A crowd of several thousand anti-Trump protesters gathered at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Thursday night and then packed Flatbush Avenue for a peaceful march to the home of Senator Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, in New York. Prospect Park West.
As the group headed for Mr. Schumer’s building, protesters shouted “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA,” accompanied by the rhythms of drummers and percussionists.
Several people in the crowd said they were driven to venture out into the cold night after watching Trump supporters break into the United States Capitol building on Wednesday in Washington.
“What we saw was incredibly frustrating and tragic, and a lot of people are looking for a direction,” said Nina Svirsky, a teacher from Brooklyn.
Dozens of masked and uniformed policemen monitored the rally; no arrests were reported. After most of the crowd had dissipated, conversation between some of the leftists turned specifically to the marked racial disparities in crowd control and law enforcement that were on display on Wednesday.
“If it had been us, we really would have been beaten, so we are upset about it,” said Alfred Martinez, 39, a black man who said he came from the Bronx.
In Manhattan, a much smaller group gathered in Times Square, where members of Refuse Fascism, an activist organization, unfurled a banner with the hashtag “#OutNow!” and called for the removal of President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
“We are here today because what we saw yesterday was an attempted coup,” said one of the protest organizers, Jennifer Sabel, through a loudspeaker.
Observing the modest size of the crowd, Sabel asked those who were there to return on Saturday and bring others with them for what she said she hoped would be a national day of protest. The demonstration ended after about an hour.
Emma Kaplan, another organizer of Refuse Fascism, said she and her compatriots didn’t feel they could just wait until President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. succeeded Trump later this month.
“The next 13 days, what we do now, will determine the future,” said Kaplan. “We have to go out and not wait for it to resolve, because yesterday really showed where it leads.”