Like many in the crowd gathered to protest the actions of the Trump administration, Lisa struggled to pinpoint the one decision that felt like the last straw and that impelled her to show up with a sign in front of City Hall yesterday.

“Shipping people off to other countries without due process?” she began, citing the recent deportation of a 29-year-old Maryland father, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to El Salvador – an acknowledged “administrative error” which federal officials have refused to reverse.

The Baltimore resident went on to say that what happened to Abrego Garcia is not only troubling in itself, but an example of what’s so frightening about the Trump administration’s policies across so many aspects of American life.

“Today it’s him, but tomorrow it could be anybody,” she said, declining to provide her last name. “They’re basically showing us they’ll do whatever they want, however they want, and saying, ‘Just try to stop us! Take us to court! Go ahead!’”

Lisa said she and a friend, city public school parent and massage therapist Jane Marinelli, had a hard time deciding what to put on their signs. The flouting of the rule of law, she decided, is what’s fundamental.

“That to me affects everything – our environment, what they’re doing to our parks, our schools, our universities,” she continued. “They’re attacking our entire legal system. The lawyers, the judges, all of it.”

Richard Jamison, who described himself as an old-line Republican and lifelong Baltimorean, had a blunt description of the changes that have taken place in the first two months of Donald Trump’s second term as president.

“I’m just appalled by us becoming a fascist country. It’s beyond comprehension,” said Jamison, who held a sign that said, “Our parents fought in World War II specifically to prevent this.”

“Things like taking books off shelves. I get so angry I can’t even watch the news. I mean, what they’re doing to Ukraine? Putin owns Donald Trump lock, stock and barrel.”

Growing Fear

Crowd size was hard to estimate, but Free State Coalition, the protest organizers, estimated that nearly 3,000 people showed up at Baltimore’s War Memorial Plaza for the action. Many carried signs that singled out billionaire businessman and DOGE leader Elon Musk.

It was all part of a nationwide “Hands Off” protest that drew hundreds of thousands to cities big and small yesterday. On Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the protest reportedly stretched for nearly 20 blocks and in the nation’s capital, tens of thousands surrounded the Washington Monument.

In Ocean County, N.J. – a Republican stronghold that backed Donald Trump by almost 29 percentage points in 2020 – a crowd that organizers estimated at 2,000 lined either side of Hooper Avenue.

In Baltimore, the action kicked off with several elected officials  – U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen, Representatives Kweisi Mfume and Johnny Olszewski, and City Council President Zeke Cohen.

The Brew encountered teachers, a restaurant delivery worker, a librarian, an engineer and a downtown office building security guard. Also spotted in the crowd was former Maryland State School Superintendent David Hornbeck and  former Maryland Department of General Services Secretary Peta Richkus.

One of the sign-waving protesters was David Allen Sack, a professor of international health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose work has focused on using vaccines to eliminate cholera and other infections in Africa and Asia.

“The cruelty of this administration is amazing,” said Sack, whose sign said, “Hands off U.S. AID, PEPFAR, CDC and NIH” – basically a list of the international and domestic public health programs and agencies slashed or eliminated by Musk since Trump took office.

His wife, Jean Sack, pointed to another concern.

“We’re all involved with Hopkins, and there’s great fear among our international faculty and staff and students because [the government is] withdrawing visas,” she said, noting that the Afghan refugees their church helped resettle are also scared.

Asked what makes him fearful about the new administration in Washington, Keelin Godsey responded after a pause.

“I mean, I’m a trans person, so everything,” said Godsey, who came out as a transgender college athlete in 2005.

“Tyranny tightens its grip”

Speakers at the daylong protest sought to rally the crowd with a message about what they believe to be at stake.

“We stand at the crossroads of history where tyranny is tightening its grip the daily,” said Michelle Finzel, of the Baltimore County-based group Love Thy Neighbor.

“We are left with a choice to rise up and take to the streets together like you are doing right now. Or we can surrender to a tyrannical corrupt regime hell bent on reforming America in its own image,” Finzel thundered. “Do we want to do that? Hell no. We won’t go!”

Some of the speakers connected the day’s event with local and personal concerns.

Tia Hamilton spoke about the racist attacks on her Urban Reads Bookstore on Greenmount Avenue. Sharonda Huffman, a candidate for the Baltimore County Council, spoke about what’s happening nationally.

“We’re watching an aggressive, calculated overhaul of the federal government where essential programs are under attack. Programs like Medicaid, HUD, housing for people with disabilities, funding for education, including HBCUs,” she said, addressing the crowd.

But Huffman also spoke about her own unsettling experience – when she went onto the Social Security website to re-certify the housing benefits her autistic son receives. “It said he didn’t have any benefits,” she recalled.

“The politicians aren’t going to save us. This is where the hope is,” said a protester who pointed to the throngs of people around him.

While Hamilton and Huffman are Black,  the majority of the crowd assembled for Saturday’s protest was white.

“I’m actually happy about that,” said Lyle Saunders, a Black audio visual design engineer who was in the crowd listening to the speeches.

“We’re going to need more people to come out of their own little silos,” Saunders observed. “Not the ones who are wondering how they’re gonna feed their kids next week.”

In other words, the people who can afford to be out protesting on a Saturday because they’re not holding down two or three jobs?

“Yes, and I’m one of those people. I just happen to be Black,” he remarked.

Saunders, who connects Trump’s electoral success to “the undercurrent of racism since our country has developed,” was asked what he thinks might steer the U.S. away from it.

“The politicians aren’t going to save us. This is where the hope is,” he said, pointing to the throngs of people all around him.

More Photos from the Protest