Apr 11, 2016

As of April 10, thousands of people had signed up on Facebook pages that they planned to protest a $1,000-a-person fundraising event for presidential candidate Donald Trump in midtown Manhattan on Thursday, April 14.

In a news release calling an April 11 press conference, organizers wrote: “Inspired by the peoples’ shutdowns of Trump speaking engagements in Chicago and Cincinnati, New Yorkers with the Black Lives Matter movement, migrant rights groups and others intend to shut down Trump’s incitement of racist violence in New York.

“Groups have announced plans to take over Trump’s hateful message with protest actions outside the hotel, inside the Grand Central Hyatt complex and throughout the surrounding areas.”

The Grand Central Hyatt hotel is located at 109 East 42nd St., by Grand Central Terminal. The protest is set for 5:30 p.m.

According to the release, among those coming from various points in the city to stop Trump’s message is “the newly victorious Fight for $15 organization, which will not only conduct a one-day walkout that day but also march on the Hyatt that night. ‘This is HUGE’ reads the Fight for $15 website.”

Kalisa Moore of the People’s Power Assembly, another group in the Stop Trump Coalition, said in the statement: “Trump’s rhetoric is an instigation to racist, anti-migrant and misogynist violence. As a matter of self-defense and protection of New Yorkers, we intend to do what the city’s elected so-called leaders refuse to do — and shut down Trump from spreading his hateful message.”

The news release also called for an action earlier on April 14, when “a judge is scheduled to reverse course and give no jail time to New York Police Department member Peter Liang, who killed Akai Gurley and refused to give him CPR,” Moore continued. “Just as we will join the protests at Liang’s sentencing that morning, we will act to shut down Trump’s message that night. We have been fighting to stop killings of Black and Brown people. Giving Trump unchallenged high-profile platforms to spread bigotry causes racist attacks and arson against mosques.”

“We’re on the side of the people. Trump is on the side of racist terror,” said Moore.

Coalition members include the People’s Power Assembly; NYC Shut It Down; ICE-FREE NYC; Millions March; the Pakistan-USA Freedom Forum; International Action Center; Million Student March; the Revolutionary Student Coordinating Committee; Queer Detainee Empowerment Project; Stand Up for Racial Justice; Workers World Party; South-Asian Fund for Education, Scholarship & Training; May 1 Coalition; and We Will Not Be Silent.

For more information, see Shut Down Trump in NYC on FaceBook.