Blocking the street by Ken Schles

Photo by Jackie Rudin

Arrested by Karen Ramspacher, above, Ken Schles below.

Diane Greene Lent

and Ken Schles

With fascism looming, dozens of us, activists from environment and queer, civil liberties and anarchist groups joined in a broad, multi issue civil disobedience action.

The call laid out the scenario:

“On Tuesday, September 23rd, Donald Trump will be in NYC to speak at the UN General Assembly. There will be hundreds of heads of state attending this event. There are hundreds of motorcades and entourages descending upon the UN for the 9AM session. This is the biggest gridlock alert day of the year (including the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree) and traffic will be practically at a standstill. There are hundreds of demonstrations during UN week - most at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza - but ours will be different. Our goal is to message the world that they should not listen to his speech; they should turn him off, and they should shut him down. Trump is presenting himself as a world leader, but we know he is a charlatan - a power hungry narcissist, a grifter, a rapist, and a white supremacist. We will call him out for who he is and what he is doing to our country, the world, and our planet. It is our goal to publicly and openly state the obvious - we want the world to know that we will not relinquish our democracy to this authoritarian regime. This action is …. non-violent. We are announcing this action publicly -

Tuesday, September 23rd, 7:30AM

NYPL Steps (41st St.-Fifth Ave.)

March to the UN checkpoints.”

With waves of actions the week before, some 71 people disrupting business as usual at Immigration Court at 26 Federal Plaza, where ICE have been detaining people, and separating families on Thursday, as well as protests over the weekend, New York was popping with energy. Blocking ICE vans with clergy and unions was a perfect direct action. Tuesday the architect of that plan was speaking at the UN.

My alarm went off at 6 AM.

I knew I’d need to get out the door by 7 am to make the 7:30 meetup.

No matter how many times I do this, it's always terrifying. I imagine increased charges, the cruelty others are experiencing with longer sentences, terrorist enhancement, indefinite detention, and family separations coming our way. But our silence won’t protect us.

So far, this has not started with New York direct activists. Still I was in touch with my lawyer before the action, taking notes, keeping on the same page.

With enough time for only one cup of coffee I left Brooklyn, grabbing the train to 42nd Street, emerging into the hustle bustle of 42nd street a half hour later, texting friends, coordinating our arrivals. Arriving at the library, my heart lifted, seeing everyone, greeting my friends.

No one had left yet. More of us were there than cops, everyone in good spirits.

Friends from ACT UP and Rise and Resist, Kate who’d come to my trauma class the week before, Ken, who I’d seen at the immigration demo at Fed Plaza the week before, Karen from the Church Ladies for Choice, etc.

You are in red rovers, said Jamie, along with Kate.
Ahead of us were a few activists dressed as devils.

What's that I asked?

Oh, its about the ‘I wouldn't fuck him’ South Park Trump episode, said a man dressed in a red robe, with devil horns, referring to an episode in which the Devil does not want to fuck the Donald Trump, with Satan in an an abusive relationship with Donald Trump. “I wouldn’t fuck him,” said their signs, elevating the discourse on the action.

Around 8 AM, we lined up and started to move, one affinity group after another, moving out, to 42nd street, marching East past onlookers, cheers and eyerolls from commuters on the way to work from Grand Central Station. Cars and ambulances are zooming, honking, police sirens, our chants. Carrying signs and placards, activists fill either side of the street, the police in tow, more and more joining us, more noise, more chants:

“We need medicaid not another ice raid!!”

“No ICE, No KKK, No fascist USA!!!”

By 42nd and 2nd, the police were everywhere. I suspected the police would throw nets on us, like they did during the Republican National Convention, blocking our actions, before they started. We were going to go into the streets, wave by wave, if the police didn’t block us from entering the crosswalk. Everyone go together, said one of the organizers, the head of Red Rovers. We all move into the street, dropping our banner, chanting, sitting down, more chanting, “No hate, no fear, Donald Trump's not welcome here” filling the air. More sirens. More helicopters above. Up on 46th street, climate protesters are blocking the streets, several pulled onto the sidewalk, before they rejoin the action. Photographers and police zoom in to take shots of us. More police warnings. If we leave now, we will not be arrested, says the warning. You will be arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for blocking vehicular traffic, says the next warning. Some five dozen of us are sitting in the street, hundreds of others chanting right along with us.

One woman to my left screams about the treatment of people in immigration court, separating families, as she was arrested.

Julie tries to hold her sign in her teeth as police put cuffs around her wrists. The police pull an American flag and two signs down to the ground as they arrest her.

“TRUMP DOES NOT SPEAK FOR US!,” she screamed.

“Dear Americans - Get into the STREETS!!! I mean it. Everyone.”

Kate, sitting by me, was next, followed by me. They wouldn’t let me hold my sign in my mouth either, so I continued to scream as they lined us up for the police van, took our ID’s, photographed us and put us in the van, counting the arrestees over and over again. It seems every time we are arrested the police think of a new method of grouping who completes the paperwork, seemingly reinventing the process each time. First its two arrestees per cop. They take our id’s, photograph us, and put them back. Then it's five, says a new cop, starting now he says. I liked the younger cop with the deer in the headlights look. One woman’s id is taken by the first cop. He forgets to get it back to her. Good thing she has a second ID.

And we go inside the van. Ryan from act up sits by me, across from Jamie, two ACT UP buddies.

The van drives us to the FDR and down to One Police Plaza, where we sit for a bit, and the van drops us off. Police walk us to be processed. Birds chirp from the nest in the scaffolding outside. Inside, they photograph us, take our info, confiscate our stuff, and lead us to the afternoon holding cell, where I’ve spent countless afternoons. Inside the holding cell, a group of climate activists are already there. They were nabbed at 46th street. We all share the stories of our actions as group after group join us.

ACT UP and Extinction Rebellion, story after story. The police process our names, filling out paperwork in the adjoining room. We sit about the four benches, sharing stories about ACT UP, tales of San Francisco, old busts and new, how people are doing, are we moving the dial or pissing in the wind. Soon enough, we’re covered our topics. The Extinction Rebellion guys’ names come up first. Then mine. With applause we can leave.

The police won't give us our mugshots. But we do get pink slips with our charges. And an escort across the street to meet the fellow activists, followed by a short walk to a pizza place for a slice and debrief with jail support.

People from Pop4Planet are already out.

Everyone compares notes and we give copies of our charges to support.

Check the media, The Times even covered the action with a photo of us. Says the paper, "Many of the demonstrators appeared to be part of Rise and Resist, a nonviolent advocacy group that formed after Mr. Trump’s election to his first term in 2016. One group member, Alexis Danzig, stood in a line with other arrested protesters as they waited to be loaded into a police van on Tuesday morning. Ms. Danzig, her hands tied behind her back, said she had traveled from her home in Saugerties, N.Y., to protest Mr. Trump’s speech.

“Other countries need to know that people who reside in the United States do not approve of Trump,” Ms. Danzig, 64, said from behind a police barrier. “Trump is a menace to democracy everywhere.”

https://www.nytimes.com/.../united-nations-protest-trump…At first the times reported a dozen arrests, later adjusting the number to 60.

Ryan, a new member of ACT UP, was in an ACT UP t-shirt. He’s been active in the fight to save the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, now gutted by the administration, allowing AIDS to spread again.

He posted a note after the action:

“TRUMP IS THE EMERGENCY.

“We are here to protect democracy, our constitutional rights, and to keep the United States from becoming an authoritarian state.” — Jamie Bauer, Rise and Resist

The SHUTDOWN TRUMP action was a declaration from Americans- from New Yorkers- to the world leaders at the United Nations 80th General Assembly session—

TRUMP DOES NOT SPEAK FOR US.

As of today— over 105,900 Adults and over 11,200 Children have DIED FROM AIDS due to the MAGA administration cuts to the @pepfar program on January 24th 2025.

In the proposed fiscal year 2026 budget— the MAGA GOP will cut $2 Billion from HIV funding at the NIH and CDC regarding treatment, research, and prevention programs.

The AIDS crisis was on course to end by the year 2030.

We are now far from this reality due to the MAGA Administration.

Trump is a threat to humanity.

TRUMP IS THE EMERGENCY.

Get involved. Be the opposition.”

Kate got out after me, offering a sound bite over a slice of pizza:

"Activism is important because people need to see the resistance," says Kate Barnhart, who was also arrested. "I just feel like I can't stand by and let this happen. All of this can be demoralizing. The way to counter this is to act."

It's better to act.

Is it enough?

No one is sure.

Would it be better to have wave after wave, dozens of waves of arrests, overwhelming the system? Obviously. Three percent of the population is enough to change things.
I’m not sure we are there. Yet, more and more people are coming to the action.

Later that night, Kate posted a thoughtful note to her blog.

“Shut Down Trump

September 23, 2025

I had to be up at 5:30am for today’s action, so I tried to get to sleep early. It turned out to be a crazy night where I got woken up by the weird noises and vibrations of road repaving, then by Connor, who had not shown up for dinner, meowing for food which he barely ate. Then I was woken up by a weird feeling like my heartbeat was doing strange things. And then finally noisy drag racers and garbage trucks. I groggily launched myself out into the early morning, leaving behind a bunch of puzzled cats not used to getting breakfast so early. I found Ben in the crowd in front of the Main Library, and we gathered with our assigned group until it was time to march. To keep from being arrested too soon, we marched on the sidewalk filling both sides of 42nd St. As we marched to 2nd ave, I told Ben that I thought all the remembering I have been doing has to do with turning 50 and the feeling that there is more life behind me than there is ahead now. We talked about his mother and my dad, their memory issues, and the feeling of not wanting to outlive our usefulness and become a burden. And then it was time to surge into the street with our signs and sit down. I prefer die ins because I can’t easily sit on the ground for very long anymore. The police had already surprised me by letting us get all the way to 2nd Ave. and they surprised me again by how long they let us occupy the street with media swarming around us. We sat there chanting while their recorded warning message repeated “you are blocking vehicular traffic…” I had to change positions a few time as the pain increased. Eventually an officer grabbed Julie next to me and hauled her to her feet. I knew she wanted to hold a sign in her mouth so I held one up for her as the officer pulled her arms behind her back. He roughly ripped it away and also tossed the American flag she held on the ground and stepped on it, as did several other officers. She was yelling about that when they got to me… Once aboard the bus, I found myself surrounded by five officers as the commanding officers already on board tried to organize the arresting officers. Finally one of the officers noticed me standing in the middle of the meeting and sent me to sit down. The bus was not the usual battered old school bus, but a normal passenger bus with padded seats, air conditioning and seatbelts that the officers had to reach across us to fasten. The woman they put beside me was getting arrested for the first time, a retired teacher. I told her my dad had been a teacher, too, and off we went, talking about teaching and activism. I told her about the time Dad, an English teacher who also had a Master’s in french got drafted to teach French after the French teacher fled the rough school. I told her how Dad had been nervous about teaching a new subject and how he told me he climbed the back stairwell to his classroom because by the time he got to the stop, he had inhaled enough secondhand marijuana to calm his anxiety. We had been sitting there a long time by then, and there was still a line of handcuffed activists waiting to get on the bus, and a gathering crowd of supporters chanting on the sidewalk. I don’t know what it is about the NYPD and counting, but this was not the first time I have seen them struggling to count a group of stationary, seated people. One officer kept coming back and counting over again. As time dragged on, the pain my shoulder was escalating, and the cuffs were pressing into my outer wrists because my hands were not close enough together. When the pressure on the ulna nerve got to the point where my little finger and ring finger were going numb, I called out to Julie, sitting further forward, closer to the officers at the front. When you complain about tight handcuffs, officers are often skeptical, assuming you’re just a snowflake, but when this guy saw my hands, he said “Shit!” and quickly uncuffed me.”

Story after story, action after action through time.