Thousands of anti-Trump protesters take to streets of US cities

CHICAGO/NEW YORK

AFP photo

Demonstrators marched in cities across the United States on Nov. 9 to protest against Republican Donald Trump’s surprise presidential election win, blasting his campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other groups. 

In New York, thousands filled streets in midtown Manhattan as they made their way to Trump Tower, Trump’s gilded home on Fifth Avenue. Hundreds of others gathered at a Manhattan park and shouted “Not my president,” Reuters reported.  

In Los Angeles, protesters sat on the 110 and 101 highway interchange, blocking traffic on one of the city’s main arteries as police in riot gear tried to clear them. Some 13 protesters were arrested, a local CBS affiliate reported. 

An earlier rally and march in Los Angeles drew more than 5,000 people, many of them high school and college students, local media reported. 

A demonstration of more than 6,000 people blocked traffic in Oakland, California, police said. Protesters threw objects at police in riot gear, burned trash in the middle of an intersection, set off fireworks and smashed store front windows. 

Police responded by throwing chemical irritants at the protesters, according to a Reuters witness. 

Two officers were injured in Oakland and two police squad cars were damaged, Johnna Watson, spokeswoman for the Oakland Police Department told CNN. 

In downtown Chicago, an estimated 1,800 people gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower, chanting phrases like “No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA.” 

Chicago police closed roads in the area, impeding the demonstrators’ path. There were no immediate reports of arrests or violence there. 

Protesters railed against Trump’s campaign pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep immigrants from entering the United States illegally. 

Hundreds also gathered in Philadelphia, Boston and Portland, Oregon, on the evening of Nov. 9. In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people marched through the streets, police said. 

A representative of the Trump campaign did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the protests. Trump said in his victory speech he would be president for all Americans, saying: “It is time for us to come together as one united people.” 


Clinton, Obama pledge unity behind Trump presidency

Rival presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, in her concession speech, promised to bury the bitterness of their long presidential race and work to unify a divided country. 

After Trump’s stunning upset of the heavily favored Clinton, Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama and leading figures in the Republican Party who had struggled to make peace with Trump all vowed to move past the campaign ugliness. 

“Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead,” Clinton said in a concession speech in New York, joined by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and daughter Chelsea. 

While her loss was painful “and it will be for a long time,” she had offered to work with Trump as he prepares to begin his four-year term on Jan. 20, 2017, Clinton told supporters.

“We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country,” Obama said at the White House, adding he and his staff would work with Trump to ensure a successful transition. “We are not Democrats first, we are not Republicans first, we are Americans first.”