Protests against Trump's immigration, health care cuts begin

Chicago: Protests and events against President Donald Trump's controversial policies that include mass deportations and cuts to Medicaid and other safety nets for poor people start ed Thursday at more than 1,600 locations around the country. The "Good Trouble Lives On" national day of action honours the late congress man and civil rights leader John Lewis.

Protests were being held along streets, at court houses and other public spaces. Organizers have called for them to be peaceful. "We are navigating one of the most terrifying moments in our nation's history," Public Citizen co president Lisa Gilbert said during an online news conference Tuesday.

"We are all grappling with a rise of authoritarianism and lawlessness within our administration ... as the rights, freedoms and expectations of our very democracy are being challenged." Public Citizen is a non profit with a stated mis sion of taking on corporate power. It is a member of a coalition of groups behind Thursday's protests.

Major protests were planned in Atlanta and St. Louis, as well as Oakland, California, and Annapolis, Maryland. Lewis was first elected to Congress in 1986. He died in 2020 at the age of 80 following an advanced pancreatic cancer diag nosis. He was the youngest and last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists, a group led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1965, a 25-year old Lewis led some 600 protesters in the Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Lewis was beaten by police, suffering a skull fracture. Within days, King led more marches in the state, and President Lyn don Johnson pressed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act that later became law.

"Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem the soul of America," Lewis said in 2020 while commemorating the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgom ery, Alabama. Chicago will be the flag ship city for Thursday's protests as demonstra tors are expected to rally downtown in the after noon.

Betty Magness, execu tive vice president of the League of Women Voters Chicago and one of the organisers of Chicago's event, said the rally will also include a candlelight vigil to honour Lewis. Much of the rest of the rally will have a livelier tone, Magness said, add ing "we have a DJ who's gonna rock us with boots on the ground". (AP)