Between three and four hundred people, most waving homemade signs, lined the sidewalk in front of the Del Norte County Fairgrounds on Saturday. The gathering was part of a nationwide series of events – a day of action, organizers called it – collectively called Hands Off. Across the nation there were more than 1,300 individual demonstrations coordinated by a coalition of groups headed by MoveOn!, and including the likes of the American Civil Liberties Union, the League of Women Voters and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, among others. The events were meant to protest what the participants and organizers see as the decidedly authoritarian bent of the second Trump presidency.

Standing in the shade outside Java Hut, Crescent City Councilmember Candace Tinkler explained why she was attending the event: “I’m here because it’s my job, it’s all of our jobs, to make the world a better place for the next generation, and I’m not seeing it going that way. I’m here not so much for me, but for every young person in this community.”

Keven Bingham operates the “Glen’s on 3rd” food trailer that serves as a pop-up mobile storefront from which he sells baked goods to the masses. This small business is the most recent incarnation of a long-standing community institution known to locals as “Glen’s Bakery”. 

“I have folks from all faiths and political affiliations who come,” Bingham told Redwood Voice.

”Cookies are not political.”