Several hundred demonstrators gathered in Lower Manhattan on Thursday to protest the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion policies and its effort to exert control over policing in Democratic-led cities.
The protest, called the “March on Wall Street,” was led by the Rev. Al Sharpton, whose National Action Network had organized it. He marched alongside Martin Luther King III and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City.
In a statement before the march, Mr. Sharpton said that the Trump administration’s attacks on D.E.I. this year had served as a “prelude” to its recent threats “to take over American cities led by Black mayors.”
In recent months, the administration has sent National Guard troops and active-duty Marines into Los Angeles, and has sought to control the police force in Washington, D.C. Both cities have Democratic mayors who are also Black women — Karen Bass in Los Angeles and Muriel Bowser in Washington.
Mr. Sharpton laced into Mr. Trump in his statement on Thursday. “If we leave him unchecked on D.E.I., if we do not get out and march, if we do not speak up, he will completely erase the freedoms our parents and our grandparents fought, bled and died for,” Mr. Sharpton said, adding that the march on Thursday was meant to remind the president of “the power of Black Americans and their dollars.”
Organizers said that protesters had come from Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
Two of Mr. Mamdani’s mayoral rivals, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams, both of whom are running as independents, did not attend.
Mr. Sharpton said he had invited both men, and made a point of telling the crowd that they had declined to show up.
“I take attendance,” Mr. Sharpton said from the lectern.
Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokeswoman for Mr. Adams, said that he did not march because he was speaking at a funeral.
Mr. Cuomo said that he did not attend because he wanted to promote his campaign’s public safety proposals near the scene of a fatal shooting the day before in East Harlem.
Addressing the crowd, Mr. Mamdani invoked the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He said Dr. King’s work was at “the forefront of my mind” as he campaigned for mayor on a platform of addressing the city’s affordability crisis.
“What good is it to have the right to sit at a lunch counter,” Mr. Mamdani said, “if you don’t have the money to buy a hamburger?”
Mr. Sharpton said the march was similar to the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations during Barack Obama’s presidency, which sought to push back against a rise in economic inequality. But Thursday’s protest was focused more on race, he said, highlighting what he described as the Trump administration’s use of state power to detain and deport people of color.
As the protest got underway, Franshara Coats, a social worker from the Far Rockaway neighborhood of Queens, stood in Foley Square near the African Burial Ground, a historical site that is home to the largest Colonial-era cemetery of enslaved and free Black people. Nearby was 26 Federal Plaza, the local headquarters of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, where immigrants have recently been detained.
“I’m hoping this is the first of many protests,” Ms. Coats, 57, said as she held a sign that read, “You’re Hurting the Poor to Help the Rich.” She said her monthly health insurance payment had jumped from $500 to $800 in July, and that she knew many other people with similar economic concerns.
“I’m the working poor,” she said. “And I’m out here with a rainbow of people.”
Winston Maxwell, 57, an education administrator from Englewood, N.J., stood nearby with a sign that showed an image of the Wall Street “Charging Bull” statute stomping on the Constitution.
Mr. Maxwell said that the actions of the Trump administration had made this protest different from the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations of 2011. The administration’s policing and immigration policies made the stakes much higher, he said.
“Back then it was rich versus poor,” Mr. Maxwell said. “Now it’s about your freedom.”
Dana Rubinstein contributed reporting.
Liam Stack is a Times reporter who covers the culture and politics of the New York City region.
The post Sharpton Leads Hundreds in Lower Manhattan for ‘March on Wall Street’ appeared first on New York Times.
