Over 1,000 people turned out along Center Street in Manassas Saturday for a “Hands Off!” protest opposing the Trump administration’s first few months of directives.
Prince William County and state officials were on hand as car horns and crowd chants rang out in the early afternoon. As of 10:30 a.m., Saturday, 535 people had signed up for the event via Mobilize, an online platform, with 235 confirmed, according to Dianne Lane, a member of the Hands Off! Manassas Fights Back Committee, a subset of the Manassas and Manassas Park Cities Democratic Committee.
The eventual turnout stretched to approximately 1,200, according to Allen Muchnick, an event marshal with the Manassas Democrats.
Residents from across Northern Virginia made the trek to Old Town Manassas as a line of protesters stretched from the regional Social Security office to Peabody Street, near the Prince William courthouse.
Amber Lawrence, a Fairfax County resident, hoisted a sign stating, “Hands Off Democracy.” She said she had sought a more ubiquitous slogan.
“I chose this one because I feel like it covers everything,” Lawrence told InsideNoVa. “I don't feel like this is about any specific issue or any specific bill. I don't feel like this is a left-right issue, I feel like this is a right-wrong issue and that our country is in the most dangerous time in my lifetime – and I'm just trying to think of any idea to help defend our Constitution.”
Randy Freed, a Prince William resident, attended the protest alongside his wife, Trish. Freed is a retired federal contractor who worked for various agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Departments of Energy, Agriculture and Defense, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The Freeds’ daughter works for a nonprofit supporting USAID with humanitarian work and has thus far maintained her job, while their daughter-in-law currently works for the U.S. Geological Survey.
The couple voiced concerns for Social Security and federal “data intrusion.”
Holding a sign reading, “Make America Competent Again,” Freed spoke out against the actions of Elon Musk and the gutting of federal agencies through the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
“Nobody here is against reducing waste, fraud and abuse in the government,” Freed said, “but a lot of people here, like me, are either government employees or spent careers as contractors for the government – we just didn't see rampant waste, fraud and abuse.”
Freed continued, “If you want to go after it, go after it with a scalpel, but we don't get there by cutting entire agencies and claiming that they're all doing waste, fraud and abuse … If there really is a change in policy that's needed, they ought to eliminate the agencies by taking votes on it. But there's no way that appointing a billionaire and having him just say, ‘This agency has waste, fraud and abuse, so I’m going to eliminate the whole thing’ – that’s unconstitutional.”
Matt White, a Manassas Park resident, favored simplicity in his messaging, holding an overturned American flag.
“It's a sign of distress and the veterans that fought and died for this flag, the rights and freedoms they fought far being stripped away in front of us,” White said. “So we have to do something about it. They wanted signs – this was easiest for me – that show what we are as a country.”
Lane told InsideNoVa many elderly residents opted to attend the Manassas protest instead of the Washington event due to facilitated maneuverability and wheelchair access.
Such was the case for J.P. and Candace Levinson, residents of Fairfax County.
“We would have gone into Washington, except I didn't think we could handle that kind of trip anymore,” J.P. Levinson said. “To our dismay, there weren't any demonstrations in Fairfax advertised or nearby, so we came out here.”
A former Department of Defense employee, J.P. Levinson, expressed apprehension related to retirement benefits. Sporting a homemade hat emblazoned with the words “Hands Off” above a list featuring various social issues, Candace Levinson, a former federal contractor, echoed her husband’s sentiment.
“We're especially concerned about the things that affect retirement – Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security,” J.P. Levinson said. “Worried about the kids, grandkids, education in general – like her sign says, there's just too many to list. It's all nuts, as far as we can tell.”
“We would have gone into Washington, except I didn't think we could handle that kind of trip anymore,” J.P. Levinson said. “To our dismay, there weren't any demonstrations in Fairfax advertised or nearby, so we came out here.”
A former Department of Defense employee, J.P. Levinson, expressed apprehension related to retirement benefits. Sporting a homemade hat emblazoned with the words “Hands Off” above a list featuring various social issues, CJandace Levinson, a former federal contractor, echoed her husband’s sentiment.
Jacob Alderman, chairman of the Prince William County Republican Committee, said the American people voiced their desire for change in November’s election. He said it will take time for things to “settle.”
“A lot of what we're seeing with President Trump and his administration so far, it's only just begun in terms of settling and things like that,” Alderman told InsideNoVa in an interview Monday. “I know that there's a lot of angst over the federal cuts and things like that – and that's understandable, especially in this region," said Alderman. "We just have to wait and see how that all shakes out."
"There's a plan in place that's being executed," the local GOP chair said. "Ultimately, from the top down, the goal is to kind of put some of this back into the local and state sphere, and I think we've seen a very proactive approach from Prince William County, and from Gov. Glenn Youngkin.”
Hayley O’Neal, attending the protest with her son, held a double-sided cardboard sign, one of which stated, “Hands Off Gaza.”
“I have several friends that I've connected with in Palestine at this point,” O’Neal said. “I don't have a lot of words for it, because it's so deep and heavy, but I believe that our funding of the weapons that Israel is using to enact a genocide in Gaza is wrong, so I'm here for that and for my friends.”
For O’Neal, the federal cuts have hit particularly close to home. Her husband, a firefighter, benefits from research funding for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, which falls under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The ability to research cancer that relates to firefighters is important to us,” O’Neal added. “Gutting that agency could be catastrophic for firefighter research – any occupational [sphere] – but in our case, for firefighters.”
State Sen. Jeremy McPike, a Democrat, lamented the nation's “diminishing” status overseas vis-à-vis its allies and spoke to the local impact of federal layoffs.
“Across Northern Virginia, we're talking about a ton of [federal] jobs – as well as secondary, third-tier jobs that all come from federal spending,” McPike told InsideNoVa. “Just the carelessness and the dehumanizing of federal employees who are our neighbors, who are experts in what they do and in their field.”
McPike added, “I think for the long term, also because of research funding, we're going to lose some of the [best] science in the entire Earth to other countries because of the brain drain of the research that these people and experts do in their field – they're being recruited to universities overseas now."
Dr. Babur Lateef, Chairman of the Prince William School Board and a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, praised the protestors' efforts.
“This is an amazing turnout, and this just shows you how angry Americans are about the federal government taking away our most basic rights – Social Security, the attack on health care, Medicare, Medicaid, the attack on our schools, the attack on the things that we hold dear, the attack on diversity,” Lateef said. “This is a compilation of folks angry about so many issues. Our 401(k)s are now ‘200 and a half (k)s’ after two days.”
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