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Demonstrators took to the streets across the United States for a second day on Thursday (Nov 10) to protest the Republican presidential election victory of real estate mogul Donald Trump, voicing fears that his triumph would strike a blow against civil rights.
More protests have been planned for this weekend and a Facebook group named "#NotMyPresident," formed by college and high school students, have called for an anti-Trump rally on Inauguration Day on Jan 20.
Beefing up protection for two of Mr Trump's marquee properties that have become protest rallying points, police erected security fences around his newly opened Pennsylvania Avenue hotel in Washington and placed concrete blocks in front of the high-rise Trump Tower in Manhattan.
About 100 protesters marched from the White House, where Mr Trump had his first transition meeting with President Barack Obama on Thursday, to the Trump International Hotel blocks away, chanting "love Trumps hate."
"This generation deserves better than Donald Trump," said Ms Lily Morton, 17, joining classmates from the Georgetown Day School. "The queer people, coloured people, women, girls, everyone that is going to be affected by this, we need to protest to help them."
Later in the day in Los Angeles, a small band of anti-Trump protesters marched onto a freeway near downtown, blocking traffic until police cleared them away.
Mr Trump's critics have expressed concern that his often-inflammatory campaign rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims, women and others - combined with support he has drawn from the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists - could spark a wave of intolerance against various minorities.
Anti-Trump rallies were held in more than a dozen major US cities on Wednesday, with thousands turning out for each of the biggest gatherings - in New York, Los Angeles and Oakland, California. In Oakland, unruly protesters smashed windows, set fires and clashed with riot police.
A Trump campaign representative did not respond to requests for comment on the protests. Taking a far more conciliatory tone in his acceptance speech early Wednesday than he had at many of his campaign events, Mr Trump vowed to be a president for all Americans.
Earlier this month, his campaign rejected a Klan newspaper endorsement, saying Mr Trump "denounces hate in any form."
Mr Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a high-profile Trump supporter, called the demonstrators "a bunch of spoiled cry babies," in an interview with Fox News.
White House spokesman Joshua Earnest said Mr Obama supported demonstrators' right to express themselves peacefully.
(THE STRAITS TIMES)
