Workers, Dreamers, Women, Resisters, Peaceniks, Patriots: 2017 Protests, in Pictures

BY NYC COMMUNITY MEDIA | This past year saw protesters fill our sidewalks, streets, and squares. The captions in this collection are culled from the reporting of Lincoln Anderson, Rebecca Fiore, Andy Humm, Dusica Sue Malesevic, Duncan Osborne, Paul Schindler, Travis Stewart, Eileen Stukane, and Zach Williams.

The idea that building community was as important as rallying against Trump spread among the 1,000 people who gathered to denounce him in New York City on Inauguration Day. The event — Stand Against Trump: Inauguration Day Rally & March — stretched along Wall St. to the site where George Washington first took the oath of office, as well as the New York Stock Exchange (seen here) and a Trump-owned property at 40 Wall St. | Photo by Zach Williams.

In massive numbers, a diverse group of New Yorkers — women, men, children, many in families, of all ages and races — marched through Midtown Manhattan to express their concerns, anxieties, and anger about the tone and polices President Donald Trump brought to the White House with his Jan. 20 inauguration. Here, on Jan. 21, marchers fill 42nd St. near Grand Central Terminal on the same day as the Women’s March on Washington. | Photo by Paul Schindler.

United just as much by their commitment to peace and equality as their disdain for the bigotry and misogyny of Donald J. Trump, hands were joined together and women were in lock step on Jan. 21, at the Women’s March on Washington. | Photo by Donna Aceto.

President Donald Trump’s draconian — though ineptly crafted and implemented — executive order on immigration and refugee entry into the US created a spontaneous eruption of protests nationwide and brought thousands of New Yorkers into the streets and to the airports for days beginning Thurs., Jan. 26. The evening before Trump announced his order, issued on Jan. 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day — which he bizarrely acknowledged without any mention of its six million Jewish victims — thousands gathered in Washington Square in a rally hastily called by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. As seen in this photo, thousands gathered at The Battery on Jan. 29, capping a weekend of demonstrations. | Photo by Milo Hess.

Photographer Christian Miles captured this image (and the following three) of May Day solidarity among workers, activists, immigrants, and others sensitive to the ongoing concerns of labor. Miles began at the W. 34th St. and Ninth Ave. location of B&H Photo Video, where its workers were on a daylong strike to protest dangerous warehouse conditions and an attempt to move union jobs to New Jersey. He followed as the assemblage made its way to Washington Square Park, then on to Foley Square, where several demonstrations throughout the city converged.

Thousands gathered near the Stonewall National Monument in the West Village on the early evening of June 12 to remember the 49 LGBTQ people who were shot and killed by a gunman in a Florida nightclub one year earlier. Seen here, 49 Human Beings representing the Pulse nightclub victims — a concept developed last year by performance artist Tigger-James Ferguson — entered the vigil. | Photo by Donna Aceto.

Fifty demonstrators drawn from the ranks of Rise and Resist — a group largely focused on protesting right-wing assaults by the Trump administration on American democratic institutions and ideals — and their allies took to the streets of Greenwich Village and Chelsea on June 11, to call attention to the plight of gay people in Chechnya interned in concentration camps and murdered by their government or their families. | Photo by Christian Miles.

The sun dazzled, the mood was jubilant, and, of course, the speakers blasted Beyoncé for the third annual Disability Pride NYC Parade on July 9. The festivities began in the morning at Union Square Park where Stephanie Wallace, 48, and her friends had gathered to participate in the parade. Wallace, a longtime Chelsea resident, said she came to show pride in who they are, and “support others like us. It gives us visibility. People don’t acknowledge us sometimes.” In this photo, the parade makes its way past Madison Square Park. | Photo by Christian Miles.

On Sept. 5, Attorney General Jeff Sessions followed through on President Donald Trump’s repeated pledges to do away with President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program that has allowed more than 800,000 “Dreamers” to win certification allowing them deferral from any adverse immigration action as well as giving them the right to work legally. Activists organized by Movimiento Cosecho converged from Fifth Ave. and 59th St. south to Trump Tower and below, to voice their outrage. At 5:30 in the afternoon, the New York Immigration Coalition drew a large contingent of protesters to the Foley Square courthouse center Downtown, a gathering that drew elected officials, including City Comptroller Scott Stringer and many city councilmembers. In both protests, some demonstrators staged sit-ins on the street, causing the NYPD to sweep in to make arrests. | Photo by Donna Aceto.

Photo by Donna Aceto.

With activists at the wheel and a diverse assortment of concerned citizens on board, the Refuse Fascism movement’s Nov. 4 march (held in over two dozen cities nationwide) made the case for removing the current administration from office. Following a Times Square rally, an orderly march proceeded through the streets of Manhattan to Washington Square Park for additional remarks. | Photo by Christian Miles.

Organizer Jay W. Walker, who is also involved with the groups Rise and Resist and Gays Against Guns (both of whom endorsed the event), said Refuse Fascism is predicated on “non-stop activism. Our ultimate goal is to organize daily actions so that what may start out as a few thousand activists becomes tens of thousands and then millions until we finally bring down this dangerous and corrupt regime.” | Photo by Christian Miles.

United to end sexual harassment and assault, women and men of all ages and backgrounds attended Dec. 9’s #MeToo Rally NYC, which took place outside Trump International Hotel and Tower. Dozens of Post-It notes were temporarily placed on the walls of the Columbus Circle subway station after the rally. When the NYPD took them down, citing the organizers’ lack of MTA permission, the women started placing the notes on themselves and their signs. | Photo by Christian Miles.

Photo by Christian Miles