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Roughly 200 people gathered in Old Town Square Tuesday afternoon to rally against U.S. President Donald Trump.
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The event, held by Fort Collins for Progress, was organized to express solidarity for immigrants and Muslims targeted by Trump’s recent travel ban and to oppose Trump’s plan to build a wall. The local organization previously held a rally last week in support of Muslim and immigrants, which garnered around 2,000 participants.
The rally also called on Senator Cory Gardner to host open and accessible Town Hall meetings in Fort Collins during his upcoming recess. Organizers made a petition to to urge Colorado officials such as senator Cory Gardner, senator Michael Bennett and state representative Jared Polis to protect the Muslim and immigrants.
The event was organized with a Facebook event with the hashtag “#ResistTrumpTuesday.” According to Lacey Brunmeier, Fort Collins for Progress event coordinator, the hashtag was taken from MoveOn.org, a national non-profit that aims to provide civic engagement tools to the public.
“We just kind of wanted to take that idea and bring it to our community,” Brunmeier said.
Fort Collins for Progress will not continue to use the #ResistTrumpTuesday. Brunmeier said her personal reasoning for not continuing the hashtag is because Trump already has too much attention.
“What we’re hoping to do is kind of revamp it in a more positive light. We don’t really want to use ‘resist trump’ as a hashtag anymore,” Brunmeier said. “We’re going to sit down together in the next week or two and decide on a more positive way to bring our community together without there being that hashtag.”
Brunmeier said rallies influences the community because it shows support to Muslim and immigrant communities.
For Israa Eldeiry, senior social work major at Colorado State University, she said she has been feeling a lot of support post-election.
“Trump’s election has been a blessing in disguise,” Eldeiry said. “All the support I have received over the last few weeks is what keeps me going.”
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Fort Community members came to the rally for a variety of reasons.
“I am out here today to support all immigrants and to show that I am against Trump,” Fort Collins resident Jeff Young said.
Fort Collins for Progress activist Jake Knebal said he was out to save the EPA, and to show that they are not paid protestors.
Brunmeier said Fort Collins for Progress will not be holding a rally next Tuesday because they do not want people to burn out. She said they will keep holding events as long as people want to attend them.
“We want to turn it (the rallies) into something more positive,” Brunmeier said. “All of our events are about peace and solidarity, and that’s what we want to portray as well.”
Collegian News Editor Seth Bodine can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @sbodine120.
