“Down! Down with occupation! Up! Up with liberation!” and chants alike were shouted by protestors as they marched down 16th Street during the We Fight Back protest Jan. 20, 2025 that went from Meridian Hill Park to DuPont Circle in Washington, D.C.
This protest was one of many that We Fight Back put together throughout the United States. According to their website wefightback2025.org, the organization stands for, “women’s rights, worker’s rights, immigrant rights and ‘money for people’s needs, not the war machine.’”
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“The Trump victory in the 2024 election represents the complete failure of the Democratic Party to stop the rise of the ultra-right, but we can defeat the Trump program,” their website reads.
Protesters at this event stood and advocated for social and political issues, many individuals speaking to the crowd before the march at the Meridian Hill Park where brief live music was played to kick off the event.
Washington, D.C. resident Bryan Simmons and his daughter Cielo Simmons visited the park with their family and said that they came for the live music and the march.
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The event attracted attendees from all over the United States. Alex Brown said that they traveled from Indianapolis to support their friend who made a large, prop guillotine float for the march. They wore a pride flag over their shoulder as they helped push the float into the Meridian Park Hill, while another protester with them carried a sign that read, “One people divided into two: rich white people vs. all of us.”
“We want to show off this thing as much as we can,” Brown said.
Simba chants into a megaphone as protesters march from Meridian Hill Park to Dupont Circle for the We Fight Back rally Jan. 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C., to oppose President Donald Trump’s agenda. Simba attended the rally ahead of the march holding signs for Code Pink, a left-wing and anti-war organization, and is an organizer for Palestinian protest encampments.
Others who joined the protest came to stand for LGBTQ+ and trans rights. A protester who asked to be referred to as Cheese stood on a stone pillar and held a trans flag in the cold midday wind. “I’m marching for trans rights,” she said. “I care about everyone.”
Others came to stand for Filipino political issues. Julie Jamora is part of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Malaya Movement who came to the protest with a cardboard effigy of Trump.
“We built this effigy of Trump to represent the incoming fascism that our community is bracing for,” Jamora said. “We lived under the first Trump administration and particularly for the Filipino community we are concerned about his anti-immigrant policies.”
In a statement about the 2024 election results titled “Prepare to Fight Facism!,” the Malaya Movement website said, “Malaya Movement USA is one of the proud organizers of the Filipino-American Agenda, an agenda entirely written by Filipino-Americans and immigrants who are first-hand experiencing issues of anti-Asian violence, anti-immigrant discrimination, severe economic and housing insecurity, and much more.”
Among many others, these rallying points could be heard from protesters during their march and were displayed on banners, signs, and flags for the people of Washington, D.C., and the world.
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