Thousands protest Trump over funding cuts, Department of Education and more in Charlotte
A large crowd met at the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services building on Billingsley Road Saturday to rally against President Donald Trump.
Since he returned to the White House, the president has signed a barrage of executive orders that have challenged immigration law, the federal Department of Education and longstanding economic policy, among other things.
“Everything” was a concern, longtime Charlotte resident Leslie Carter told The Charlotte Observer shortly after the rally.
“Everything that has been done affects every individual in the whole country — and parts of the world,” she said. “It’s disastrous.”
Indivisible Charlotte organized Saturday’s rally. Other “Hands Off” protests took place across North Carolina and the country. Organizers said 3,000 people registered for Charlotte’s rally, and the crowd appeared to number in the thousands.
Rally-goers listened to speakers before marching down Randolph Road, which police closed car traffic to.
There was no sizable crowd of counter-protesters.
Mother worries how Medicaid cuts could affect daughter
Charlotte resident Becca Smoot told the crowd that she is worried about Medicaid cuts and how they could affect her daughter, Ella, who Smoot said was born when she was just 25 weeks pregnant.
“She’s beautiful, strong, silly, smart and sassy,” she said of her daughter. “She recently made the A honor roll. And if you are ever blessed with her giggles, she will light you up.”
Smoot said a social worker told her to apply for Medicaid and supplemental security income for her daughter when she was born 13 years ago. She remembered telling the social worker that she didn’t need it since her insurance had “really good benefits.”
“You do,” she remembered the social worker telling her.
That has proven true, Smoot said, listing off costs she has paid to take care of her daughter: a power wheelchair, hospital bills that totaled over a million dollars after insurance and more.
“That’s where Medicaid comes in,” she said. “It fills those gaps. It covers what my insurance doesn’t. It keeps us afloat.”
The White House has said it will not cut Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security. But some Republican senators are worried their own budget plan, as it is written now, will have that effect. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican, called Trump over that “big concern,” NBC News reported yesterday.
“Our lives are not just numbers on a budget sheet,” Smoot said.
Department of Education
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teacher Rae LaGrone railed against Trump’s efforts to shut down the federal Department of Education. The department has been a longtime target of Republicans, going back to Ronald Reagan.
Last month, Trump called for Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin shutting down the agency, though completely shuttering it would require congressional approval. The president has also slashed its size by about half.
The government has also warned schools to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs or risk losing federal grants.
“It’s an attack on working-class families,” LaGrone said, adding that CMS could lose over $44 million a year that pays for school lunches, services for multilingual students and those with disabilities, as well as career and technical training.
People who work in schools have carried on all the while, she said.
“On Thursday, a student asked me, ‘Are you going to be in the streets on Saturday?’ I asked, ‘What do you mean?’ and she said to protest,” LaGrone said. “These kids are hopeful and they’re watching.”
Research cut, UNC Charlotte professor says
UNC Charlotte associate professor Annelise Mennicke said her $450,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study “the trajectory of healing for LGBTQ+ survivors of sexual violence” was “abruptly terminated.”
She said she received notice that it “no longer effectuated agency priorities.”
“That’s AI-speak for it included LGBTQ+ people,” she said.
That cancellation and others like it will hurt Charlotte, she said, making it less healthy and less safe. And it will hurt students who might have a future in research, she said.
“This was a special type of grant that funded the research but also the training,” she said. “We know that students who are exposed to research become researchers and innovate the most advanced technologies in the world. The cancellation of this grant has disrupted that pipeline.”
In canceling it, the government sent a message, she said: They do not matter.
Civil liberties concerns
Among all the policy concerns raised Monday, others told the Observer that they are worried about civil liberties in general. The president and his cabinet are far overstepping their authority, some said.
Indian Trail resident Vince Kowalski is alarmed by the administration’s recent attempts to deport legal residents “for their right to protest,” he said.
Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil has become the most known example.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Khalil on March 8, and the Trump administration has said it wants his green card revoked. Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the administration will revoke the visas and green cards “of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”
Khalil participated in protests at Columbia over the war in Gaza.
Ryan Oehrli covers criminal justice in the Charlotte region for The Charlotte Observer. His work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The Observer maintains full editorial control of its journalism.
This story was originally published April 5, 2025 at 4:26 PM with the headline "Thousands protest Trump over funding cuts, Department of Education and more in Charlotte."