The energy naturally faded and swelled. Strangers in New York City had found a palpable rhythm. I’d end up marching 40 blocks alongside thousands of people that afternoon, from Union Square to Trump Tower.

It had been four days since Donald Trump’s surprise win in the 2016 US presidential election when I found myself at a protest called, simply, “Not My President.” Without discussion, dozens of people had naturally broken out in call-and-response chants.

The “Not My President” Facebook event page no longer exists, and it’s unclear when exactly it was deleted. Earlier this month, after the Intelligence Committee's release, I asked my Facebook friends if any of them had attended this particular protest last year. While a few friends had gone to protests earlier that week, no one told me that they were at the one I attended.

Thousands of people had been duped by Russian ads. And I was one of them.

I hadn’t thought about the protest in months, until a series of releases from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence brought it back to my attention on November 1, 2017, nearly a year later. According to one release, the original Facebook event for this “Not My President” protest I’d attended had been created by BlackMattersUS, an account believed to be run by people connected to the Russian government hoping to interfere with American politics.

A screenshot of the event photo for the “Not My President” Facebook event, released by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The Facebook event page itself has since been taken down. Image: House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

“We have shared the relevant information with investigators, and we are not commenting on individual Pages,” a Facebook representative told me over email.

The Facebook event description was a rallying cry to hit the streets, unite in the face of hate, and resist the election of Trump. The BlackMattersUS website describes itself as a news outlet with a social activism angle for the “African-American community in America.” At the time of publication, clicking on the website’s Facebook link shows a security warning and links to information about phishing.

Yet it wasn’t until I unknowingly attended a Russian-backed protest that Moscow’s influence on American life become real to me. Since the release of ads by the Intelligence Committee earlier this month, I’ve been scrutinizing my memories and questioning my perspective on protests in general. If this is what democracy looks like, I think it’s a troubling image.

“Not My President” isn’t an isolated case of Russian-backed Facebook events inciting real offline protest. In May 2016, Russian operatives created a Facebook event called "Stop The Islamization of Texas,” which drew protesters and counter-protesters to the streets of Houston.

I wasn’t sure going to a protest would feel satisfying or productive, but at the very least, I wanted to bear witness to the election response. Protests were popping off around the country in the immediate wake of the election. It felt almost negligent to be a student journalist in New York City who hadn’t witnessed one.

Toward the end of the week, I believe a day or two before the event, the protest caught my eye when I looked in Facebook’s “Events” tab. I decided to attend the event alone, without RSVPing, because I didn’t want to compare my reaction to my surroundings against someone else. It also wasn’t unusual for me to fill my weekends with random Facebook events. As someone who had recently transferred to New York University, I did this to experience the city.

The previous four days had gone by like most any others. I did my homework and went to class, where we’d discussed the significance of the election. But the conversations felt abstract. I was upset and unsatisfied.

After all, people attended the protest to demonstrate political agency and exercise their right to assembly. Personally, I was searching for a way to respond to the election that felt tangible and emotionally genuine. But if the event was organized by foreign operatives who believed they were directing protesters, does that then weaken the agency that protesters were trying to find?

People listened to speakers outside the subway entrance in the southwest corner of Union Square, November 12, 2016. They were using a microphone; in order to do so legally, the speakers would've had to have applied for a Sound Device Permit through the city. The New York City’s Deputy Commissioner of Public Information did not to tell me whether such a permit had been filed for last year’s “Not My President” rally. Image: Caroline Haskins

Just outside the entrance to the subway, a couple hundred people had formed a compact knot around speakers representing at least four distinct groups, including a socialist and an Indigenous coalition representative. At about 1:30 PM, I noticed people leaking from the periphery of the crowd and walking to the northern part of Union Square. I followed them west to 5th Avenue. Only then did it dawn on me a march was on.

The event was scheduled to begin Saturday, November 12, at noon. I arrived about an hour late, unaware that people were intending to march to Trump Tower; having only skimmed the Facebook description, I didn’t think the rally was time-sensitive.

Spontaneous chants would unite the crowd. The most common chant was undeniably “Not my president,” which was also the name of the Facebook event. Some people also shouted “Hands too small, can’t build wall.” Image: Caroline Haskins

So I started walking quickly in hopes of joining a more congested part of the crowd, which I did in about 15 minutes. A sea of people, shoulder-to-shoulder, clogged the streets as far as I could see. Eventually, I turned and glanced in the direction I’d come from. In just half an hour, sparsely populated streets became just as tightly-packed as the streets in front of me.

I wasn’t shocked. The day before, then President-elect Trump announced on Twitter that he would be visiting New York City. It's unclear whether the “Not My President” Facebook event was made before or after Trump made this announcement, but the crowd knew the former reality television personality would be staying in Trump Tower the entire day .

Homemade signs were everywhere, all emphasizing different perspectives. Some spoke of sexism, others of xenophobia, others of racism, others of sympathy for Hillary Clinton. Image: Caroline Haskins

It didn’t take long to notice my emotions didn’t match those around me. The anger of the crowd had reached fever pitch. But watching thousands of people scream, seemingly unheard, across an impassable physical barrier only made me feel deflated. It was an apt metaphor. After taking a picture, I turned down a side street and caught the subway back to my apartment.

The march slowed to a stop as it neared 725 5th Avenue, Trump Tower. Secret Service members had already posted up inside, and police had surrounded the entire block with barricades and stood guard outside the building’s entrance. People crushed up against one another along the barricades, amid a sustained roar from the crowd. It was a climactic end to a 40-block march.

Thousands of other people attended the “Not My President” march, so what are they making of the fact that they, too, had unknowingly been deceived by Russian trolls?

I reached out to strangers who favorited my tweet about the march to see if any of them had actually attended. Most of them hadn’t. But user @stupidamerica, who identified herself as Erin Knitis over direct message, told me she had.

Knitis said she’d heard about the event from friends, not social media. She expressed shock when I told her that the Facebook event for the “Not My President” protest was most likely created by people associated with the Russian government.

“On the one hand, I feel like I've been duped by the great Russian chaos monster,” Knitis said. “On the other, I relish every opportunity to express my first amendment rights to free speech and public protest. But finding out that we were unwitting pawns in Russia's global political chess game is disturbing.”

The “Not My President” event was also one of a wave of protests that week—both in New York City and around the country. Erin remembered that on November 10, two days before the march, Trump and political pundits erroneously accused protesters of being paid by the likes of philanthropist George Soros, who funds MoveOn.org and supports democratic causes.

It’s worth noting that you wouldn't be able to tell the Russian government was involved in the “Not My President” march just from attending. But if you can’t distinguish the experience of “Not My President” from protests not backed by Russia, then what does that say about other protests?

“People are far more worried about killer cops, deportations, and Trump’s white supremacist agenda than they are about the Russian government.”

To answer this, I reached out to Vanessa Wruble, the Head of Strategic Operations for the Women’s March on Washington and the Executive Director of March On, a group which keeps organizers of the “sister” Women’s Marches around the country connected. After I told Wrublethat people tied to the Russian government most likely created the “Not My President” Facebook event, she said that this news shouldn’t discredit protesters’ experiences.