Forward Together Rally Brings Huntersville Crowd Out Against Trump

More than 1,200 people gathered on Sam Furr Road at Holly Point Drive Saturday afternoon to protest multiple actions by the Trump administration, including dismantling America’s education and health care systems, selling public lands to billionaires, ignoring due process and defying the courts. 

The Day of Action/Forward Together demonstration, organized by volunteers with the 50501 movement and Indivisible Charlotte, was part of a nationwide protest that involved over 700 towns and cities across America including more than 20 municipalities in North Carolina.

Alt National Parks Service, a national self-described “resistance” team, claimed on its Bluesky account that 3.1 million people participated in countrywide demonstrations, short of the estimated 5.2 million people who joined the Hands Off! protests on April 5.

Holding handmade signs saying “They’re eating the checks; They’re eating the balances,” “Not a king, just a tyrant,” “Tiny hands, big threat to democracy,”  “My grandma didn’t survive two Nazi death camps for me to forget,” “Stop the war on universities” and other slogans, demonstrators lined the sidewalks at the intersection near the Exit 25 I-77 interchange in the large suburban town in north Mecklenburg County between 1-3 p.m. on Saturday

Unlike the April 5 Hands Off! event, the peaceful Huntersville action did not include a march or rally with speeches from demonstrators. Instead participants cheered, displayed their signs, and repeated call and response chants including, “Hell no; Trump and Musk have got to go,” and “Bring them home, now!” referring to the more than 260 people detained and sent to El Salvadoran prisons by the Trump administration.

Roars of approval erupted from the crowd as passing cars and trucks honked in support of the demonstrators’ actions. A blast of approval from a passing 18-wheeler startled a small group of demonstrators near this reporter.

While four motorists shook their fists in disapproval or flipped demonstrators the middle finger, there were no counter demonstrations. On a few occasions, Huntersville Police officers gently reminded demonstrators to stay on the sidewalks and out of the crosswalks and roadways.

Demonstrators oppose Trump’s assaults on civil rights and democracy

The Huntersville Forward Together demonstration drew a predominantly white crowd comprising a wide array of ages. Ellie Struzinski, 16, came to the demonstration with her mother Jeanette from their home in Denver. Both held signs that displayed Martin Luther King Jr. quotes including, “We need leaders not in love with money, but in love with justice.” 

“I’m tired of our rights getting trampled,” Ellie said. “There are so many people struggling and there is nobody to help save them because Trump is acting like he can take over everything. He’s walking all over the Constitution and I’m fucking tired of it.”

Jeanette Struzinski addressed the largely white makeup of the throngs lining the sidewalks.

“I didn’t understand my white privilege until Trump was first elected,” she said, adding that when she urged her Black friends to protest, they opened her eyes to the additional risks that people of color encounter. “My Black friends would say, ‘We can’t do that. Someone will arrest us; someone will be violent towards us. You have to be the one to speak out.’”

Father and son Walter and Steven Davis are both Black Air Force veterans, bringing signs that read, “Trump traitor” and “No king in America.”

“I’m hoping that we’re going to get more people involved and that when it comes time for the next election, we will elect Democrats so we can take back our country,” Walter said.

“I’ve got daughters and granddaughters,” Steven said. “They need to be able to have autonomy over their own bodies, they need to have voting rights in the country that I fought for.”

Ryan Mahabir, a recent transplant to Charlotte, said he came to the demonstration because he felt it was time to get involved in politics.

“Seeing people taking time out of their weekend to stand for what they believe … may [bring us together],” Mahabir said, “It’s a good motivator for people to … spread the change.”  

Carter McDonnell and Marceline Zaorski said they were motivated to attend the Forward Together rally after witnessing the Trump administration’s assaults on trans rights, education and due process.

“People in this country are being deported even though they shouldn’t be deported,” McDonnell noted.  

“I’m concerned about the direction our country is heading, and what feels like the beginning of the fall of democracy,” added Zaorski. “I’m hoping to grow this movement and put pressure on our representatives to fight for us and do their jobs.”

Could Trump enact martial law 

One Forward Together demonstrator named Theresa, who asked that her last name be withheld, expressed concern that Trump would enact the Insurrection Act of 1807 following the demonstration.

“[The act] says that any and all protestors can be arrested for any reason,” she said. “I protest to allow people to protest peacefully for any reason.”

Theresa’s concerns may stem from widespread confusion that conflates martial law, which would impose military law on civilians, with the Insurrection Act, which allows the president to use the military to respond to emergencies, such as a breakdown in regular operational law or an invasion. Under the act, the president can direct federal troops “as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.”

On Jan. 20, Trump issued an executive order that declared a national emergency at the US southern border even though the purported emergency has been called fake by critics including former Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

Trump’s order required the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security to submit a report on border conditions within 90 days. The report was tasked to include “any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807,” the executive order said.

Sunday was the 90-day deadline, and the day passed without Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth nor Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recommending the implementation of the Insurrection Act.

Writing for Lawfare, professor of Law at The George Washington University Law School Laura A. Dickinson writes that the Insurrection Act of 1807, though broadly and vaguely worded, has historically been read narrowly. The act is constrained by the 14th Amendment and Article IV, Section 4, of the Constitution. 

Implementation of the act would also face practical limits, Dickinson writes. Military units deployed domestically would be tasked with “routine law enforcement functions” for which they have little or no training. In addition, if the military was required to use force and infringe on civilians’ constitutional rights by violating the Fourth and First Amendments, the armed forces might be demoralized by its orders or balk at them outright.

In short, Trump may want to impose the Insurrection Act by claiming he must obtain control at the US southern border, but conditions at the border — such as immigrants coming into the country illegally — do not constitute a breakdown of federal law, an invasion or a rebellion that would necessitate the use of the Insurrection Act. 

Additionally, in practice, a far-reaching application of the act could prove practically unenforceable.

Concerns about Trump leveraging the law to implement tyranny, however, will remain for as long as he is in power, especially considering his reluctance or in some cases refusal to follow court orders. Trump continues to strive to end birthright citizenship by executive order, for example, an unconstitutional act that has already been blocked by several judges.

In March, Trump claimed that the US is being invaded by Venezuelan gangs and invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which was used during wartime to detain or deport foreign nationals from enemy nations without due process. 

This time, the US Supreme Court upheld the deportations even though the country is not at war, and Venezuela is not considered an enemy nation, though Trump did ignore a court order to defer the deportation of Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia, sending him instead to an El Salvador concentration camp and refusing to bring him back. 

Indivisible Charlotte has invited US Sen. Thom Tillis to a town hall meeting in Charlotte scheduled for Thursday, April 24 from 6-8 p.m. Learn more at the website.