As protests broke out against President-elect Donald Trump in cities across the country, hundreds in the dumbfounded nation’s capital added their voices to the din. In front of the White House, they shouted “Not my president.” Further down on Pennsylvania Avenue, outside the Trump International Hotel, someone burned the American flag while shouting “fuck Trump.”

That refrain was expressed in various forms up and down the city, a Democratic bastion where the president-elect won just 11,000 votes of the 287,000 cast.

Protester Jennifer Odeh carried a sign with that message written out in a neat script. “The racism in our society, it all came out last night,” she said. “It’s a very scary time right now.”

Danielle Norkin painted the back of her hoodie with a variant, which read “fuck this” in gold fabric paint. Her friend Mary J. Doe’s matching sweatshirt shined in the streetlight with the words: “abort Trump.”

They were among a group of protesters who assembled at the African American Civil War Memorial and heard a handful of impromptu speeches before heading out to the streets.

“As George Washington once said, fuck Donald Trump,” exclaimed one speaker, who went on to say that his wife, a teacher, faced classrooms of crying children today.

“It’s easy for us to come out here and say fuck Trump,” said another. “We have to say fuck the patriarchy. Fuck transphobia. Fuck homophobia. Fuck racism…. This is not just about a president but about a culture.”

Around 9:15 p.m., they turned left onto U Street and began making their way to the next president’s brand new hotel, which was an unofficial gathering place for victorious Republican voters last night.

“I’m devastated. I don’t really know what else to do besides getting out,” Norkin said. “This is actually healing to be around … We’re lucky to be in an area like D.C. I feel supported here.”

Indeed, as the group passed down U and 14th Streets shouting “no Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA”, bystanders almost uniformly reacted positively. They cheered and waved. Some ran to catch up and join in. Drivers honked back in support rather than frustration, yelling the increasingly familiar refrain of “fuck Trump” out of rolled down windows.

Eventually, the marchers made their way down to the Trump Hotel, mixing with another group that had already walked over earlier in the evening from a candlelight vigil in front of the White House.

Around 10 p.m., a protester set fire to the American flag. Two people lit cigarettes in the flames. After they burned out, others pulled the flag apart.

Earlier in the day, protesters at American University also burned the flag.

It was a far cry from the much smaller scene at Dupont Circle around 6:30 p.m., where folks gathered and gave each other solace in the form of hugs and song. And elsewhere around the city, people headed to a variety of religious services to find healing in prayer and community.

President Lincoln’s Cottage, where he wrote a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, opened its doors as a secular community space. One attendee said it felt like being at a wake.

Back at the African American Civil War Memorial, longtime activist Pat Loveless called it a “dark day for America.” Sitting with a 33-year-old peace sign affixed to the back of his wheelchair, Loveless recounted how he lost his eyesight and most of his fingers to gangrene after getting assaulted in 1987 by members of the KKK at a protest in Georgia. After decades of fighting injustice, he was named the official Takoma Park Peace Delegate in 2010, and he proudly wore a shirt this evening declaring it. “I’m the only one in the country, but we ought to have one everywhere,” Loveless said.

Others spoke of deeply felt fear. “We’re a lesbian, bi-racial couple. We’re afraid to hold hands in public… our country betrayed us,” said Hillary Godwin, an Adams Morgan resident who came out with a sign reading “love never quits, be a light in the fight” and carrying electric tea lights. “I’m afraid for my neighbors, for my friends, for everyone who isn’t a straight, white man.”

While people flooded to U Street eight years ago with unbridled excitement, this was the exact opposite.

“I feel like I’ve been robbed of the future I was certain I would have,” said Laura Blackerby, a senior at George Washington University, while carrying a cardboard cutout of a beaming Michelle Obama. “We’ve been thrust into a whole new world.”

Her friend, Laura Kilbury, hoped to work in the Clinton administration but said she still plans to stay in D.C. after graduation. “This changed me. I feel even more convinced to fight the good fight,” she said, while holding aloft a partial cutout of Hillary Clinton. The winner of America’s popular vote was frozen in a smile, but the bottom half of her legs had somehow gotten separated in transit, cut off at the knees.

Filed Under: election 2016, President Trump, protest,