OKLAHOMA CITY – Members of the Oklahoma City community joined nationwide protests Tuesday and “walked out” from their jobs and other obligations to attend the “Free America” march from Bricktown Ballpark to Scissortail Park on the one-year anniversary of President Trump’s Second Inauguration.
The event was organized by Women’s March, 50501 OK, and Indivisible OKC, with support from the Oklahoma ACLU and Oklahoma City Democratic Socialists of America.
The march brought in over 200 protestors opposing rising extremism and nationalism in Oklahoma and America at large.
One speaker was Victoria Hurst, who said she formerly leaned right-wing, but decided to walk away from the Make America Great Again – or MAGA – movement. She spoke on behalf of “Leaving MAGA”, a group dedicated to helping people like her “reject extremism”.
“Whatever the MAGA movement wants you to believe, people are not slogans,” Hurst said. “And yet the movement taught us to reduce people to ideas while ignoring their individual humanity.”
Hurst told the crowd that everyone has a story.
“MAGA doesn’t succeed because their followers are ignorant,” she said. “It convinces the educated to abandon reality in favor of loyalty. It does not value respect or unity. It seeks control and demands obedience.”
She explained that she wasn’t raised with bigoted and hateful beliefs, but she was “raised by people who made me feel safe, mostly my friend’s parents, who took me in and showed me kindness. In their world, which was the MAGA movement, I found stability, belonging, and the belief that conforming would keep me safe.”
Nina Lawrence is a former academic professional in Oklahoma and organizer with Indivisible OKC, who had a few words to share with the crowd that afternoon.
“I am one of the lucky ones who benefited from our former higher rank in education,” she said from the stage. “As a mother of a gifted child with accommodations currently enrolled in our public schools, we are here, and we in Oklahoma are no strangers to the threat of authoritarianism, and what happens when government offices are corrupted by those with nationalist agendas.”
Lawrence explained that authoritarianism is, in essence, an assault on memory.
“It’s why books are banned, libraries are defunded, why museums are stripped of content that tells the full story of America,” she said. “I remember a time before Republican leadership, when Oklahoma was 17th in education rather than 50th. I remember a time when educators were respected by our communities, and considered a pillar for building a stronger future for our youth, rather than being labeled as terrorists, as Ryan Walters has said.”
Free Press spoke to some supporters on the ground protesting at the event.
One participant, “Lizzie,” who is in college for Animal Science and delivers part-time for Door Dash, said she “just cares about people,” and was at the event for “human rights”.
Another person, Blu, a professional artist, said he came out to the event for “justice”.
“Justice for our people!” he said. “By that I mean, of course, our global brotherhood, the International. All our working brothers and sisters who have been abducted by ICE agents. We’ve had an unfortunate number of folks, especially in our learned circles, be taken.”
Blu said he believes we should have a “more peaceful resolution” to this issue.
“Did you know that parents have been rounded up by ICE agents while attending their young, young students’ graduation ceremonies from elementary schools, from high schools, and the like?” he said. “Goodness, it’s a horrible thing to see. We shouldn’t be doing that to anybody.”
Alex Gatley covers labor activities in the state of Oklahoma.
