NEW YORK (AP) — 1000’s of activists marched down Park Avenue and turned down Billionaires’ Row towards Trump Tower in New York Saturday to “Make Billionaires Pay,” calling for climate justice, democracy, free speech, gender equality, a cease to the Trump’s immigration crackdown and a ceasefire in Gaza.
Their indicators and causes for taking to the streets have been various, however many mentioned the march highlighted a typical theme behind the problems they stood for: {that a} small, elite class of the rich and highly effective persistently prioritized earnings over individuals’s lives.
“I don’t see them as actions. I don’t see them as organizations. I simply see humanity. We’re all on this Earth. That is our mom,” mentioned Mahaishuwea, whose title means Eagle Girl in the language of the Hidatsa tribe, which is predicated in North Dakota.
As marchers gathered, she spoke about her private experiences rising up on the Fort Berthold Indian reservation, the place she survived most cancers. Standing in entrance of funding administration firm Blackstone’s headquarters, she linked the violent historical past of colonization and useful resource extraction on Indigenous lands to the present-day greed of the highly effective. “They’ve a illness,” she mentioned.
Demonstrations have been deliberate world wide this week forward of the United Nations Normal Meeting and New York Climate Week. Regardless of years of worldwide conferences, negotiations and treaties, international locations have continued to enhance their emissions of carbon dioxide and different planet-warming greenhouse fuel emissions, fueling extra frequent and intense excessive climate occasions. 2024 was the most well liked yr on file, and the Trump administration has been working to roll again foundational environmental guidelines. This has freed the way in which for oil and coal industries to pollute extra whereas presenting extra roadblocks to wind and photo voltaic power growth.
Tamika Middleton, managing director of the Girls’s March, mentioned that though it generally might be difficult to carry collectively people who find themselves obsessed with completely different causes, this yr the intersections between them felt clearer. “The climate disaster, financial fights and immigrant fights are all actually one large battle,” she mentioned.
The group stretched for over 4 metropolis blocks and handed by luxurious shops like Louis Vuitton, Bergdorf Goodman and Tiffany & Co. Some carried monumental papier-mache puppets of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. A number of grabbed the perimeters of a 160-foot “climate polluters invoice” calling out the financial damages wrought by excessive climate occasions made worse by the carbon emissions of main polluting firms.
Others dressed because the Statue of Liberty, rang cowbells and waved flags with the Star Wars character Princess Leia or selfmade indicators inked in sharpie and paint. One merely learn: “Free Kimmel.”
Tatiana Cruz was one of many individuals holding up the puppet of Elon Musk. “Eat the wealthy, that’s the primary message,” she mentioned, smiling. However she additionally defined that this was her first yr actively protesting extra after two of her pals have been deported after being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Since then, she has gotten extra concerned in actions for migrant rights, Palestinian liberation and combating climate change.
“The monster up prime is comparable in a variety of completely different eventualities,” she mentioned.
Julia Donahue-Wait had come out from the South Bronx with a gaggle of households who had began organizing collectively and in addition described the numerous causes current on the march as interconnected. Her younger daughter Eurydice has grown up on picket traces and helped with the poster portray. Behind her, one other protester held an indication: “Our work is love,” it learn.
“It’s all individuals with out energy taking it again,” Donahue-Wait mentioned. “What we are saying to the children is, we now have security and we want to arise for individuals who don’t have security.”
Mahaishuwea mentioned though many individuals are scared, she thought it was necessary to present up.
Her 12-year-old daughter is again at dwelling. However she needs to train future generations how to converse up, and “to present individuals we’re not afraid,” she mentioned.
On the finish of the march, protesters held a five-minute second of silence throughout which they sat in entrance of the Trump Worldwide Lodge and Tower.
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