SANTA CRUZ >> A march in honor of the International Women’s Day strike splintered into two factions in downtown Santa Cruz Wednesday, blocking traffic on Mission Street and Pacific Avenue, before sparking intense, angry confrontations with drivers and even between protest groups.

The protest was organized by Santa Cruz General Strike Organizing Committee. Yet two distinct groups with clearly different agendas emerged during the event. The first included roughly 75 younger protesters, mostly women of color, who marched down from UC Santa Cruz. This group’s messaging was focused on racism, white privilege, patriarchal oppression, as well as transgender and queer issues.

The second group consisted of about 150 women and men dressed mostly in red who were part of the Santa Cruz County Women’s Action group, an outgrowth of the Jan. 21 Women’s March. Older and less diverse, this group focused on issues primary to the larger International Women’s Day Strike — reserving most of its anger for the administration of President Donald Trump.

The UCSC protesters endured intense verbal abuse from the public during their march to downtown Santa Cruz, according to Meli Jimenez, 24. In addition, one of their number had his bicycle run over and destroyed, she said.

As a result, when the UCSC protest group, which referred to as itself the “Brown Squad” at times, arrived en masse at the Louden Nelson Community Center to join the other protesters, it was visibly angry.

The Santa Cruz General Strike group, organized by Nora Caruso, 49, director of the Santa Cruz Toddler Center, joined forces with the UCSC group and marched to Pacific Avenue via Center and Maple.

“We voted unanimously to close down the center to give our 100 percent female staff the opportunity to strike,” said Caruso. “It’s a well-deserved paid day off.”

Both groups marched in solidarity through downtown, but the UCSC group splintered off from the Santa Cruz General Strike group once they reached the clock tower.

For the next hour, dueling protests occurred, each with its own speakers and its own messaging. The UCSC group obstructed traffic at the intersection, angering drivers and causing havoc. The Santa Cruz General Strike group gathered at the foot of the clock tower, clear of the street.

Santa Cruz police blocked off Water Street at River Street to the east of the protest. They also placed officers in the Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park above to observe the protest and collect video.

“This is so stupid,” said Santa Cruz resident Sam Johnson. “Everyone in Santa Cruz agrees with these protesters. Why are they blocking traffic? It doesn’t seem constructive.”

While the younger, angrier group continued to block traffic, deriding white supremacy and the patriarchy, Deborah Johnson, minister of Soquel’s Inner Light Center addressed the group gathered at the clock tower. When asked about the UCSC group’s messaging, Johnson said she couldn’t hear it, but could certainly “imagine what it is.”

“Change takes all of us,” said Johnson. “Malcolm X had a place and Martin Luther King Jr. had a place. By the end of their struggle, each had moved closer to the middle.”

In an effort to explain the rift between the two groups, UCSC student Jimenez broke away from the “Brown Squad” to take up the microphone at the clock tower, explaining her group felt it had been assaulted during its march downtown.

“We are tired of being assaulted; of our ancestors being assaulted; of seeing our families assaulted,” Jimenez said.

Jimenez addressed the Santa Cruz General Strike group directly about what it means to be an “ally.”

“Ally-ship means getting off your high horse and realizing that other people are suffering a lot more than you,” said Jimenez. “To join those people over there you have to address the darkness within you.”

At that point, both groups joined together, creating a circle at the intersection of Mission Street and Pacific Avenue as local activist Ernestina Saldana of Sanctuary Santa Cruz addressed the crowd.

At 1:30 p.m, just as the protest looked as if it were about to peacefully convene and all parties were prepared to march back down Pacific Avenue to attend workshops at Louden Nelson Community Center, a man confronted the crowd with a large Chevrolet truck.

Re-energized by this new assault, the “Brown Squad” swarmed around the front of the truck and began chanting anew. The driver blew his “Dixie” horn and revved the truck’s engine repeatedly, threatening to plow through the crowd of protesters. The truck bore a U.S. veteran license plate.

After the driver nudged the protesters with the front of the truck, someone from the crowd pelted the side of the truck with dirt clods. One woman even opened the back door of the truck and shouted directly at the driver.

After a 20-minute standoff, the driver turned his truck around and left, only to be pulled over immediately by a Santa Cruz police patrol car.

Santa Cruz Police spokeswoman Joyce Blaschke said no arrests were made and no citations were issued.

This story has been updated to correct an error.