A small crowd convened on American University’s quad on Jan. 20 to protest President Donald Trump one year after his second inauguration.
The demonstration was one of several Free America walkouts taking place across the country that day and began at 2 p.m. in front of the Mary Graydon Student Center. Demonstrators made several loops around the quad and briefly marched down the sidewalk of Nebraska Avenue before concluding a half hour later.
Some carried signs labeling Immigration and Customs Enforcement as domestic terrorists. Others carried the flags of Washington, D.C,. and the United States. All were united in condemning the actions of Trump throughout his second term.
The crowd, totaling approximately 50, had a makeup that differed from past anti-Trump protests and walkouts on campus. Despite taking place on the same day of the week and time as a well-attended demonstration in September, only a small handful of students were in attendance.
Lisa Moore, a resident of Bethesda, Md., visited American University’s campus that day expecting a large student turnout. Instead, she said she was perplexed by what she saw.
“I’m disappointed,” Moore said. “I was hoping to see a lot more students out here showing the fire of resistance. A lot of the great protests in our country have been sort of ground up from universities and student populations, so it seems pretty thin to me.”
The students who did attend said that this wasn’t because anti-Trump sentiment decreased on campus. Ella Matthis, a freshman in the School of Public Affairs, said she believes the recent murder of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis was a motivating factor for people to demonstrate.
“I think a lot of things are being brought to light with how aggressive and unfair ICE has been throughout the past few months,” Matthis said. “That has definitely increased energy.”
Andrew Hwang, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, pointed towards the other Free America demonstrations taking place that day as a reason for why student attendance was so low.
“Currently, there’s a lot of students in Downtown D.C.,” Hwang said. “The students that were here in September are probably down in D.C. right now, or doing something else to support.”
Hwang, who marched at the front of the crowd while shouting chants, said that protest demonstrators should sometimes take a leadership role as he did.
“I think more people need to just start chanting,” Hwang said. “Sometimes, in a protest, you don’t need permission to do something good.
Bernhard Gunther, an economics professor in CAS, carried a “No Kings” sign left over from the protests in the summer and fall. He believes this sign perfectly encapsulates the spirit of this demonstration.
“It still fits pretty much exactly with today’s topic,” Gunther said. “We want to save our democracy, and we don’t want any dictators.”
Gunther said he believes the passage of one year has not made open opposition to Trump any less important. He said any show of resistance, big or small, is meaningful.
“Initially, a lot of people may think [the country] will not be as bad as it could become,” Gunther said. “But I think we need to already start to mobilize now to some degree, because I actually expect that worse may come. So that’s why I think it’s important to show the rest of the world where you stand.”
But for demonstrators like Hwang, who is originally from Minneapolis, the Trump administration’s actions are personal. Consequently, he said what is happening there is a strong reason for resistance in the district.
“There’s a lot of terrible things that are happening in this country,” Hwang said. “Being in the heart of the Capitol, where ICE is headquartered, where Trump is headquartered, where the GOP is — I’m happy to join in on this demonstration to show that we, at American University, do not comply.”
This article was edited by Natalie Hausmann, Payton Anderson and Walker Whalen. Copy editing done by Avery Grossman, Arin Burrell and Nicole Kariuki.
