They came clad in black hoodies and wore black bandanas over their faces. They, numbering a few dozen antifascists, leftists and those generally discontented with the states of popular politics and popular protest, gathered in Peoples Park.
“We encourage everyone to bring their bravery and rage with them,” read the flier posted around campus this week for the “Take the Streets Against Donald Trump and His World” march.
Many didn’t want to identify themselves and several wouldn’t speak to press at all.
A man who gave his name as Sam held up an effigy of President Trump. One side showed Trump’s face, a small hand reaching out to his side to grab a model of the earth, a sign taped to his chest reading “Groper in Chief.” The other side resembled not Trump but a fish — a grouper, a bit of wordplay.
“I think the symbolism is pretty inherent,” Sam said.
At the corner of the park, a man with most of his skin covered by a hoodie, bandana and blue latex gloves distributed fliers of Trump’s face with “THE PROBLEM” stamped on it.
He gave his name as Mark F. — spell it “however you want,” he said — and said though he sees importance in nonviolent protests like the “Inaugurate the Revolution” rally earlier in the day, he doesn’t necessarily believe those are enough to stop what he sees as an encroaching — or arrived — wave of fascism.
“It’s important in Bloomington to fight any way we can,” he said.
Somewhere in front of Kilroy’s Sports Bar, the first firecracker went off. The march had started in earnest on Kirkwood Avenue. The protesters flooded into the street and moved at a brisk pace.
They relayed chants with the enthusiasm of camp counselors: “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA”; “The people united will never be defeated”; “Fuck the police, fuck Donald Trump.”
Some carried signs or banners, emblazoned with slogans such as “For FREEDOM from the American Dream” and “Let’s Become Ungovernable.” Others whistled, banged on buckets or darted along the sidewalks and adorned cars with fliers and parking meters with stickers that said “Please don’t feed the pigs.”
The vitriolic back-and-forth with bystanders had come early. “We love Trump!” a pair of men taunted from the Cubs flag-draped window of an apartment at the Rubicon.
The protesters marched down Kirkwood onto Walnut Street. A firecracker launched from the middle of the crowd, and people cheered as it whistled up and burnt out.
Moments later, a protester hung back from the crowd and turned to face traffic and held it up until others could convince him to return to the group.
Then a flurry of motion, a series of pops and the front of the IU School of Informatics and Computing building on Walnut was speckled with bursts of white paint.
“You collaborate with the NSA!” someone shouted.
The march turned onto Eighth Street, and a handful of black-masked protesters broke off from the group, wheeled a dumpster from the side of the German American Bancorp, Inc. building and tipped it over at the next intersection. It sent trash into the street and drew honks from motorists.
Paint balloons were lobbed at the Monroe County Justice Building. Trash cans were dragged into the street. People on the sidewalk cheered, gawked, scowled. Protesters lit and tossed firecrackers and flares while bystanders hurled swears and slurs.
“Why would you destroy property?” one bystander asked a protester. “It’s worth more than you.”
“I wonder if some of these people actually were paid to be here,” someone on the sidewalk said.
A ripple moved through the crowd as someone suggested police may be following the march somewhere in the dark without sirens or lights to announce them.
“Cops not welcome,” the chant went before turning to a smattering of “Fuck Kilroy’s” as the march passed the Kirkwood bar.
The protesters reached the street’s terminal intersection with Indiana Avenue, but the end of one road would not dissuade them for a few more minutes. The march continued through Sample Gates and onto IU’s campus. Someone at the back of the march capped it by setting off a smoke canister in front of the gates.
In front of Franklin Hall, the crowd stalled and fractured.
“Can they follow us in here?” one protester wondered, referring to the police.
One man, Trevor Moore, 23, was chased to the corner of Fourth and Dunn streets by police and eventually arrested for throwing a brick through the window of the Old National Bank building on Kirkwood Ave. and inciting vandalism.
The protesters lingered for a moment, pulled down their masks and introduced themselves to one another. Then some chose one path, toward the Indiana Memorial Union, and the others another, toward Dunn’s Woods. They went, for the first time this night, their separate ways, and their black hoodies bled into the darkness.
