The sound of automobile horns filled the air outside East Hampton Town Hall last Thursday, the date of the latest in a series of protests against the Trump administration organized by People for Democracy East Hampton, a chapter of the Indivisible movement.
Dubbed “Good Trouble Lives On,” the rally featured a different format from previous ones outside Town Hall, including last month’s “No Kings” rally that drew a crowd estimated at 1,200 to 1,500. Owing to the nature of summer on the South Fork, with its attendant traffic congestion and limited parking, participants were asked to carpool or take an app-based transportation service to Town Hall to stand by the road and wave a sign, or to take friends to hold signs inside cars and drive around and around the crowd, sounding their horns in solidarity.
The rally coincided with the fifth anniversary of the death of John Lewis, a United States representative from Georgia and an icon of the civil rights movement.
Before assembling along Pantigo Road, participants met in the parking lot behind Town Hall, where Councilwoman Cate Rogers, the deputy supervisor, read excerpts from Lewis’s 2014 commencement address at Emory University in Atlanta, in which he recalled his parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents telling him that segregation was “the way it is” and not to get into trouble. But he soon heard about, and later met, Rosa Parks and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and was inspired to become an activist for racial equality. “You must find a way to get in trouble,” he told the graduates. “Good trouble. Necessary trouble.”
Waving signs bearing messages including “share courage,” “rise and resist,” “compassion not cruelty,” and “liberty and justice for all,” hundreds of people lined Pantigo Road outside Town Hall, waving to passing motorists, some of whom held their own signs.
“It’s hard to believe we’re at this moment in American history where we have to stand up and actually say ‘no kings,’ “ Len Greene of East Hampton said. “We’re about to celebrate 250 years of American history and liberation from the rule of tyrants.” The president, he said, “thinks he’s above the law, and the Supreme Court keeps affirming his right to behave like a king. So we the people have to stand up and say no kings in America.”
“I came out from the office this afternoon to speak up for democracy,” Ms. Rogers said. “Our democracy is precious and fragile, and we need people to stand up and speak up. I really am grateful for everyone coming out today, especially on the anniversary of John Lewis’s death.”
The turnout last Thursday was “gratifying,” Steven Ludsin of East Hampton said, “because it shows the persistence and the outrage of everybody. It’s an outrage, and people are expressing that outrage. What [the president] is doing is unconstitutional, and it just can’t go on.”
“I’m here to support the cause,” said Dave Portocarrero, who held an American flag aloft. “It’s a good cause,” which he defined as “no kings, due process, justice for all, courage. Make America free again.”
“I am so moved by the outpouring of love for our country,” said Lynn Blumenfeld, also of East Hampton.
The group was “small but mighty,” Barbara Burnside of People for Democracy East Hampton said. “For a weekday afternoon in the summer, when people have a gazillion things to do, this is really good. We’re here for each other, we’re here to say what’s happening is terrible, and we’re not giving up. Even if it’s inconvenient and uncomfortable, we’re carrying on.”
