Biden inauguration live updates: Trump departs Washington for the final time as president
At D.C.’s Black Lives Matter Plaza, relief about a new White House resident
By Perry Stein and Emily Davies
A half-dozen demonstrators — a hodgepodge of antiwar and anti-Trump activists in front of the White House — blasted Tracy Chapman and Woody Guthrie while waving flags in front of a 7-foot fence surrounded by police tape.
They were as close to the White House as law enforcement would allow — hundreds of feet away.
They hung a large Black Lives Matter banner and “Impeach Trump” flags along the barricades. A Biden flag waved in the middle of the plaza.
Smokey Sims, a 33-year-old actor from New York, has been camping at the plaza for months to protest Trump. Today, he said, he’s allowing himself to feel happy because there will be a new president in the White House.
“It’s like a huge weight lifted from me,” he said. “I feel positive today and hopeful the Trump supporters and the Proud Boys will realize what they did was messed up. ”
In front of the outnumbered demonstrators, dozens of reporters stood, their cameras rolling.