Lily Belle Poling, Staff Photographer

Roughly 2,000 people convened at the New Haven Green Saturday afternoon to protest President Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

The protest — which called for Trump and Musk to take their “hands off” — was one of more than 1,300 “Hands Off!” rallies that took place across the country on April 5, with over 600,000 people participating nationwide. Before taking to the streets of downtown New Haven, demonstrators called for “hands off” schools, immigrants, Palestine, healthcare, science and more.

“The backstop for our democracy, and for our Constitution, is now the people,” said the Rev. Allie Perry DIV ’80, who helped to organize the protest. “People are pissed off, and they know that unless we rise up, our democracy will be destroyed.”

Few of those present were Yale students. UNITE HERE, New Haven Rising and the Sunrise Movement were among the participating organizations.

Although several Connecticut politicians, including Senator Richard Blumenthal LAW ’73, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysewicz ’83 and Comptroller Sean Scanlon, asked to speak at the protest, Perry said, organizers were not interested — and instead invited them to listen. 

For around 40 minutes, community leaders of all stripes spoke on stage and decried the Trump administration’s recent actions.

“Our students deserve to learn the truth — honest history about this country — and we will not allow Trump and Musk to censor us and take away our First Amendment rights,” Leslie Blatteau ’97 GRD ’07, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, said to the crowd, inciting cheers and applause.

Later, climate activist Sena Wazer ENV ’26 took to the stage to call for “hands off our climate.” While she condemned the Trump administration’s approach to climate change, she also called upon Connecticut officials to do more to protect the state from the effects of warming and pollution.

After Wazer, Tabitha Sookdeo ENV ’27, executive director of Connecticut Students for a Dream and an immigrant from Guyana, denounced Trump’s stance on immigration and the recent slew of deportations.

“We’ve had enough. Immigrants are part of Connecticut’s economic and social fabric. We contribute to the backbone of this country — not billionaires,” Sookdeo said. “We are the working class. We are funding our schools, our healthcare, our infrastructure. We are the backbone of this state, and we will continue to not live in fear.”

While the content of protesters’ speeches and signs varied, demonstrators were united in their opposition to Trump and Musk, the de facto leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, and their concern for American democracy.

Rob Huffnung, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of New Haven, described a “totalitarian takeover,” while Pam Kruh, who had traveled to the green from Old Saybrook, called Trump “a dictator.”

Longtime New Haven Register reporter Randall Beach, meanwhile, said that he was especially concerned about “the denial of civil rights and free speech.” He and his wife Jennifer Kaylin had just returned from Amsterdam, he explained, where they had visited the Anne Frank House.

“The parallels are unbelievably applicable to what we’re going through right now — students are being pulled off the streets like it’s a fascist dictatorship we’re living under,” Beach said. “It stiffened our resolve to resist, to not collaborate, to not participate.”

The entire crowd began their march just before 1 p.m., marching first down Chapel Street, towards the School of Architecture. They turned right on York Street, past several residential colleges, made another right on Elm Street, and returned to the Green.

All the while, two New Haven Police Department patrol cars drove slowly in front of the marchers. NHPD Lt. David Guliuzza, who oversees the Downtown district, described the coordination between the protest organizers and the NHPD as “pretty good,” and added that demonstrators were “very peaceful.”

Eventually, the protesters returned to the Green, where they formed a circle.

Unlike a demonstration on the Green on the day of Trump’s inauguration, Saturday’s protest was relatively homogenous, and leaned older and white.

Perry recalled her involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement, as did Jim Edwards, another attendee.

“I said I’d never protest again. Here I am,” Edwards said.

According to Ward 7 Alder Eli Sabin ’22 LAW ’26, Saturday’s protest augured a shift away from the exhaustion and demoralization that have characterized the first few months of the Trump Administration, and toward a spirit of energized resistance. 

Several protesters expressed hope that the protest might galvanize anti-Trump sentiment across the country.

“You show up, you show up, you show up, and you show that we have power, too,” said Fran Shea, a New York City resident and Connecticut State University alum. “This administration’s approach is to exhaust people. And this will show you, we won’t be exhausted.”

At least one anti-Trump rally took place in each of the 50 states on Saturday.