Blair students block University Boulevard in protest of President-Elect Trump. pic.twitter.com/BD28Ji29ZK
— BNC (@bncblair) November 14, 2016
Northwood HS students have joined Blair students in their march down University Blvd. pic.twitter.com/JkbuCowUxC — Silver Chips (@Silver_Chips) November 14, 2016
WASHINGTON – Hundreds of Montgomery County high school students walked out of class and streamed through the streets of Silver Spring Monday to protest Donald Trump’s election last week.
About 800 students from Montgomery Blair High School, in Silver Spring, left class in a planned protest at about 10 a.m. Montgomery County school officials said high school officials had approved a plan allowing students to protest on the school’s football field.
But then about 200 to 300 students left school grounds, marching two to three miles down University Boulevard and meeting up with several hundred other students from other schools, including Northwood High School, at the Westfield Wheaton Mall, at Georgia Avenue and Viers Mill Road.
Montgomery County school officials also confirmed students from Wheaton High School took place in the protest.
“I think it’s great to see how many people can come together and be strong like this, when we have a … president like Donald Trump,” one student said.
Chanting students held aloft signs reading “not my president” and “this is what democracy looks like.” The protest snarled traffic on University Boulevard much of Monday morning.
“We’re here to take a stand for what we believe in and not let somebody so filled with hate get control of all the policies,” a Montgomery Blair junior told WTOP.
“My mom works hard to put food on my table and I don’t want her disrespected by the things he says,” another student, a senior at Montgomery Blair, said.
“Love trumps hate,” the students chanted.
Montgomery County police, which had been shadowing the students in the southbound lane of University Boulevard, said the group had remained nonviolent during the protests, except for a bottle that was thrown from the parking deck of the Wheaton mall parking deck. There were no reported injuries in the bottle-throwing incident, police said.
Anti-Trump protesters also briefly blocked the northbound lanes of Interstate 395 near the Maine Avenue exit in Southwest D.C. starting around 1:30 p.m., the D.C. police said. The protesters were cleared about 15 minutes later, D.C. police tweeted.
Cities across the U.S. reported anti-Trump protests by high school students on Monday, including Los Angeles, Denver and Portland, Oregon.
WTOP’s Dick Uliano and Jack Moore and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
