Thousands turn out for ‘Hands off!’ anti-Trump protests across Triangle and NC
Thousands took to the streets across the Triangle and North Carolina on Saturday as part of a nationwide protest to condemn the Trump administration’s policies on health care, Social Security, education and civil rights.
Organized by Indivisible, MoveOn and other groups, organizers claim it’s the largest single-day protest since President Donald Trump entered office, with more than 1,100 rallies scheduled in all 50 states.
Their message: “Hands off!”
Trump and Elon Musk via the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, are “orchestrating an all-out assault on our government, our economy, and our basic human rights,” the Hands Off! website said.
The rallies spilled across Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and into outlying towns like Pittsboro, drawing more than 7,000 RSVPs, organizers said. An additional 3,000 joined the protest in Charlotte.
Starting at around 11 a.m. on a sunny morning in Raleigh, people began to gather at Bicentennial Plaza, between the North Carolina State Capitol and the North Carolina Legislative Building.
A cross-section of people turned out: people from the LGBTQ+ community, veterans, young families with strollers, baby boomers.
“Hey, hey, ho, ho. Trump and Musk have got to go!” they shouted in unison as a small woman with a bullhorn led the crowd. Others waved signs — “Unite and Resist” and “Protect our votes.”
Since he took office in January, Trump has signed dozens of executive orders and through DOGE has fired thousands of federal workers and canceled contracts or grants hitting North Carolina’s national parks and Triangle nonprofits.
He’s also announced sweeping tariffs that could impact industries in the state and cause even more layoffs.
“America has got to wake up,” said Kate Brilakis, a 66-year-old teacher from Hillsborough, who was among those in the crowd. She is an Army veteran. Her husband was a U.S. Marine for almost 40 years, and her daughter is currently on active duty.
She waved a two-sided poster that singled out North Carolina Sens. Thom Tillis and Ted Budd.
“I call my senators every morning, every afternoon and every night,” she said. “I beg them to do something to protect the veterans. Everything that we have fought for and devoted our lives to, is just being dismissed and ridiculed by people who have no idea what service truly is.”
Around the corner, Lindsay Knapp, 42, held a “mini-rally” for veterans in attendance.
“Hold the line,” she belted through a bullhorn. “Defend the Constitution.”
Knapp runs the LGBTQ Resource Center in Sanford. “I’m here as an Army veteran, a parent and a queer person,” she said, adding: “As a veteran, I swore an oath to defend the Constitution, and that oath didn’t stop when I hung up my hat.”
Linda Birnbaum, an American toxicologist and the former director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, appeared on the main stage as a speaker.
She said planned cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and its scientific office could lead to the firing of as many as “1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other federal scientists.” That decision alone could impact thousands of jobs in the Research Triangle Park and would have a major impact on the local economy, she said.
“Closing EPA’s science office would cause irreparable harm to ongoing studies underway by toxicologists, physicians, endocrinologists and other experts,” she said.
In Chapel Hill, several hundred protesters gathered on East Franklin Street. The crowd spilled across Franklin Street onto McCorkle Place on UNC’s campus.
“I am determined, like many of my ancestors, to find my joy, to sing my song, maybe not out loud, but to find it every day. I challenge you to find your joy, because that’s the reservoir that you’re going to have to dig deep into to keep fighting,”Camille Berry, Chapel Hill Town Council member, said.
Demonstrators held LGBTQ+ Pride flags and signs with messages like,” Fascists feed on fear. Starve them.”
“People have fewer rights than they did 20 years ago,” Berry said.
In Charlotte, more than 2,000 people gathered outside the Mecklenburg County Social Services office as part of the protest.
Dozens of advocacy groups partnered to support Saturday’s protests. Among them: 50501NC, Bull City Indivisible, North Carolina Poor People’s Campaign, Iron Front NC, Common Cause NC, Union of Southern Service Workers, Wake Women Have Mercy, The Black and Brown Coalition of North Carolina and the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina.
This story was originally published April 5, 2025 at 1:11 PM with the headline "Thousands turn out for ‘Hands off!’ anti-Trump protests across Triangle and NC."
