It’s just past 7 p.m. and the thousands of people who have gathered underneath the lamps outside Bascom Hall are whirling. Latino, African American, Asian, Muslim, Christian, young, old, gay, lesbian, straight, disabled and every combination of these are represented.

Looking into the faces of the crowd there is anger, sadness, and motivation. All these people coming from unthinkably different cultures and traditions moving effortlessly among one another, all united under one banner: Not My President.

A young man speaks into a bullhorn, impassioned: “We are the light. The light that will light up the darkness.” And the people begin to march towards the shining Capitol building in the distance.

As the snake of protestors begins moving down the hill and onto the campus mall, students stop what they’re doing to look out their windows at the thousands of people gathered in protest of President-elect Donald Trump. In many large cities across the nation, people are responding just like here in Madison.

The protest gets progressively more fervid as it gets closer to the capitol, pausing every so often for someone to take the bullhorn and speak about their personal strife with Donald Trump.

Audience members hear from feminists, Black Lives Matter, Mexican immigrants, Muslim immigrants, LGBT activists, and others.

The protesters are afraid of what policies might be enacted as Donald Trump begins his four years as president. Many questions remain as to whether he will really follow through on his promises to build a border wall and repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Now the protest is moving down the State Street mall. People hang out of their apartment windows to capture the sea of people on their phones. Others walk past in the other direction or stand on the fringes gawking.

All of the speakers, standing up on benches and verandas to get a better perspective, are united in their rejection of President-elect Donald Trump. Their reasons are very different. Each one of them carries a trait that the president-elect mocked or degraded while on the campaign trail, whether it’s their race, their sexuality or a disability.

The group begins to climb the steps of the capitol building, and as far as the eye can see people are moving in the direction if the Capitol holding signs high and chanting. At the top of the stairs close to the tall pillars of the Capitol people gather around the last group of speakers.  Among them are State Rep. Chris Taylor and long-time community leader Kaleem Caire.

Taylor talks about the way forward during a time of shock and sadness, she says that the young people here are the ones who will lead a movement to change people’s minds and steer the trajectory of the nation.

“We stand together in unity, not just for the state and nation we don’t want, but for the state we do want,” Taylor said.

Caire is the CEO and founder of One City Early Learning Center which focuses on education children through age 5 and providing them and their parents with all the necessary tools for success. It’s located on Madison’s South side, blocks away from where Caire was raised by his aunt and grandmother.

Caire delivered a rousing speech after leaving a work event that he and his wife were coordinating and finding State Street packed full of protestors. Afterward, he offered suggestions on the election and the way forward.

He advises people who are upset to run for office, young and old. Taking the ground up approach is often successful. Obama won the elections in 2008 and 2012 thanks, in no small part, to the millions of people who canvassed neighborhoods and phone banked on his behalf.

“The problem with the Democratic party is that it’s a tent of people running in their own lanes,” Caire said. Certainly the people who spoke during the protest looked and sounded completely different from one another and the issues they cared about differed greatly. But, Caire said, “We need to be willing to support each other’s issues and concerns” while knowing that together we all become stronger.

Caire said he thinks the Democratic Party may have found its’ time to unite under one, multi-hued flag. He spoke about his experience the day before, the morning after the election. The person he was meeting with canceled on him and he had some free time.

He decided to walk into the local school district office and found a room full of social workers in tears. He stopped and told them that he was oddly excited. That he could see the light in the midst of the darkness.

He said, “I’m excited because Donald Trump is going to create the next wave of the civil rights movement.”

The key, according to Caire, is to not stop.

“We should be there when we’re needed,” he said. “Whatever squabbles we have with each other we should leave behind closed doors. We will disagree on stuff, we just have to agree to disagree, we can’t get caught up in that, one of the things we can agree on is moving forward.”