On Thursday afternoon, one of the organizers of the March to Mar-a-Lago, a protest march against President Donald Turmp, said on the Facebook’s event page that the protest was canceled. Shortly after, two other organizers stepped up and said the march is still on.
Stephen Milo from Miami had created the Facebook event on Thursday, not knowing what kind of firestorm he had started. Within a week, the number of people saying they’re going to attend increased from just about a dozen to over 2,100 on Thursday afternoon.
“How quickly this grew took everyone by surprise,” said Alex Newell Taylor, the captain of the Women’s March chapter in West Palm Beach.
Milo had partnered with the Women’s March and South Florida Activism after the numbers of protesters kept increasing.
All three had a meeting with law enforcement agencies on Thursday about logistics. Due to the size of the protest, they decided to no longer end the march at Bingham Island.
After that Milo decided he did not want to be part of the event anymore. He took to Facebook and canceled the event.
“After receiving an overwhelming level of interest (…) the decision to cancel the march was made. As the event creator and primary organizer, that decision was my responsibility.”
That’s not what the other protest organizers are saying.
“The event is not canceled,” Newell Taylor said. “Milo has never organized an event like this before so I think it was a little overwhelming for him. We have a lot of experience with organizing events like this and we’re going to make sure that it’s organized and safe and peaceful for all of our participants.”
Newell Taylor said she was aware that Milo was dropping out of the event but was still surprised when he canceled the event on social media.
“I didn’t know that it was going to be worded that way,” Newell Taylor said.
Even as confusion spread like wildfire on Facebook, the number of protesters attending only kept on increasing.
Event organizers are ensuring protesters the march is still a go. It will start at Trump Plaza.
Meanwhile, at least two different sign waving events in support of President Trump have been announced.
“I created the event because I wanted to show support for what the President is doing for the country,” said Arisley Travieso.
The group of about 50 is planning on meeting at Southern Blvd in front of Mar-a-Lago. Separately, a Facebook event for sign waving is also scheduled.
Travieso said they do not want to disturb the protesters and they support their first amendment rights, they simply want to show their support for the President.
“We have no concerns over the protesters,” Travieso said. “We’ve been to many protests and the protesters from this area are usually very nice.”
Here's part of a message they posted on Facebook:
Our march will still begin at Trump Plaza, 525 South Flagler Drive, WPB, FL. We will begin gathering at 5 PM. From there, at 6 PM, we will march south along Flagler until we reach the "bend", and then we will rally along the waterside there.
More than 2,000 people had registered on Facebook to attend the march.