Brunswick and New Hanover County Democratic Parties' "Hands Off" Rally: Record-breaking numbers turn out in Bolivia on Saturday

As part of the hundreds of nationwide protests on April 5, close to 1000 people were on hand at the Brunswick County Courthouse in Bolivia, North Carolina to tell the Trump/Musk regime to take their Hands OFF our rights, freedoms, and communities!

Thank you to Art Nelson, Tobi DeFalco, and Joanne Levitan for the video!

Update: Media coverage of our rally:

• State Port Pilot: https://stateportpilot.com/eedition/page_84fb796a-0eef-5e76-815a-c673c61e564e.html

  
  

• Wilmington Star News: https://www.starnewsonline.com/story/news/local/2025/04/05/hundreds-protest-president-trump-at-hands-off-event-in-wilmington-nc/82941685007/

  
  

• WECT 6 News: https://www.wect.com/2025/04/06/groups-participate-hands-off-rallies-cape-fear-area/. At 11:00 p.m. on the night of our rally, Delaney Tarpley reported on the rallies in Wilmington and Brunswick and showed drone footage from our event. There was a lengthier story on WECT 6's "Carolina in the Morning Sunday" about the April 5th protests nationwide, and the rally in Brunswick County, with photos, was included.

  
  

• Port City Daily: https://portcitydaily.com/local-news/2025/04/07/trump-golfs-while-stocks-crash-thousands-join-national-hands-off-rallies-locally/

  
  

• Hands Off/Indivisible: video from locations nationwide, including Bolivia, NC!

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUkxY2MZBl0

  
  

• From WHQR News Director, Ben Schachtman (April 13th Sunday Edition Weekend Newsletter):"I also wanted to give our apologies to protestors who were out in force last Saturday in Brunswick County. We were short-staffed and couldn’t get to all the events over the weekend, but we did have freelance photojournalist Maddy Gray at the “Hands Off!” protest in downtown Wilmington (you can find her photo essay here).

  
  

• Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/04/hands-off-donald-trump-fear-new-york-city/

  "This was just one protest in one place—albeit one very large protest in one very big place. Perhaps the vibes were different in Marshfield, Mass. or Salt Lake City or Bolivia, N.C. (Hopefully the weather was.) Ultimately the big story is not what the signs said, but the deep groundswell of anger and unrest that brought so many people in so many places out into the streets and other public spaces of their communities. The message is: crowd large. A lot of politicians and administrators and business leaders, in bowing to Trump, have drawn confidence and comfort from the perceived vibe shift. Events like this puncture that delusion. They are an unavoidable illustration of outrage. Trump may have gotten a lot undone in the last three months, but the opposition never went away, and it may finally be emboldened.

  
  

• Indivisible (national e-newsletter following the April 5th worldwide protests):

  “It’s going to take some serious time for all of us to comprehend the full import of what we accomplished with Hands Off! on Saturday. Some of it is objective and we have some early numbers -- 1,300 events worldwide. More than 100k people in DC, more than 250k in Chicago, who knows New York yet? Every single state -- many with dozens spread across city centers and red and rural areas. But also Paris, Berlin, Brussels, London, Lisbon, Lyon, Nice, Ottawa, Guadalajara, and more across the world. We saw Detroit protestors wave across the river to protestors in Windsor, Ontario. We saw the town of Bolivia, North Carolina -- population 235 -- hold a protest with more than 235 people in the crowd."