Protesters in Joliet rally against Trump agenda, call for resistance

Protesters gathered downtown Thursday for what was at least the fourth rally in Joliet against President Donald Trump’s agenda in recent months.

More than 100 people gathered along Jefferson Street, many of whom have been out before and some who have taken advantage of the plentiful opportunities to join protests across the region and the country since Trump became president.

“I’ve been to about 20 of these,” Keith Larson of Mokena said.

Larson, 69, said he never took part in protests in his youth.

“But now I have to do something,” he said. “I just can’t sit back and do nothing.”

Larson, like other protesters, spoke about the erosion of civil rights. He, like others, said democracy is on its heels, and several people said fascism is on the rise.

Lanny Younger of New Lenox carried a sign paraphrasing a famous quote from a Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany that read, “And then they came for me.”

Motorists passing the protest at the site of the former Will County Courthouse frequently honked their horns in support.

“It helps to let people know they’re not alone,” Younger said when asked what impact the repeated protests were having.

Many of the protesters carried signs in opposition to the mass deportations that Trump campaigned on and has put into action.

“Without due process, it’s kidnapping,” read the sign carried by Bill Landgraf of Orland Park.

“Everybody should be able to go in front of a judge,” Landgraf said. “You can’t just pull people out of the country because of the color of their eyes.”

The Joliet protest was one of hundreds organized across the country with the theme “Good Trouble Lives On” in commemoration of John Lewis, the late civil rights leader and congressman from Georgia.

DeAndre Robinson, pastor of New Beginnings Christ Church of Faith Ministries in Joliet, was one of the speakers at the rally who used Lewis’s reference to getting into “good trouble” for the sake of justice.

“It is time for us to come together to make some good trouble to make the country and the city a better place,” Robinson told the protesters.

Angel DiPasquale of Crest Hill, part of the group In Unison that helped organize the Thursday protest and others, said the rallies have “started to develop community.”

Protesters have even formed an antifascist book club devoted to reading and discussing books on the matter.

Christine Nordstrom with In Unison spoke to the protesters about a resistance movement.

“That resistance isn’t something that you read about it,” Nordstrom said. “It happens right here in Joliet, whether you are aware of it or not.”

The protesters were by and large an older group.

Zac Hylia, 23, was one of the few in his age group at the rally.

Hylia, however, said he thinks more young people are getting involved as the protests continue.

He said he was there to show opposition to “the amount of authoritarianism that has shown up in this administration and the country in general.”

Hylia probably was the youngest protester on Jefferson Street, but not the least experienced.

“Thank you, Trump. You turned me into an activist,” read a sign carried by Marianne Dewey of Mokena.

Dewey said these are the first protests in which she has taken part. She hopes that they are having an effect.

“They say that if you have X amount of people standing up, you will have an impact,” Dewey said. “I’m trying to help us get to that point.”