Weeks after the “No Kings” rally brought an estimated 1,200 people to East Hampton Town Hall, thousands more to similar events in Riverhead and on the North and South Forks, and millions across the United States, another demonstration to protest the Trump administration will happen next Thursday.
“Good Trouble Lives On” will see a different format in East Hampton, owing to the nature of summer on the South Fork, said Barbara Burnside of People for Democracy East Hampton, a chapter of the Indivisible movement. Because of traffic congestion and limited parking, from 4:40 to 5:30 p.m., participants have been asked to carpool or take an app-based transportation service like Uber “to join us at East Hampton Town Hall to stand by the road with our signs and wave,” she said in an email. “Or bring friends to hold signs inside cars, and drive around and around us, honking, in a series of right turns. . . . Depending on the weather, you might even be more comfortable in your car.”
Participants have been asked to take a sign bearing a message about “what is important to you right now,” Ms. Burnside said. “A car full of honkers can hold smaller signs in the car windows. We will have a few signs to share with wavers, and you can bring extras if you have them.”
Next Thursday is the fifth anniversary of the death of Representative John Lewis of Georgia. An icon of the civil rights movement, Lewis was one of the primary organizers of the 1963 March on Washington, participated in the Freedom Rides to segregated Southern states in the early 1960s, and was attacked by police and state troopers in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march in Alabama. He famously said that it was important to engage in “good trouble” to accomplish positive change.
“We are defending our democracy and carrying forward Lewis’s legacy of Good Trouble — peaceful protest to redeem the soul of America,” Ms. Burnside said. “We stand for democracy. We will have no king or dictator! We stand for voters’ rights and free and fair elections. We stand for free speech and free press. We stand for civil rights and basic human dignity. We stand for the rule of law, for all people. No one is above the law.”
Ms. Burnside added that “a core principle behind our Good Trouble Lives On actions is a commitment to nonviolence in all we do. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values.”
