About 500 protestors marched from Rosa Parks Square to the William Bootle Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse on Mulberry Street on Wednesday evening, bringing Middle Georgia into the fray of a national movement against the Trump administration’s use of Border Patrol agents in cities.
The March on Macon protest, which was organized by the Middle Georgia chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, lasted for about an hour and a half.
Walking behind the group of protestors as they ambled to the courthouse, one volunteer for DSA said that he was there to act as a marshal for the group and to watch for potential responses to the protest. Blake, who declined to give his last name, also said he was carrying a firearm to try to send a message that protestors can carry firearms without being considered threatening.
The argument comes just days after Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed in separate incidents in Minneapolis, Minn. by Border Patrol agents.
In the immediate aftermath of Pretti’s killing, multiple Trump administrators claimed that because Pretti had a firearm on him at the time, he posed a threat to the federal agents. Those claims have been rebuffed in the meantime by an early investigation into the incident.
“My personal thing is I think that ICE should be abolished,” Blake said, referring to the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “I think that they are a public terrorism organization more than anything.”
In the light of dusk and standing under the gleaming Federal courthouse, the protestors continued to chant and wave signs. A number of those gathered on the lawn held candles. Ben Mbarak, who said this was his first protest in the U.S. but that he had attended multiple protests in Tunisia, said that he was surprised by the number of people who came out to the protest.
“I think tonight is just to make obvious that life matters, and it’s important to acknowledge the right to exist without violence,” Mbarak said. “Whatever legal issues you have to do it, you could do it the constitutional way but not just shooting people and doing nonsense.”
Richard Elliott, a former professor in Mercer’s School of Medicine and adjunct professor in Mercer’s School of Law, also attended the protest and shared Mbarak’s worry of a strong-handed government response to the protests across the country.
“What we’re doing — the government fighting its own people, killing its own people, arresting people, going into houses without warrants — this is a violation of our fundamental rights,” Elliott said. “If we don’t fight back, they’re going to continue to take it away.”
John Roberts spoke on behalf of Macon Rising, a group that focuses on defending democracy and promoting civic engagement, according to its website. Roberts quoted a number of writers in his speech, drawing inspirations from Hannah Arendt and Audre Lorde.
Roberts rallied the protestors as one man yelled across the street at them as he waved an American flag. Roberts told the crowd that it needed to “reject the restoration myth” that, he said, would “return us to a world where Alex [Pretti] and Renee [Good] would die again.”
Sonny Hilton, 57, said he recalled a lesson his father taught him as a child: history repeats itself when it is forgotten. Hilton echoed Roberts’ sense of urgency as he compared what he said was some parts of German society’s indifference to their neighbors’ plight as rights were rescinded in the 1930s to the indifference he sees among Americans today.
“We gotta nip it in the bud as a people. This is just another example of pre-Nazi Germany,” Hilton said. “That’s what we’re living in.”
Editor's note: Staff writer Nathaniel Jordan contributed reporting to this story.
Gabriel Kopp '26 is double majoring in Journalism and Law and Public Policy at Mercer University. He has written for The Cluster since he started at Mercer, and currently works as editor-in-chief. When he isn't completing a Washington Post crossword, he enjoys going for runs around Macon and reading The New York Times or the AJC while sipping coffee.
