Madeline Purdue/ Nevada Sagebrush
Protestors gather at the Reno City Plaza to protest President Elect Donald Trump on Wednesday, Nov. 9. The gathering follows protests happening across the country in the last 24 hours.
Members of the Reno community gathered at Reno City Plaza on Wednesday to come together and celebrate diversity. This comes less than a day after Donald Trump became the president elect.
Protests have erupted across the country since the election results were announced.
Over 100 people came to the plaza under the “believe” sculpture in front of the Truckee River. The gathering started as a celebration, with members of the Latino community dancing and chanting, “say it loud, say it clear, everyone is welcome here” and “we are the future.”
After the celebrations ended, Aria Overli, an organizer of the protest spoke to the growing crowd through a megaphone.
“I know it’s been a really difficult 24 hours, and I know some of us had trouble getting out of bed,” she said. “We’ve all had trouble thinking about how we are getting to tomorrow, so thank you all for showing up.”
She then passed the megaphone to Monique Norman, an organizer for the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, who shared a poem she wrote about the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I want to say how encouraging it is just to see so many people out here,” said Norman before reading her poem to the crowd.
Other members of PLAN took turns speaking to the crowd and explaining how they felt after the election results the day before.
“The next four years, we’ve got fight to fix this mistake,” said Will Gonzalez, and organizer at PLAN. “Nevada, Nevada I am so proud of the work they did. Because of Washoe [County], Nevada turned blue.”
Protesters joined hands as a woman sang a spiritual song she wrote after an incident last month where Columbus Day protesters were run over by a driver under the Reno Arch.
A woman in attendance,April, took the megaphone and spoke about her work at the Democratic Party. She said she was proud that Nevada elected Catherine Cortez-Masto to the Senate. She also spoke of disparities about Trump being the next president.
“We have to move forward,” April said. “Look around, this is not just Reno. This is across the nation. This is everywhere. This does not end tonight, I am not dealing with the next four years, it is not over for me. This is not my America. I’m not going to stop fighting, we can’t stop fighting. Trump is not my president.”
