Hundreds gather dressed in red at Quebec-Vermont border to show solidarity, protest Trump
Participants in a weekend event at the Quebec-Vermont border at Frelighsburg, QC, and Berkshire, VT, were asked to wear red, said Laure Waridel, one of the event's organizers.
Red for love one's country, and red for anger over the policies of United States President Donald Trump.
The Saturday gathering, organized by Mères au front Cantons-de-l'Est and Vermont Indivisible, was intended as a show of friendship and solidarity between Canada and the U.S. and and also as a demonstration of the importance of resisting Trump's oppressive policies, she said.
Similar gatherings took place at dozens of different locations along borders between the U.S. and Canada and the U.S. and Mexico, said Waridel, a social activist and associate professor of environmental studies at the Université du Québec à Montréal and a co-founder of Mères au front.
Mères au front had its beginnings around International Women's Day in 2020 and initially, 'it was to do just one event,' she said. But a grassroots movement took hold as many mothers unaccustomed to being activists rallied, said Waridel. Today, they are speaking out against such issues as industrial polluters in their communities. There are 30 Mères au front groups and thousands of members.
The goal of Saturday's event at the border was 'to remind people how friendship is a force, a power — not a weakness,' she said. 'So many principles of fairness and justice have ended under Donald Trump. It is so important to act and react.'
She cited the the dismantling of much of the UNAIDS organization and the resulting diminished access for many to lifesaving HIV/AIDS medicine and the rise of vaccine skepticism by Trump's health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy.
'Who would have believed that all this could have happened since January?' She said. Trump was inaugurated as the country's 47th president on Jan. 20.
Waridel cited 'the historical importance' of building resistance now.
'If we don't mobilize, the situation will get even worse. We have to fight: We are stronger together.'
To see such basic rights as the freedom to gather being restricted in the U.S., once considered a model of democracy, 'is extremely worrying,' she said.
A few dozen people gathered in a farmer's field in Berkshire, Vermont — the farmer on whose land people gathered did not want to be visible or identifieid, Waridel said— and more than 400 on a private property on the Frelighsburg side owned by Waridel and her husband.
There was a uniformed officer on the Quebec side at the gathering, but he left, the weekly Seven Days reported. On the American side, 'a large vehicle towing what appeared to be a surveillance tower was on hand, but no officers or agents approached the demonstrators.'
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