For the second weekend in a row and at least the eighth time this year, Niagara Square served as the backdrop for a sizeable rally protesting actions taken by President Donald Trump. These protests draw a cross-section of people, and like elsewhere in the country, they’ve seen a large number of baby boomers and other older adults.
For Dick Lipsitz, a former president of the Western New York Area Labor Federation, the “Four Freedoms” rally took him back to the late 1960s and early 1970s when the country witnessed almost daily anti-Vietnam War protests and rallies.
“It's more serious today,” Lipsitz said. “No matter what we thought of and how hard we fought against the war in Vietnam or for the civil rights movement, there was never a concern, except for a short period under Nixon, for the fascist takeover of our government and the destruction of democracy. Today, it's actually on the agenda.”
Lipsitz believes the anti-Trump protests and rallies in Buffalo and elsewhere have more anger, frustration and fear than any anti-war gatherings. That has Lipsitz concerned.
“This is going to get very testy, very testy,” Lipsitz said.
The June 21 rally, named after the theme of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 inaugural address, was very much like the eight others held this year in Niagara Square. Speakers were boisterous. The attendees were passionate, but the crowd was peaceful.
That made one of the organizers, Michael Powers of Buffalo, very happy.
“The other side of the sign I'm holding says so many throngs. There are aspects of literal everyday life, from economic to social to daily kinds of things,” Powers said. “That’s where it resonates. It's hitting you in your grocery bill. It's hitting in your ability to travel back and forth to Canada. It's hitting health care, and I think that's what's galvanizing more people.”
Buffalo resident Jeri Titus joined the Peace Corps in the late 1960s. She says the recent anti-Trump rallies and protests have participants who are more passionate and driven than the Vietnam War or civil rights protests of decades long gone.
Why?
“I'm really struck by the older, silver-haired people who are out again,” Titus said. “We all said to ourselves, why are we doing this again? And you know, I really like to see diversity in these kinds of events, to see that it affects all of us. But it's one of those things too, where I'm 74 years old, and I never thought I'd be marching around.”
Organizers say they’re planning another protest at Freedom Park, after the Fourth of July.
