News
Hamilton and local community join nationwide Our Power rally
By Haley Lynch ’17
November 17, 2016
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Last week, following the shocking outcome of the presidential election, students at Hamilton and across the country had a range of responses. At Hamilton College, Michelle Woodward ’17 woke up on the morning after the election feeling like something needed to be done. She told The Spectator: “I was ready to mobilize and I knew many students felt similarly, watching protests and rallies begin in cities as close as New York City.” Along with Barabaro Perego ’17, the girls initiated a movement for solidarity on Hamilton’s campus by creating an event page on Facebook they called “LOVE trumps HATE.” The event, which was originally scheduled for Friday, Nov. 11, quickly garnered support until over 300 students had marked themselves as planning to attend.
Perego commented, “We never realized the amount of people that would be interested in attending.” Concerned for the safety of all and the integrity of the peaceful message the event intended to deliver, Perego and Woodward postponed the event and added Leslie Campos ’17, Natasha Espinosa ’18, Areej Haroon ’17, Parisa Bruce ’17, Bryan Ferguson ’17, Aleta Brown ’17, Kateri Boucher ’17 and Rylee Carrillo-Waggoner ’19 to their ranks to help organize and lead the rally. Since by that time, a nation-wide collection of at least 27 other colleges and universities were organizing to participate in an “Our Power” rally simultaneously on Tuesday, Nov. 15 at 3:00 p.m., the students elected to hold Hamilton’s rally at that time as well.
An organizational meeting was held on Friday at the originally scheduled time of the event in order to discuss and decide upon the means and message of the rally as a group. There, an estimated 300 students and community members voiced ideas and opinions and volunteered for marshal training to help keep participants safe as they marched down College Hill into nearby Clinton. All in attendance were reminded that the mission of this march would not be to protest a Trump presidency, but, as Perego stated, “to show support and protect those most impacted by the already existing explicit rhetoric and actions that this upcoming administration has validated and legitimized.”
On the day of the event, a group of an estimated 500 people—including Hamilton students, faculty and staff, Clinton town residents, as well as groups bused in from Utica College and Colgate University—congregated at the top of College Hill Road, near the center of Hamilton’s campus to review the route and remind participants of the necessity to remain calm in the face of potential hecklers. All were reminded of the words Phyllis Breland, the director of Hamilton’s Opportunity Programs, had delivered to the community during the planning stages of the march on Friday afternoon: “Let your passions work for you and not against you. Solidarity comes in the numbers and the closeness that you carry in your walk. It’s a visual… You walk upright. You are here because of your conviction, your concern, and because you care. Let that walk in front of you… And you must do it so that it is not forgotten, it can’t be used against you later, and it is something that can be built upon. It has to be sustainable. It has to be.”
With that, Perego commenced the first of many chants that would carry the crowd down the Hill: “What do we want?” she called: “JUSTICE,” the immediate response. “What do we need?”
“JUSTICE.”
And the march was off. Filing down the Hill, groups of three, four and five linked arms to stay together and keep time. Many held signs aloft with messages such as: “Silence is Violence,” “We’re Still Here” and “Geologists Against Trump” (the last courtesy of Margaret Smith ’17). With the help of local police and approximately 50 newly trained marshals wearing orange reflective vests donated by the Kirkland Democratic Committee, the crowd was able to safely cross Route 233 at the bottom of the Hill and march into Clinton proper towards the Village Green, covering over a mile total over the course of the march.
A variety of chants kept the crowd engaged and helped to maintain a unified message of solidarity across the entirety of the crowd, which stretched from the top of the Hill to the bottom without break. Topics included support of diversity, immigration, women’s rights to choose and environmentalism. As the crowd entered town, the chant changed into an invitation: “Walk With Us!” marchers repeated over and over, inviting the widely supportive community to join in this peaceful protest. In spite of increasingly heavy rain, the people of Clinton—the vast majority of whom voted Democrat in last week’s presidential election—were outside in their yards or watching from their windows, cheering the marchers on (and in some cases handing them candy or baked goods). There was only a very small amount of heckling taking place, mostly from a group of four college-aged males in a silver Jeep who drove by twice to yell unimaginative and largely innocuous insults in the protestors’ direction. Outside of this incident, the only dissent was marked by a group of local men standing outside of the Village Tavern with one sign reading “TRUMP.” No comments were made to the marchers as they filed past this small group, however.
The march’s destination was the Village Green in Clinton, where the ever-growing crowd of supporters convened around the gazebo at the center of the Green. Now that so many were all together in one space, the moment was dedicated to a Speak Out in which anyone and everyone was invited to participate. One of the organizers of the event, Parisa Bruce ’17, commented: “I am grateful that we were able to have a diversity of speakers from various backgrounds with different concerns being voiced. Our goal was to give power back to those that have felt silenced and misrepresented during this election and by the incoming administration, and I feel that we were able to accomplish that.” At least 20 students and community members took the loudspeaker to tell their personal stories and express their feeling that solidarity among all is the
At least 20 students and community members took the loudspeaker to tell their personal stories and express their feeling that solidarity among all is the best way to combat marginalization.
The crowd around the gazebo consisted by this time of students, faculty and staff from three local colleges and residents and supporters from the area with ages ranging from toddlers carrying sippy cups or perching on their parents’ shoulders to older women using walkers to support themselves. Professor of Cyber and Homeland Security Austen Givens from Utica College brought his young daughter along with him, explaining, “You’re never to young to start learning about Democracy.” Young Serafina nodded shyly, apparently agreeing with her father.
Meanwhile, Dan Gale, a lifelong Clinton resident explained that he came out to support this rally because, in his words: “I can’t abide by any of the things that Trump has done and said… I don’t want people to think that just because I’m a white male, I support what he says, too.” Another attendee, Kathy Rosemyer, had driven from Frankfurt to attend Tuesday’s rally, bringing with her a bag full of safety pins that she offered to members of the crowd. “I’m still working to get my head around the idea, too,” she told The Spectator, when asked about her accessory, “but I think this idea of showing your support—wearing purple, too, like Hillary Clinton did in her concession speech—that’s what all this is about.”
Hamilton College student Nora Boyle ’18, who participated in the rally as a marshal, commented: “For me, it was really important to marshal the event, because even though a lot of these issues affect me as a queer woman, I remain, in many ways, privileged. I’m really protective of those I love, so my main priority in attending and marshaling has been to make sure my friends, particularly my minority friends, are safe and can speak freely and loudly…A lot of people who voted for Trump were able to look past his rhetoric, butnow that he’s been elected, it’s evenmore pressing to stand up as a communityand show that we will not tolerate it.”
Tolu Emokpae ’20, a first-year International Relations prospective major at Colgate University told The Spectator that he elected to join the march today because “rhetoric on campus has been more and more ridiculous ever since election night” and by participating, he hoped to show that he does not stand with those who are willing to marginalize others to maintain their own sense of power. As he spoke, he held a large American flag aloft. He explained that it was given to him by an older local man as he marched by the man’s home on his way down the Hill. “I’m glad to have it,” Emokpae stated, “it’s a good visual” to demonstrate that we’re all part of one cause.
As night fell and the rain began to pick up, students loaded onto buses to be taken back to their various destinations. The overall sentiment at the end of the day, was of positivity. Everyone had remained safe and was successful in demonstrating their solidarity with one another and a country full of marginalized groups. Although it was raining, Phyllis Breland remarked, “spirits were not wet.” She continued: “I think our message was understood, and exhibited the power that can be harnessed when people pull together.”
Perego concluded, “We showed our community, fellow students, faculty members and staff that we stand in solidarity with them and it gave me more strength than I could have ever imagined. But we’re not done here, this isn’t it. I will keep speaking out about injustices that this election has normalized and I hope that our campus does too.”