A national day of action has been held to oppose what many see as a rollback of civil rights and liberties.Demonstrations have taken place at more than 1,600 locations around the United States, in protest against President Donald Trump’s controversial policies that include mass deportations of immigrants and refugees and cuts to medical insurance, as well as the removal of other safety nets for impoverished people.
The “Good Trouble Lives On” refrain that underscored the national day of action on Thursday was inspired by the late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, who died in 2020 at the age of 80 following an advanced pancreatic cancer diagnosis.
He was the youngest and last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists, a group led by Martin Luther King Jr. In 1965, a 25-year-old Lewis led some 600 protesters in the Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Lewis was beaten by police, suffering a skull fracture.
Organisers had called for peaceful protests to take place on the fifth anniversary of Lewis’s death along streets, at courts and other public spaces in cities including Atlanta, New York and Los Angeles.
“We are navigating one of the most terrifying moments in our nation’s history,” Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the nonprofit Public Citizen, said during an online news conference on Tuesday.
“We are all grappling with a rise of authoritarianism and lawlessness within ou …
