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A broad coalition of New York City justice-action groups came together outside the Grand Hyatt hotel and Grand Central Station to protest the GOP gala happening inside.

With chants of “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist, USA” and “Shut down Trump,” thousands of protestors joined together outside the $1,000 per plate, invitation-only Republican gathering to condemn the white supremacist policies of Trump and the GOP at large.

The “Shut Down Trump in NYC” event featured community and worker organizations united by “the need to SHUT DOWN TRUMP and his incitements of racist, anti-immigrant and anti-woman violence.”

Worker Power

Prior to the Shut Down Trump rally, members of the 32BJ/SEIU union, fast food workers and other worker and pro-immigrant organizations gathered under the #FightFor15 in Times Square.

Speakers included Bianca Cunningham, a member of Communication Workers of America (CWA), the union representing some 40,000 striking Verizon workers across the country.

“New York is a union town,” Cunningham said, igniting the crowd. “Every job should be a union job,” she continued, lauding the collective power of unions in the struggle for a living wage and worker protection. Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders met with members in Brooklyn when they began striking on Wednesday—the workers have been without a contract since August 2015.

Backed by a marching band and vigorous solidarity, the #FightFor15 rally began its march to the east side where the Shut Down Trump rally had already begun.

#HateFreeNYC

Thousands from across the boroughs stood together against Trump’s hate speech, demanding that it not afflict New York City—a city of workers, immigrants, people of color, Muslims and Latinos. Trump has marginalized each of these communities and more with his divisive rhetoric.

“His rallies and his rhetoric make it unsafe for Muslims and any people of color to not only attend his rallies but to walk the streets,” the organizers of Shut Down Trump in NYC wrote on Facebook.

Trump rallies have become notorious for his incitement of violence against people of color and the outright violence of his supporters against demonstrators and African American and Muslim attendees.

But the rally proved Trump’s hate is unwanted by New Yorkers.

“White supremacy is not acceptable in New York City,” Hortensia Petersen, the aunt of Akai Gurley, told the crowd. Gurley, an unarmed African American man was murdered by NYPD officer Peter Liang in a Brooklyn public housing stairwell in 2014.

Liang has been spared murder charges, in another of countless instances in which police are not held accountable for the killing of unarmed black men.

During the rally, a group of protestors split off and marched inside of the busy Grand Central station, in a calculated and powerful act of civil disobedience.

The rally was nonviolent and peaceful on the part of the protestors. Unfortunately, Trump’s rhetoric influenced one man, who began throwing punches at the demonstrators. Wearing the infamous “Make America Great Again” hat of the Trump campaign, the man attacked a protestor who clearly had his hands up.

The cognitive dissonance of a man purporting to want America to be great again, attacking another man unprovoked, could almost be heard it was so obvious.

Initial reports suggest the NYPD arrested upwards of a dozen protestors, with Millions March NYC claiming on Twitter police were “assaulting protestors” and making “violent arrests”.

International Solidarity Against Hate

An organizer with Peoples Power Assemblies perhaps best summed up the basis for intersectionality among the broad coalition of justice and liberation organizations participating in the Shut Down Trump rally.

She started a chant of “Gaza, escucha, estamos en la lucha” or “Listen Gaza, we are in the struggle.”

Pulling from legendary scholar-activist and human rights defender Angela Davis’ new book Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, she asked the crowd “who trained the NYPD? The IDF (Israel Defense Forces).”

Going one step further, the U.S. subsidizes Israel’s military occupation of Palestine—Israel sells weapons to India en masse, subsidizing the military occupation of Kashmir.

The Shut Down Trump rally in New York City exists on the local level—speaking out against the systemic racism that disenfranchises at best and murders at worst people of color and on the margins of our society.

And the Shut Down Trump rally in New York City exists on the global level—as an exercise in international solidarity against the denial of basic human rights to people by repressive states everywhere.

Brendan Obrien, a member of the anti-war and anti-racist ANSWER coalition and Party for Socialism and Liberation—organizers of part of Shut Down Trump in NYC—told American Herald Tribune about organizing a demonstration with ANSWER outside the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in March.

“Palestine is for our organization and for any conscionable organization always a very clear red line,” Obrien said. “You don’t see the kind of oppression and violence and poverty that you see in Palestine almost anywhere else in the world. They’ve always been a high symbol of resistance and beauty in struggle.”

The rightwing pro-Israel AIPAC conference hosted GOP hopefuls Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, as well as Democrat Hillary Clinton, who all attempted to outflank each other to the right on the issue of supporting Israel and ignoring Palestine.

“We wanted people to know that if you’re not going to have just Republicans, but Hillary Clinton for example, chomping at the bit to provide the struggle against Palestinians with billions of dollars, with weapons and political cover, then our voices will be heard in opposition.”

U.S. military aid to Israel has exceeded $200 billion (adjusted for inflation) in the decades since Israel’s founding in 1948, even as Israel continues to violate international laws and standards in its treatment of Palestinians and annexation of West Bank lands.

“The Palestinian solidarity cause is a cause we hold dear to our hearts on a daily basis,” Obrien added.