They wore sensible shoes, some used canes and one leaned against a utility pole to keep her balance.

A man who displayed a “Trump Putin Tyrants” sign did so while seated securely in his rollator. Another – whose alliterative message was “Trump is cruel, chaotic, corrupt and incompetent” – flashed it while perched on a wooden stool.

When you’re in your 80s or 90s, as most are in this weekly North Baltimore protest by assisted living facility residents, you bring what you need to get through 45 minutes on your feet, alerting passing motorists to the dangers of Trump’s MAGA movement.

“I’m terrified with what’s happening in this country,” said Carol D, an 81-year-old retired fundraiser, who had never been in protests before and declined to give her last name.

She said she’s been coming to these Wednesday actions, since they began six weeks ago, out of a deep fear about changes taking place in the country since Donald Trump began his second term as president.

“Even if we were able to turn things around, it’s not going to happen in our generation. We are doing this for the younger people,” she told a reporter.

At one point, a car full of teenagers – who happened not to be white like most of this crowd, but Black like a majority of Baltimore – rolled down the windows, flashing a thumbs-up and yelling, “Yeah! Yes! Alright.”

“It’s empowering,” she said, referring to the overwhelmingly positive response elicited by their group, numbering about 75 this past Wednesday, stationed at the intersection of 40th Street and Roland Avenue.

Sadness was another feeling she expressed.

“To have all this rolled back that we thought we’d taken care of in our lifetime – civil rights, abortion, women’s rights, the war issue, clean air, clean water, safe food,” she said. “I was beyond stunned when all this started happening.”

It Beats Moaning and Groaning

Welcome to “The Wednesday Movement,” as its founder, retired Johns Hopkins University Sociology Professor Karl Alexander, decided to call these weekly street demonstrations.

The 79-year-old Alexander came up with the idea after the election when he and fellow residents at Roland Park Place were “in a pretty deep funk” and “looking for something to do rather than sit around moaning and groaning.”

The idea first caught on with a likely group – residents who’d met up last fall to write postcards supporting Democrats running in the general election in swing states.

Well, they didn’t all write them, to be clear.

“Some can’t write because they have essential tremors or other issues with their hands, so they proofread postcards,” Alexander explained. “One of our team can’t write or proof for various reasons, so she put stamps on. We always found a way to get everybody involved.”

Their first protest began with about 35 people.

It has now grown to crowds of 60 or 70 people, most from the independent living facility. Increasingly, though, people from the nearby neighborhood have come and, lately, people from other parts of town and from the suburbs.

“I’m hoping it can catch on, maybe even around the country,” Alexander said. “You never know what’s going to change the world.”

How did he come up with the idea of doing this on Wednesdays?

Simple: it was the best time he could find that wouldn’t compete with the many activities on the busy Roland Park Placers’ schedules.

One of those activities that’s just begun is an afternoon discussion series with outside speakers and themes, like a recent one to ponder the similarities between Trump and Hitler.

“We’re sane”

Wednesday Movement protester Sally Freedman – who was born in Poland, lost family in the Holocaust and came to the U.S. in 1934 – brought up the comparison to Nazi Germany right off the bat.

“I’m very upset about it because I see the parallels very, very much, and I don’t want to go through it again,” she told a reporter. “I lost family there and I came here. Now I don’t have an uncle and an aunt and cousins.”

For her, Trump’s bellicose talk and strongman behavior echo one of history’s darkest times.

“I think he’s intent on being in a war on the side of something like the Axis” powers, she said, a reference to the coalition Nazi Germany made in World War II.

Freedman recalled attending the recent discussions about Trump and Hitler and how the similarities “were really shocking to me.”

As she spoke, her fellow protesters were cheering, buoyed by the honking motorists and by local singer and guitar-player Buzz Merrick, who was leading them in the Civil Rights era anthem, “We Shall Not Be Moved.”

There were cheeky signs (“Musk rats smell bad!”), snippy ones (“Incompetent tyrant!”) and others with a simple pocketbook message (“Lower prices when?”).

There were cheeky signs (“Musk rats smell bad!”), snippy ones (“Incompetent tyrant!”) and others with a pocketbook message (“Lower prices when?”).

But the 98-year-old Freedman, sporting a Red Hot Chili Peppers hat and a Save Democracy sign, was somber.

“I was seven years old when I came here, and I got very busy becoming an American,” she said.”But my mother, who lost her sister, I felt her sadness.”

Lee Park, a 98-year-old retired psychiatrist who was holding up a “Honk!” sign, was in a more sanguine mood.

“A lot of us here, I wouldn’t say we’re liberal. I’d say we’re sane,” he quipped.

(With a July birthday around the corner, Park was possibly the oldest protester out there, his proud wife pointed out.)

“With everything happening in this country, you want to do something,” he said. “So, doing this, I feel better.”

“It’s not much,” he continued, “But people on the internet keep reminding me, there’s 300 million people out there in the country and that, who knows, some of them might hear us.”

• To reach a reporter fern.shen@baltimorebrew.com
• To reach the organizers TheBmoreWednesdayMovement@gmail.com

More Photos . . .

By Jennifer Bishop