Washington protesters vow to fight for civil rights under Trump
US civil rights activists vowed to defend hard-fought gains in voting rights and criminal justice during the presidency of Donald Trump, kicking off a week of protests ahead of the Republican’s inauguration.
About 2,000 mostly black protesters ignored steady rain to march and rally near Washington’s Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, as speakers urged them to fight for minority rights and President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, which Trump has vowed to dismantle.
Al Sharpton, the rally’s organiser and a veteran civil rights leader, said Democrats in Congress needed to be sent a simple message: “Get some backbone.”
“We march in the driving rain because we want the nation to understand that what has been fought for and gained, that you’re going to need more than one election to turn it around,” he said.
The rally drew fewer people than organisers had initially expected, but Sharpton said afterwards he was satisfied with the turnout, given the rain and temperatures hovering just above freezing.
“I really didn’t think we’d get those kind of numbers,” he said in a telephone interview.
Trump, a New York real estate developer, won with a populist platform that included promises to build a wall along the Mexican border, restrict immigration from Muslim countries and dismantle Obamacare.
His choice of Senator Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, to become attorney general has raised concern among many on the left that Trump could weaken voting rights for minorities and roll back criminal justice reforms.
“We will march until hell freezes over, and when it does, we will march on the ice,” said Cornell William Brooks, president and chief executive of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. REUTERS