While a raucous Trump election protest rocked Market Street last night, a peaceful, somber, but emotionally charged candlelight gathering brought out about 800 mourners and activists to register a collective WTF over the presidential election results. The crowd held candles, hugged, and cried as several speakers fired them up and gave various pep talks to remind them of the struggle that now lays ahead.
Photo: Jay Barmann/SFist
“We will win again. It will be because we are fabulous.” a minister named Victor Floyd told the crowd. “Despite the Electoral College, we are the majority.”
Photo: Joe Kukura/SFist
Other speakers stressed the difficulty a Trump presidency poses for people outside of our comfortably left-leaning San Francisco. “I had clients calling me all morning, terrified,” said Laura Gibbon, a family law attorney from Modesto who handles name change, gender change and undocumented immigrant cases. “Do not forget people outside this bubble.”
Photo: Joe Kukura/SFist
The two rallies would converge when the Market Street protesters made their way to the Castro — but not without incident. One speaker was booed by most of the crowd when shouting into the megaphone, “We can thank Hillary Clinton for undermining Bernie Sanders and creating this defeat.”
Photo: Joe Kukura/SFist
That sentiment was quickly shot down, and most of the messages were more unifying. “We’re all in this together, gay, straight, black, white, documented, undocumented,” activist Cleve Jones told the crowd.
Photo: Joe Kukura/SFist
Photo: Joe Kukura/SFist
Photo: Jay Barmann/SFist
Related: 'Not My President': San Francisco And Oakland Take To The Streets In Protest, Dismay