Lowell readies for Donald Trump–and his trail of protesters
Like at Donald Trump events in Norwood, Worcester, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and across the country over the past few months, Trump’s appearance in Lowell will be met with protests.
Trump is set to bring his “Make America Great Again’’ campaign to the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell on Monday night. It will be his first rally of 2016 and comes about a month before the New Hampshire primary presidential election.
Three groups—Community Advocates for Justice and Equality, Black Lives Matter in Cambridge, and Answer Coalition—plan to collaborate for a peaceful protest of the event. Several hundred people plan to attend and are encouraged to wear black, according to a Facebook event.
“Trump’s disrespect is deplorable, and he must be stopped,’’ the organizers write. “We stand in solidarity with our immigrant population. Lowell is one of the most diverse cities in the entire nation, with beautiful and rich immigrant culture from all corners of our planet.’’
The Facebook event also says the protesters stand in solidarity with Muslims, the disabled community, Mexican immigrants, and Syrian refugees.
The organizers also created a petition at Change.org that called on UMass-Lowell to disallow Trump from using the Tsongas Center. The petition garnered more than 2,500 supporters.
The call to disinvite Trump from speaking was criticized by two UMass Lowell associate professors, Carol Hay and John Kaag, in The Boston Globe.
“If we close our doors to Trump and his ilk, then his supporters have every right to accuse us of being the close-minded dogmatists hiding behind the shroud of lefty politics that they think we are,’’ they wrote.
The two professors wrote that Trump’s rhetoric is “hateful’’ and deserves to be criticized. However, they defended the school’s decision to host the rally despite that.
“In the end, we let quacks talk on our campus all the time … But there’s an upside to letting jerks speak: When you let them speak, their true colors show themselves pretty quickly,’’ they wrote.
Despite the planned protests outside the event, officials expect about 9,000 people to attend the rally, The Boston Globe reports.
On Twitter, Trump sounded unfazed. “I hear a very big crowd is expected–we will have lots of fun!’’ he wrote.
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Gallery: Protesters greet Donald Trump in Portsmouth, New Hampshire
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