Green Bay, WI – Last week, it was announced that President Donald Trump would be visiting Marinette in the northern part of the state on June 25, and will hold a “town hall meeting” at a Green Bay airport at 7 p.m. The Coalition to March on the Democratic National Convention – a collection of over 50 organizations that’s planning a demonstration on the first day of the DNC in Milwaukee – has called for a protest of Trump’s visit.

“We met Trump with more than 2000 people when he came to Milwaukee at the start of the year,” said Ryan Hamann, co-chair of the Coalition. “Together with our allies in Green Bay, we’re going to give him a greeting like only the people can! We made it clear before, and we’ll do it again: Trump and his racist, bigoted, anti-worker platform aren’t welcome in our state.”

On June 25, Trump will be touring Marinette Marine, a shipbuilding company that got its start in tiny Marinette on the Menominee River during World War II. Lockheed Martin, the notorious company that has made millions and millions of dollars in profit off the ongoing wars in the Middle East, is a minority owner of the northern Wisconsin shipbuilding company. President Trump is expected to discuss the expansion of the shipyard and the recent contract his administration awarded to Marinette Marine to build ten new ships for up to $5.5 billion.

Marinette Marine has built several ships in the past for the U.S. military. Just recently, on April 30, the company won the bid to produce the new FFG(X) multimission guided-missile frigate. The new ship will be an upgrade on an older model as the U.S., under Trump’s leadership, continues to ramp up its military posturing around the world.

Meanwhile, the U.S, economy continues to tank as the country is wracked with the worst unemployment numbers since the Great Depression and thousands of people remain in the streets, protesting police crimes and in support of Black lives. COVID-19 cases continue to increase while the president peddles ‘solutions’ like slowing down testing to slow down the amount of new cases.

“We're calling this protest because President Trump's arrival in our state is an insult to all the people fighting to survive in this pandemic, working with little to no workplace protections, while being told they're 'essential,’” said Aodhan Bowman, a Green Bay-based organizer with the Coalition. “His toxic rhetoric targets immigrants and marginalized populations for abuse while government contracts like the one recently handed to Marinette Marine reward company owners and force the workers to produce for them in spite of the danger to their lives and families.”

After Trump’s visit to this military contractor, he will check in at the Green Bay Austin Strobel International Airport for a town hall meeting hosted by Fox News anchor Sean Hannity. According to Hannity, the president will be discussing “the latest on police reform and the 2020 election.”

The Coalition will be outside the spot of Trump’s town hall meeting, demanding justice for the victims of police crimes, an end to U.S. wars and interventions, and investment in jobs, education, and other resources for the people. The rally is set to begin at 7 p.m. and will feature a handful of speakers, including a member from the family of Jonathon Tubby, an Oneida man who was murdered by the Brown County Sheriff’s Department in October 2018.

“The fact that the ‘pattern-or-practice’ investigations, a federal practice put in place following the beating of Rodney King by the LAPD in 1992 to scour police departments, were frozen the moment Trump took office speaks to what his views are on the issue of ‘police reform’. That practice was extremely flawed to begin with,” said Hamann.

Hamann continued, “What we need is community control of the police. We don’t need more untrustworthy government officials getting involved only to let families down a second time in their bid for justice for their murdered loved ones. Winning justice for Jonathan, Jason Pero, Alvin Cole, Joel Acevedo, and all other victims of killer cops means giving more power to the people to determine who and how their communities are policed.”

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