Badass Feminists and Women for Democracy hold Dual Protests on Labor Day at Depot Park and Downtown Gainesville
Protesters led by local activist groups Badass Feminists Gainesville (BFG) and Gainesville Women for Democracy (GWD) held respective protests at Depot Park and Downtown Gainesville on Labor Day.
BFG protested at Depot from 9 am until 10 before marching downtown and meeting with GWD. There were over 200 people between the two protests.
Organizers all said they’ve seen how the policies of the Trump administration have had a negative effect on the workforce in the U.S.
BFG organizer Travis Coulliette, who also works as an adult education professor at Santa Fe College, told GnvInfo his salary is funded by a government grant, which was frozen until last month. “We were talking about whether or not I was gonna have a job past September 1,” he said. “It was unfrozen, but will that grant remain? This is for GEDs, people who are trying to do better, trying to contribute to the economy, and yet they’re being cut off at the ankle because of all the education cuts.”
In an interview, GWD co-founder Pamela Smith said, “I think the labor policies [of the Trump administration] affect the break between the lower income and higher income. I think we see that in Gainesville, and that contributes to crime, and certainly it contributes to bad housing. To keep the people who are doing manual labor—to keep them suppressed—to keep their income so low that they have to work way more than 40 hours to make a decent living. That affects all of us.”
BFG founder Monique Costantino told GnvInfo that mass deportations in the U.S. have affected construction projects in her neighborhood. “There’s a house being built down the street from us, and nobody is working on it,” she said. “Weeks ago, when somebody was working on it, there were a lot of people that looked like they might be day laborers, and I handed out our know-your-rights cards in Spanish.” Costantino said that now only white guys work on the house on the weekends.
Smith said GWD and BFG didn’t have much time to throw together the demonstrations because they thought organizers with 50501 were going to protest, but they decided not to because they didn’t have enough activists to act as safety monitors.
Costantino said, “We had a little challenge because we were deferring to the 50501 group to schedule something for today, and just a week ago they said they weren’t gonna do anything. Gainesville Women for Democracy went off their way, and we went off our way, and we pulled the trigger on these different locations at the same time and made the decision to meet in the middle.”
There didn't appear to be any police presence or counter-protesters at the demonstrations and GWD and BFG had protesters designated as safety monitors who directed traffic.
BFG plans to protest this Friday from 3 to 5 pm at the 1-75 overpass on Northwest 23rd Ave., and again on Saturday in front of the Oaks Mall from 9 to 11 am.
50501 will announce a future action today, according to their Instagram.
