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Protestors march down Auburn Avenue in Atlanta in honor of "Good Trouble Day" Thursday.
Credit: Sarah Kallis/GPB News
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Demonstrators rally across Georgia for 'Good Trouble Day' in honor of John Lewis
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LISTEN: Protestors rally in Atlanta for "Good Trouble Day" in honor — and in the tradition — of late civil rights icon and U.S. Rep. John Lewis. GPB's Sarah Kallis reports.
Demonstrators across Georgia held gatherings as part of "Good Trouble Day," a national day of protest in honor of former civil rights leader and U.S. Rep. John Lewis on Thursday.
In Atlanta, hundreds of demonstrators marched down Auburn Avenue to protest the Trump administration and honor the late Lewis, who represented the area for decades. The march started at a mural of Lewis and concluded with a rally outside Ebenezer Baptist Church, where ACLU Georgia Executive Director Andrea Young said the crowd must continue Lewis’ legacy.
“John Lewis carried a torch across the Edmund Pettus Bridge," she said, referring to the site of a 1965 civil rights march to Selma, Ala., which was met with violence. "We are still carrying that torch until our multiracial democracy is what he envisioned it to be."
Meanwhile in Athens, over 150 people gathered for a protest to commemorate Lewis. The name "Good Trouble" borrowed from the famous phrase coined by Lewis, who died in 2020.
Protester Gloria Heard joined the crowd for one reason:
“For good trouble,” she said.
The protesters lined a busy commercial corridor with posters critical of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Michael Call said he wanted to attend the event to honor Lewis.
“I was a little boy when I first saw him," Call said. "The way he spoke, it inspired me to always keep up the fight. He never did sit down. Having him as that leader made me want to do more and continue to do more.”
No counterprotesters attended the event.
Savannah residents, including Ann Fenstermacher, also held a rally in their city.
"I'm very concerned about Georgia — I think it's a backward state," Fenstermacher said at the Good Trouble Lives On protest in her city. "I'm unhappy with the Republican stance on things: giving benefits to rich people and taking benefits away from people who are really in need."
She added that she thinks the Trump administration "has alienated our allies, has turned the clock back on the United States years and years and years. I don't know how long it's going to take to get that momentum back, in every way: environmentally, socially, and the wellbeing of all the people in the United States."
The demonstrations also marked the five-year anniversary of Lewis’ death.
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