump is afraid of me, too.”
