SALISBURY — When Joyce Nash put out a last-minute call for protestors in early April, she was pleasantly surprised when approximately a dozen joined her. On Saturday, that effort grew exponentially, as approximately 150 people lined West Innes Street between Church and Jackson streets.

“The first big day of the Hands Off protests, there wasn’t an official event here in Salisbury and I wasn’t going to be able to make it to a bigger city. So, I saw a post on Facebook about people asking, ‘is there an event here?’ I left a comment that said ‘I might just go out by myself and I’d be happy if people could join me,” said Nash.

This time around, Nash said that the Rowan County Democrats and Salisbury Indivisible helped promote the protest beforehand after the permit for the event was approved on Wednesday.

“When people are concerned and they don’t know what to do, they don’t know where to voice their concerns, you give people an opportunity, an outlet and they’re here. Here they are, shouting ‘this is what democracy looks like,’” said Democratic Party Chair Geoffrey Hoy.

People who attended the protest ranged in age from babies to 87 and had concerns that included a fear that the administration of President Donald Trump was overriding the checks and balances in the government, the potential end of birthright citizenship, and the dismantling of the Department of Education.

“The different threats to education systems in our county have me concerned with how that could affect our students here, and I wanted to show my children that if something doesn’t feel right, you can take a stand for what you believe and do it peacefully and respectfully,” said Dr. Rebecca Childs, a member of the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education.

Childs, who stressed that she was not acting on behalf of the school system, said that she was also concerned about the expansion of deportations and visa revocations under Trump due to her husband being a permanent resident originally from the Dominican Republic and her daughter having been born outside the country.

According to a Reuters report from March, the raw number of people deported was down in the early months of Trump’s presidency compared to 2024. However, the decrease was due entirely to a decrease in illegal border crossings. The report, based on numbers from the Department of Homeland Security, showed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has more than doubled the arrests of people in the country illegally, with the Trump administration widening the enforcement net to target non-criminals and those with final deportation orders.

A common thread for the protesters was a perception that the administration is degrading the “rule of law” in the country by challenging orders from federal judges and the U.S. Supreme Court.

“This is a democratic republic, and it belongs to all of us. We have the rule of law and due process and it all needs to come back into play,” said protestor Charlene Gill.

The protest on Saturday and the original protest on April 5 were part of the larger 50501 movement, which aimed to have protests in all 50 states in a “fight to uphold the Constitution and end executive overreach.”

“The 50501 movement is a pretty big tent movement for people who are just frustrated, angry and scared by the Trump administration,” said Nash.

Nash has said that she wants the protests to be the beginning of a roadmap for creating long-term actions, with workshops, training sessions and other creative and non-violent demonstrations as targets.