Crowds gathered Saturday in Wilmington, Rehoboth Beach and other Delaware towns to protest actions by the Trump administration as part of a nationwide “Hands Off!” protest movement.
Over 1,000 planned “Hands Off!” rallies were planned across the country on Saturday, including on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to protest the Trump Administration’s financial cuts to multiple federal programs
In Delaware, protests against Trump and other figures like Elon Musk are not new. Rehoboth Beach and Newark have seen almost weekly protests since January.
On Saturday, Nearly 1,000 people gathered in downtown Rehoboth Beach and hundreds in Wilmington to protest the administration.
“They’re taking everything they can get their hands on—our health care, our data, our jobs, our services—and daring the world to stop them. This is a crisis, and the time to act is now,” the “Hands Off!” Rehoboth Beach event website says.
Protests also took place in Newark, Dover, Salisbury and Ocean City, Maryland.
Teenager organizes Wilmington protest in 24 hours
Gemma Calabria, a 17-year-old from Wilmington, felt compelled to hit the pavement on Saturday. When she saw that there was no protest scheduled in the city, she did it herself.
A day later, more than 200 people of all ages peacefully gathered at Rodney Square in downtown Wilmington. She cannot vote, but she still felt like she could make a difference.
“Not everyone is able to go to Dover or Newark or Philly, so giving people a chance to come to their local rally, I think is really important,” she said Saturday.
Among the 200 people was Coby Owens, a new Wilmington city council member who stood in the middle of the crowd with a megaphone. He led chants that echoed throughout downtown and could be heard for blocks. He said he was impressed with the quick turnout and appreciated the diversity of the crowd.
“This is just the community coming together, working together to say, ‘We’re not backing down, we’re not going anywhere, and that people here, matter,” Owens said.
Residents of the city at the protest were there for a variety of reasons, but the newly enforced tariffs and their affect on the domestic and global economy was a common theme.
Also in the crowd with a sign reading “veterans deserve better” held by Jack Herbert, a veteran from the city who was protesting potential cuts to Veteran Affairs.
He said the system may be flawed, but without people on the low level answering questions and guiding people through complicated processes and paperwork, veterans could be at a disadvantage.
“What he’s doing is cutting the legs out from the VA, even by pulling even a minimal amount of people is going to affect some veterans somewhere,” he said.
Jack Cunningham, former New Castle County Police Chief, and his wife Mary Ann brought their 3-year-old granddaughter Sadie, who was in a wheelchair. They said cuts to Medicaid could affect her access to wheelchairs in the future. Their sign read “Hands off my wheelchair!”
Thousands hit the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach protest
Protesters have been lining Coastal Highway in front of Walmart in Rehoboth every Saturday morning for weeks now. They were there again this week before moving to the bandstand at Rehoboth Avenue and the boardwalk for a rally, organized by Indivisible Southern Delaware.
Attendees were led in songs like “God Bless America” and “Do You Hear the People Sing?” before Indivisible Southern Delaware’s Cheryl Siskin introduced a slate of speakers, including representatives from St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Rehoboth and the American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware. Rep. Claire Snyder-Hall (D-Rehoboth Beach) also spoke.
After the rally, protesters marched south on the boardwalk before dispersing.
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