Protesters at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, took to the streets to block traffic and advocate in favor of several progressive causes in response to the results of Nov. 8’s presidential election.
Although the protesters were primarily animated by Donald Trump victory in this year’s presidential election, the students that participated in Friday’s protest did so in support of a wide array of progressive causes.
One student carried a sign that read “Abort Pence,” while others carried signs that demanded the end of the electoral college. Meanwhile, some students used the protest to advocate for a $15 minimum wage, while others chanted about illegal immigration.
Although university police officers spent Friday evening guiding traffic around the protesters who had flooded the streets, several of the student participants shouted “hands up, don’t shoot,” a provenly false narrative from the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.
The protest’s organizers claimed that participants of color would have priority when it was time to speak. A young black student spoke first, claiming that young black women will be the primary victim of new policies in Donald Trump’s America: “I am a black woman who is not a Christian, so I am the number one target of Donald Trump’s policies.”
The protests eventually led out into the streets surrounding campus and disrupted traffic. Nikolai Mather, one of the protest’s organizers, claims that blocking traffic wasn’t an intended part of the event’s proceedings. “It was supposed to be a way for the community to come together, get out the anger, and work towards something positive,” Mather explained. “It kind of took a different change, we went for the streets instead of for the Old Well, but if this is how we’re going to express our anger, as long as we keep this up and turn it into something even more positive, I’m good with this.”
Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity for Breitbart. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart.com
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