HOLYOKE — Keith Washburn said since last Tuesday’s election it’s felt like he’s been living in an alternate reality. In that spirit, the 62-year-old did something he has never done — he protested.
The general contractor from Orange leaned up against the back of a bench at Kennedy Park Friday as the sun set, hands in his hoodie, surveying the growing crowd, which reached 200, that was gathering to protest Donald Trump.
“I’m not even sure how I want to interact with these people,” Washburn said. “I don’t know if I want to slide over to the radicals on that side, or if I want to slide over to the people with the peace sign over here.
“I’m just trying to find my way through this.”
The rally at the park, which was the launching point for a march looping around Holyoke, was one part venting session, one part organizing plea. People wanted to know what was next.
“I’m not a rally person,” said Liz O’Dair, a 51-year-old physician from Holyoke. “I don’t go to rallies, but I’m here because these are not normal times.”
Before the march, Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse said his piece. Hours earlier he posted a picture of an anonymous letter he received on Facebook.
The person wrote the mayor, who is openly gay, was “selfish” because of his “gay lifestyle.” They added: “You are going down.”
“I didn’t expect that it would get as much publicity as it has just in the short eight-hour period,” Morse said of the threat and Facebook post.
He said before he posted the picture, he had woken up to the news that Trump was appointing Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, whom critics call racist, to be the next U.S. attorney general.
“I said, ‘You know what? I think I need to share this note with the public,’” Morse said. “Not because it’s important that I get attention on this, but that we highlight the attitude of people. … (Bigots) are in every corner of this country.”
How does one push back?
“We will have a new generation of young people, and people in general — a new generation of activists and elected officials,” Morse said. “Get involved in local government.”
Activists offered at least one concrete plan.
Mansur Gidfar and his fiancee Cara Brewer tried to sell the crowd on a new effort the two have started, “Down-Ballot Revolution.”
“We just, you know, made a Facebook group,” Gidfar said in an interview. “We’re basically trying to get folks organized and sort of funnel all the energy that’s going into these protests into, you know, concrete political change.”
Gidfar said the group already has several chapters around New England since starting up Monday.
After the mayor spoke, protesters headed out for an hour loop around Holyoke, the ultimate destination being back at Kennedy Park.
Police acted as crowd control, flashing lights and temporarily blocking off intersections as protesters marched through. Cruisers zoomed ahead of the snaking crowd, anticipating its next turns.
Car drivers honked their horns. People yelled in support from their apartment windows.
Michelle Falcón, a 23-year-old Latina college student from Holyoke, was straggling behind the crowd and said she didn’t see as many “brown people” as she would’ve liked. The crowd was diverse in age, but mostly white.
The make-up of 40,000-population Holyoke is 48 percent Hispanic, according to the 2010 Census.
“I think it’s just like a common problem in Holyoke — that many people aren’t aware what’s happening,” she said.
As the crowd marched, Seth Lusignan, 18, Shane Donahue, 16, and some of their friends waved their Trump flag from the bed of a pickup truck.
They stuck with the protest crowd, driving off down the road to catch the protesters later on in their route.
The Trump supporters were exercising their First Amendment rights, same as the protesters, they said.
“I think a couple people were surprised (to see us),” Lusignan said. But, he added, “they were actually pretty polite.”
Holyoke Police Lt. Isaias Cruz said after the march and rally that there were no arrests and no problems to report.
Back at home in Orange, after the protest, Washburn left feeling better, but not satisfied.
“I did not find all the answers I was looking for,” he said. “I don’t think anyone has a good answer on how they’re going to deal with this.”
Washburn never had a reason to protest, but he also never thought “one man could topple the government.” So the first-time protester is looking forward to the next rally.
“I think I’m going to go to Washington, D.C., or something.”
Jack Suntrup can be reached at jsuntrup@gazettenet.com.