03-04-2025
'It's my future, too'
East Lyme — In the corner of the bright and airy dining room inside 16-year-old Emma Frisbie's home sits an easel with two unfinished paintings. Next to them is a protest sign she plans to hold Saturday at the rally she organized single-handedly.
'The bigger painting is of Lady Justice holding a megaphone calling out against tyranny,' Frisbie said Wednesday. 'The other is a pretty sailboat, because I need some serenity in my life.'
On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people across the country are expected to participate in mass rallies protesting President Donald Trump and his administration, though Frisbie said her gathering has a decidedly gentler, but still pointed, slant.
'I want to keep things positive, not anti-Trump or anti-anything else,' the East Lyme High School sophomore said. 'But at the same time, there're issues I am passionate about — the environment, women's rights — that I want to bring attention to.'
In eastern Connecticut, as in the rest of the U.S., a series of 'Hands Off! A National Day of Action' gatherings are largely being marshaled by progressive grassroots groups like Indivisible and the 50501 movement, organizations with strong infrastructures that have the ability to mobilize a crowd quickly.
For instance, southeastern Connecticut branches of the national Indivisible organization are hoping to attract hundreds of attendees to New London and Norwich protests on Saturday. But unlike other protests, Frisbie's rally, scheduled from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on the Niantic Green, doesn't depend on a cadre of seasoned volunteers or a slick media campaign.
Instead, Frisbie made calls to various Town Hall departments to get permission to gather before creating her own flyer that was shared by a group of social media friends.
'It's just me,' she said. 'If 10 people show up, that's a success for me.'
Frisbie's flyer, which features an image of the Statue of Liberty crowned with the word 'resist,' asks potential attendees to join for a protest centered on nearly a dozen issues such as clean energy, NATO, LGBTQ+ protections, free speech, science and body-related rights.
Frisbie said she was motivated to act after attending a recent anti-Trump rally in New London organized by the Guardians of Democracy Indivisible group.
'It was my first protest and I'd been feeling helpless, being a young person but not being able to vote even as I'm watching my future change right before my eyes,' she said. 'It's my future, too, with things about higher education being changed without me having a say.'
Frisbie, a competitive public speaker and poet — she is a 2024 National Endowments for the Arts Poetry Out Loud state champion — who sells her artwork online and at a local studio, said while Saturday marks her foray into organized rallies, it's not her first brush with protesting.
'Last Election Day, I had a silent protest where I sat quietly in a lawn chair outside a polling place with a sign asking people to vote for my future,' she said.
Waterford Bonnie Fenn Sullivan, a founding member of the Guardians group, which regularly attracts hundreds of protesters to its rallies, said she learned of Frisbie's intentions from state Rep. Nick Menapace, D-East Lyme.
'I just think it's incredibly impressive,' said Sullivan, a retired civics teacher. 'I'm reassured that the U.S. will be in good hands as long as we have young leaders like Emma to carry on. She embodies the best attributes of Americans: courage, empathy and intelligence. And the initiative to use it all for the good of the country.
Frisbie said if Saturday's rally goes well, she'll continue down the protest path.
'Maybe bigger protests?' she said. 'With speakers and a march?'
IF YOU GO
'Hands Off!' rallies on Saturday
New London
11 a.m. to 1 p.m., in front of New London Superior Court, 70 Huntington St.
Niantic
3-5 p.m., Niantic Green, 231 Main St.
Norwich
2-4 p.m., Chelsea Parade.
