Thousands in Charlotte Say ‘Hands Off’ to Trump

Around 3,500 people gathered in front of the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services on Billingsley Road on Saturday morning to protest draconian cuts to agencies and services by the Trump administration. 

Citing actions by Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run by the president’s billionaire benefactor Elon Musk, that are gutting education, health care and science programming countrywide while threatening funding for Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, speakers excoriated the administration for dismantling America. 

Despite a diverse array of concerns, the protesters had one overriding message for Trump: “Hands off!”

At noon on Saturday, the Hands Off! rally, organized by volunteers with Indivisible Charlotte in coordination with nearly 200 progressive groups and unions, launched into a march through southeast Charlotte. The protestors marched south on Billingsley Road before turning west down Randolph Road, making a 2-mile loop that passed the Mint Museum before circling back to the Department of Social Services (DSS). 

CMPD officers closed Randolph Road for nearly an hour during the march. The event was peaceful and this reporter saw no counter demonstrations. 

At the rally preceding the march, speakers gathered under a white tent that shielded them from the intense sun. Throngs of protestors spread across an expanse of parking lots and grassy fields adjacent to the DSS building holding handmade signs with slogans such as, “Respect existence or expect resistance,” “Ikea has a better cabinet,” “Hands off democracy,” “We the people are over this shit,” and more.

Speakers share stories of Trump-imposed hardship and injustice

Charlotte Indivisible organizer Jackie Goldberger introduced each speaker, including UNC Charlotte Associate Professor of Social Work Dr. Annelise Mennicke who recently had a $450,000 grant that funded research and training to foster healing in LGBTQ+ survivors of sexual violence abruptly terminated, as reported by Queen City Nerve. 

“We know … it is cheaper to invest in prevention than it is to deal with the consequences later as intervention,” Mennicke said before referencing DOGE’s purported mission of eliminating waste and fraud in her remarks. “By choosing not to invest in prevention, Elon and DOGE have chosen more expensive options, which sounds like the real waste, fraud and abuse to me.”

Mennicke added that the federal government’s actions are part of a systematic erasure and dehumanization of LGBTQ+ people.

“[It] is a precursor to state-sanctioned violence, to apartheid, to genocide,” she said before pointing to the administration’s practice of kidnapping immigrants and throwing them in prison camps without due process.

Social worker and licensed addiction specialist Dane Mullis addressed the devastating impacts of federal funding cuts on local and national health agencies.  

“These cuts threaten critical services like rehabilitation programs and detox centers, which are often the difference between life and death for individuals struggling with addiction,” Mullis told the demonstrators.

Beth Ockerbloom, grants and programs manager at Queen City Harm Reduction, explained how the nonprofit’s needle exchange, health education and addiction recovery and prevention programs provide dignity and hope to people who use drugs that are otherwise lost in a system of oppression.

Read more: New Stats Show Widening Racial Disparities in Local Overdose Deaths

Pulling funding from the program negatively impacts people who use drugs, who are still valid and worthy of health care, resources and human services, Ockerbloom maintained.

“Funding cuts mean that the richest people on earth decide who lives and dies, and we can’t let it happen,” she said.

Other speakers included fine arts teacher Rae LaGrone, who addressed draconian cut to arts education; North Carolina chapter director of Little Lobbyists and mother of two children with complex medical needs Stacy Staggs, who discussed her family’s need for the Affordable Care Act; and Charlotte resident Becca Smoot, who emphasized how crucial Medicaid is for North Carolinians. 

Rev. Sara Ellis, who was scheduled to talk about looming Social Security cuts, was stuck in traffic and could not make it to the rally, so the 71-year old Goldberger shared her thoughts with the crowd.

“I collect Social Security,” Goldberger said, adding that neither she nor her husband had a pension before referencing Trump’s economy-killing tariffs. “All of our money is in our investments. Guess what happened to that this week?”

Charlotte’s protest part of a wider movement 

The coalition that launched the Hands Off! demonstration and march also organized close to 1,300 protests in all 50 states and Washington DC. Alt National Parks Service, a national self-described “resistance” team, claimed on its Bluesky account that 5.2 million people joined Hands Off! protests nationwide.

“This is a nationwide mobilization to stop the most brazen power grab in modern history,” said Hands Off! on its website “They want to strip America for parts — shuttering Social Security offices, firing essential workers, eliminating consumer protections, and gutting Medicaid — all to bankroll their billionaire tax scam.”

“This mass mobilization day is our message to the world that we do not consent to the destruction of our government and our economy for the benefit of Trump and his billionaire allies,” said Indivisible Charlotte in a statement before the event. 

The nationwide protests came after the stock market plummeted last week following Trump’s April 1 announcement of tariffs. Following that action, a Reuters poll put Trump’s approval rating at 43%, his lowest since taking office.

Saturday’s Charlotte rally drew a predominantly white crowd comprising a wide array of ages.

Along the march route, Matthew Tyndall had set up a stand where people could check if they were on the “Griffin List,” a register of more than 60,000 ballots that have been challenged from last November’s NC Supreme Court election. Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin wants the votes thrown out in order to steal the election that he lost to sitting Justice Allison Riggs.

Read more: Court Ruling Could Overturn NC Supreme Court Election

Griffin’s lawsuit affects people that voted early, voted by mail or voted from overseas, such as military personnel, Tyndall noted. Griffin’s challenge specifically targets heavily Democratic areas of the state. 

A pending State Supreme Court decision, hearing the case as a 5-1 Republican majority with Riggs having recused herself, could flip her seat back into GOP control. The Court currently has a 5-2 Republican majority when fully seated.

“I just wanted to give people a chance just to make sure their votes are heard, [to] make sure democracy is working the way it should,” Tyndall told Queen City Nerve.

Angela S., who requested that her last name be withheld, marched while draped in a Palestinian flag and wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with a pro-Palestinian watermelon slice.  

“Trump is a menace, and what he’s doing is criminal,” Angela said. She also decried the US government’s support of the Israeli government’s ongoing genocide in Palestine.

“The majority of everyone wants this to stop and our government — Democrats and Republicans — are not listening,” Angela said. “I’m hoping that someone in Washington will see all these people out here, myself included, and grow a soul to stop the things that they’re doing.”

Read more: Local Activists Rally Behind Mahmoud Khalil

Married couple Carolyn and Larry Risser, both retired Navy Hospital Corpsmen, said they felt devastated by the damage the Trump administration has done to America.

Carolyn shared that her father was an Army veteran and her grandfather flew against the Red Baron during World War I in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

“I’m very disappointed at the lack of knowledge about the history of this country,” Carolyn said, noting that Nazis played a significant part in American politics before WWII.

“[I want] our legislators to listen to us and see that this is not just in Charlotte — it’s all over the country,” she added. “They should know that we mean business.”

“I hope that the people will stand up and push back across the nation, and that the Republicans will hear it because they’re the ones that are not doing their job,” Larry added. 

CMS Board Member Melissa Easley marched beside her friend “Froman” Howard.

“I am here saying hands off our education,” said Easley, who is openly LGBTQ+. “Not only that, but I’m saying ‘Hands off our LGBTQ [community] and hands off our Medicare.’” 

She added that Trump’s budget cuts harm America’s most vulnerable populations. Easley urged more North Carolinians to speak out against the Trump administration’s actions.

“Silence is support of the oppressors,” she said.

Howard, dressed in a Dead Kennedys t-shirt, said he had previously eschewed getting openly involved in politics.

“We’re talking about ‘Hands off’ today, but I’m putting my hands on democracy,” Howard said. “I felt for a long time that I didn’t need to, but I feel we need our hands on to get people [like Trump and Musk] to get their hands off.”

Calls to action

Goldberger told attendees on Saturday that the Hands Off! event was just the start of ongoing activism to wrest control of the country from the clutches of authoritarians and billionaires.

She urged the protestors to follow and get involved with Indivisible Charlotte and to call their members of Congress. She suggested that constituents sign up with the 5 Calls App, which keeps voters and citizens abreast of issues as they come before legislators.

The NC Supreme Court election was also front of mind for Goldberger following Friday’s 2-1 ruling by a state appeals court in favor of Griffin.

“We’re not going to let them steal that election,” Goldberger said, adding that the case will be   litigated again. “That was not the final court.” 

Finally, Goldberger announced that Indivisible Charlotte hopes to host Sen. Thom Tillis for a town hall in the Queen City on April 24.

“We sent a certified letter to Tillis inviting him,” Goldberger said. “We are also inviting all of you to call him and invite him — and if his chair is empty, we will still have our town hall.” 

Individual Indivisible chapters across the country are planning to host another slate of actions titled “No Kings, We’re not going back!” marking the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution on April 19, but at the time of this writing Indivisible CLT has not yet announced an event for that date.