NEW YORK—Wall Street was rocked by protest against the attacks on Black and all working and oppressed peoples by President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement last Thursday when thousands of marchers descended on the New York Stock Exchange and then poured out into New York City’s streets.
Chants of “The people united will never be defeated” blared out from hand-held bullhorns and echoed off the canyon-like walls of the buildings where billions of dollars are exchanged daily. An array of signs and banners carried some of the messages that demonstrators wanted the stock traders to hear, such as “Economic Justice is Civil Rights” and “Billionaires back off!”
“Donald Trump’s attacks on DEI were only the prelude, as he is now dangling threats to take over American cities led by Black mayors,” Rev. Al Sharpton shouted above the roar of the crowd. “If we leave him unchecked on DEI, if we do not get out and march, if we do not speak up, he will completely erase the freedoms our parents and our grandparents fought, bled, and died for.”
The “March on Wall Street” was initiated by Sharpton and his National Action Network in direct response to Trump’s unrelenting attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion. National civil rights, clergy, and labor leaders were among those present, including Martin Luther King III and Arndrea Waters King of the Drum Major Institute, Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and New York State Assembly Member and Democratic NYC mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani.
Organized labor was heavily represented, making up roughly 30% of the marchers. Among the unions were AFSCME District Council 37, N.Y./N.J. Hotel and Gaming Workers, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), SEIU Local 1199 Healthcare, National Education Association (NEA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), 32BJ SEIU, APRI, CSEA, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), the AFL-CIO, and others.
The Communist Party USA was also there with a rowdy contingent determined to “make good trouble,” as the late Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis encouraged. Other people’s organizations attending included the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, NAACP New York State Conference, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation (NCBCP), the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), the National Urban League (NUL), and UnidosUS.
Along with condemning the anti-DEI drive of the Trump regime, protesters also focused on the administration’s mass deportation drive and armed takeover of several U.S cities. The White House has already sent ICE and the military into Los Angeles and Washington, D.C, and Chicago and Baltimore are the next targets.
Speaking of his plans for a National Guard deployment to Chicago Tuesday, Trump declared, “We’re going in,” but he did not offer details on timing. “We’re going to do it anyway,” Trump said, in response to news that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker opposes the dispatching of troops. “We have the right to do it because I have an obligation to protect this country,” the president said.
From the viewpoint of the March on Wall Street protesters, though, Trump is not protecting the country by invading Democratic cities headed by Black mayors. “He is illegally imposing his anti-democratic, racist, and anti-migrant will on communities that don’t accept his dictatorial ambitions and the chaos of his anti-scientific administration,” one attendee said.
New York’s upcoming mayoral race also ended up being a topic of discussion among marchers, both because of who was there and who was not. All the main candidates were invited to attend the March on Wall Street, including current Mayor Eric Adams, former N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist who recently won the Democratic primary for New York City mayor.
During the march, Sharpton said, “I don’t endorse, but I take attendance.” He then called out their names one by one: “Mayor Adams? Absent. Gov. Cuomo? Absent. Assembly Member Mamdani? Present.” Sharpton’s point about who really stood with the people and who stood with the billionaires was clearly made.
In remarks from the stage, Mamdani asked, “Is the dream still alive?” He then answered:
“We know that dream lives on in every single person who is here today. It is the dream that we have heard time and again has to be deferred. And yet we know that its time has come as we stand here in the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, as we stand here by Wall Street, where last year, they had more than $40 billion in bonuses.”
Trump has stepped up his attacks on Mamdani lately, labeling him a “communist” in hopes of sparking redbaiting divisions among the people’s movements in New York and threatening to arrest him if he does not comply with federal immigration operations. Trump has also questioned Mamdani’s citizenship status, suggesting without evidence that he might be in the U.S. illegally.
The president’s attacks made no impression on participants at the demonstration, however, who were in sync with Mamdani’s message.
The mayoral nominee said:
“We ask ourselves how is it that one in four New Yorkers are still living in poverty. We ask ourselves how is it that we have still yet to answer the question that Dr. King posed all those decades ago. Because what he said then and what we must answer now is what good is it to have the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can’t afford to buy a hamburger?”
Madani then took the fight directly to the White House occupant. “Our freedom is only as good as our ability to exercise it. And to Donald Trump, we say this to you: We will continue to fight for that which our forefathers have fought for because what we fight for is no less that what we deserve. We will not let you take that decency from us because we will be here fighting each and every day for that which we deserve.”
As some of the signs being carried made clear, economics—as discussed by Mamdani—were intimately linked with civil rights by marchers. Voting rights and wages, too, were on the agenda.
The Trump administration is currently waging all-out war against working people. At least 290,000 federal workers have already been laid off, and 445,000 more have seen their union contracts arbitrarily ripped up by the billionaire president. African Americans are heavily represented in the federal workforce and have been hit hard by the Trump cuts.
The number of unions participating in the March on Wall Street signals increasing labor engagement in the struggle to stop the Trump/MAGA agenda. Workers know that the president has put a target on their backs. The administration has taken significant actions against unions, including firing National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) members and nominating individuals with management backgrounds, which led to a reversal of pro-union rulings from the Biden era. His approach is seen as part of a broader goal to destroy workers’ rights and collective bargaining.
Every aspect of the economy is being weaponized against both science and against working people. Meanwhile, a fantasy view of the country is being generated for official consumption that supports the Trump/MAGA agenda, including fake crime statistics. For example, crime in Washington, D.C. is down. The same goes for Los Angeles and Chicago, with the latter recording a 33% reduction in homicides and a 38% reduction in shootings in the first half of 2025 compared to previous years.
There is no reality-based rationale for Trump’s claims of a “crime emergency” in these cities, and marchers on Wall Street could only conclude that he wants to bring Black-led cities into submission to his racist agenda.
The March on Wall Street was a sign that the multi-generational, multi-ethnic, multi-gendered, and inclusive coalition struggling to stop the Trump/MAGA anti-people agenda is still in formation but getting stronger. The aim of this coalition is not just a restoration of liberal economic norms, which have proven themselves incapable of meeting the needs of working people, including peace and environmental justice.
The people are fighting for an economy built on everything Trump/MAGA abhor, an economy that meets the needs of the masses of people living in this country and is in harmony with the needs of all workers globally.
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