On Thursday, July 17, an estimated 250 local demonstrators walked/rollerbladed/bicycled/rolled/skateboarded on the newly opened Humboldt Bay Trail across the Eureka Slough Bridge and north for a mile and back along the trail paralleling U.S. Highway 101. Dubbed Good Trouble Lives On Day by protesters, the nationwide event honors Congressman John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who, as an advocate of peaceful protests, called for “good trouble” during the civil rights era.
“We called upon our community to demonstrate that we are committed to sustained actions of good trouble in our county today, on the fifth-year anniversary of the death of Congressman John Lewis,” said Marlee Nelson, local Humboldt Democracy Connections organizer. “We are marching to demonstrate our community’s opposition to authoritarianism. We cannot stand by as the Trump administration violates the Constitution, illegally detains and deports people without due process, and disenfranchises a plethora of marginalized communities.”
Hundreds of other anti-Trump administration protests were organized across the country on this day around three main goals, as outlined by goodtroubleliveson.org: demanding an end to “the extreme crackdown on civil rights by the Trump administration,” “the attacks on Black and brown Americans, immigrants, trans people and other communities” and “the slashing of programs that working people rely on, including Medicaid, SNAP and Social Security.”
“The bridge with its rainbow of colors and the new trail is a good place for our protest,” said Nelson, who said Humboldt Democracy Connections switched the time and location for its protest from the Humboldt County Courthouse to the new trail behind Target in Eureka to “increase the visibility of our protests to different groups of people, aid in retention of protestors and even increase the likelihood that others will be enticed and inspired to join the movement. Additionally, we know that the time window we chose is considered rush hour, meaning more eyes will be on us and therefore more awareness to the movement and our protests.”
“At this time, we are still working on the next protest date,” added Nelson. “Our team has some very exciting things in the works that we are not quite ready to share with the public yet. We remind our community that Humboldt Democracy Connections is committed to peaceful acts of nonviolence, which at its core was upheld in principle and action by the late John Lewis.”
Lewis’ support of coming together to “march in peace, act in power,” as the saying goes, to challenge injustice and create meaningful change is supported by other groups as well, including the 50501 Movement, short for “50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement.” R. Chaos, local organizer for the 50501 was at the courthouse at noon with a sparser but enthusiastic group of protesters that drew passing honks from passenger cars and big rigs alike. The crowd cheered as a station wagon passed carrying a flag that read, “Abolish ICE.”
“People seem to be in good spirits,” he said. “I was hoping for a lot more but being on a Thursday … in bigger cities you can pull this off on a Thursday, but we’re mostly rural.” Many, he noted, are working or can’t travel to the county seat midweek. More protests were in the works, he promised a woman asking about the next one, and they’d be coming back.
Mark Larson (he/him) is a retired Cal Poly Humboldt journalism professor and active freelance photographer who likes to walk.
This article appears in A Saturday at the Rodeo.