National Campus Walkout at Washington Square Park

(16th November, 2016)

This walk out held at the Washington Square Park mainly comprised of students from NYU. It was a anti – Trump protest. The demographics of the population collected over there was diverse, a lot of international students. There were keynote speakers who would take charge of the protest from the center of the fountain and people gathered around them would chant out the slogans in unison. People kept repeating ‘In the name of humanity we refuse to accept a fascist America’. There was an elderly man distributing flyers and signs for people to hold up. Finally the people were asked to move towards the Bobst Library in front of which they observed silence for 15 mins which was a drastic change from this loud and angry crowd to a silent and somber one. From my personal encounter with some protesters, what i gathered was that they were all very happy that people were standing up against the 2016 Election results and that they all were very uncertain of what the future has in store for them and America.

Here’s a sketch of this lady I found very interesting at the protest. She represented an outside organization which was also standing up against Trump. She engaged in a conversation with me for over 20 mins. It was a lot of information and emotions out there. She also offered me to join her in her initiative and promote their organization in college.

NYC solidarity action to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline at Foley Square

(15th November, 2016)

The folly square protest focused on protesting against the set up of the Dakota Pipelines. The population out here was mostly white native Americans, not a lot of diversity in the gathering. There was a group of protest leaders standing on and by the triumph of the human spirit fountain while everyone gathered held signs and chanted along. People chanted out ‘The people united will never be defeated’. The protesters I managed to talk to all felt very strongly about how this pipeline was the reason behind the destruction of several livelihoods across several states and contamination of water resources. They even expressed their opinions on matters like global warming further relating it to Trump and his to be administration that didn’t believe global warming existed. They talked about the plight of the 2016 election results.

Protests across the nation with regard to the pipeline have been receiving great response as of late the Army Corp of Engineers announced it will look for an alternate route for the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota.