1 of 5 | Protesters march in Milwaukee on Monday, to denounce former President Donald Trump and the GOP agenda. Photo by Paul Beaty/UPI |
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July 15 (UPI) -- Thousands of anti-Trump protesters from across the country marched outside Monday's Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, united in their opposition to the GOP agenda and varied in their causes, which ranged from abortion and LGBTQ rights to pro-Palestine and climate change.
The Coalition to March on the RNC 2024, which is made up of local and national organizations, looped from Red Arrow Park in downtown Milwaukee, outside of the "hard" security zone around the Fiserv Forum where the convention is being held. Hundreds of protesters could be seen carrying signs and shouting as they marched amid sweltering temperatures.
"Today went extremely well," Coalition Co-Chair Omar Flores said after the march. "We had no confrontations."
"We've had these plans for years, we know what we're doing," protester Kobi Guillory told WITI-TV. "We are very experienced at protesting. We're having a family-friendly demonstration here."
The protests come amid heightened RNC security and calls to tone down the political rhetoric, just two days after former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania, as protesters pushed into the "soft" security zone and got a bit closer to Fiserv with no police confrontations.
"There's been some doubts coming into this from folks in Milwaukee, that a march right now is very dangerous, that we shouldn't do it, and we always countered that narrative," Flores said.
"We feel like that's a Republican-supporting narrative that it's going to be dangerous. We knew from the start that we know how to host a family-friendly march."
About 3,000 protesters gathered at Red Arrow Park where members from more than 100 activist groups, including the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Reproductive Justice Action Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Anti-War Committee and the Climate Justice Committee, spoke out about their causes.
"We need a platform and policy that is actually going to address climate change and we can't do that so long as we have U.S. militarism, so long as we have reliance on fossil fuels, and so long as those corrupt parties are in power," Berg said, as he blamed both Democrats and Republicans.
Victoria Hinckley, who was expelled from the University of South Florida for participating in an anti-Israel encampment, spoke out against attacks on abortion.
"These attacks on reproductive freedom and abortion access are harshly felt in the South, especially in states like Florida and Texas with the emergence of anti-abortion bills banning abortion within the first few weeks of pregnancy," Hinckley told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel./
While few speakers referenced Saturday's shooting, organizers said it did not change their plans or what was said, as Kobi Guillory of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization told the crowd it is a matter of "life and death."
"Defeating the Republican agenda is a matter of life and death for working and oppressed people."
