NORTHAMPTON — Hundreds of protesters descended on downtown Northampton on Saturday, shutting down traffic as they marched against actions taken by the administration of President Donald Trump.

Sections of Main, Pleasant, King and Bridge streets were closed off by police as the intersection between the four was swarmed by protesters, who began marching up and down the cordoned off area belting out chants and holding signs bearing messages like “Mobsters Are Governing America” and “So bad, even introverts show up.”

Demonstrations began at 10 a.m. at Pulaski Park, with a rally organized by Northampton Resists. More than 100 people were at the rally before they merged with a second protest, sponsored by Indivisible Northampton that began at noon in front of the Hampshire County Courthouse.

Originally posting themselves on the sidewalks and the steps of the courthouse, protesters soon spilled into the street, chanting and singing, which gave the event a somewhat festive atmosphere for those participating.

Sheila Gilroy, a Florence resident and an employee at UMass, said she felt compelled to join the protests over concerns about free speech on campus. Trump has threatened to withhold federal funding from numerous universities over pro-Palestinian protests that occurred last year. Ivy League universities like Harvard and Columbia have already been targeted by the administration, with $2.2 billion in funding currently withheld from Harvard.

 “As far as I’m concerned, we’re heading into living in a fascist state, if we’re not already there,” Gilroy said. “For a while I was just kind of burying my head in the sand, but I said ‘I can’t do this. I have to protest.’”

Other protesters expressed concerns about Trump’s foreign policy, his economic tariff plan and seeming disregard of following a Supreme Court order to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the administration admitted was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.

“Trump is about power and domination, and he’ll try to crush anything that gets in his way,” said Paul Foster-Moore, also of Florence, who participated in Saturday’s protest. “So this is a display of power from us to let him know that we’re not going to let him get away with this stuff.”

Some protesters took advantage of the fact that this weekend also commemorated the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the military campaigns that started the American Revolutionary War. Numerous signs drew parallels between their opposition to Trump and the opposition to King George III that led to the country’s independence.

Darcy Dumont, of Amherst, attended the protest dressed in Revolutionary War attire. “We spoke in 1776, we don’t want to have kings,” Dumont said. “We are marching today to make sure that we preserve our blessed democracy.”

Florence resident Lucy McGuiness-Holland helped carry a large banner that read “When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.” She said she participated in the protest over concerns for the rights of women and the LGBTQ community.

“We are a democracy, not a dictatorship. And this is just wrong, it’s purely wrong,” McGuiness-Holland said of the current administration’s policies. “What is really important, what we’re doing here is showing that we do not agree.”

The protest was one of several that occurred across the country on Saturday, part of an organized effort that also saw numerous protests earlier in the month including in Boston and across the Pioneer Valley. Protests two weeks ago drew 5,000 participants across six Hampshire County communities into the streets, according to organizers.

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.