Over 100 area residents took to Manitou Avenue outside city hall on April 5 to participate in the nationwide Hands Off protest against recent government actions including sweeping federal job cuts, deportations without due process and possible future actions such as cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Some protesters held an upside-down American flag, other signs included ones in favor of Constitutional integrity, resisting autocracy and diversity.
Seventeen-year-old Beckett Wendell-Evans held a sign reading, “The USA has no kings,” and said he was demonstrating because of “the distress of our democracy.”
“I feel we’re under threat. I feel we have to speak,” said Wendell-Evans, who will vote for the first time in the next election.
Manitou Springs resident Lois Firestone, who will be 88 later this year, held a sign saying “Hands off Social Security.” Firestone said she relies on Social Security for basic costs like rent and food. Her sign was attached to a staff with a donkey likeness on the top – a walking stick that belonged to her late husband, Frederick Firestone.
“He was an avid democrat,” Lois said. “He would be out here yelling and screaming with me. And I feel a little bit like he is today.”
