DEAR EDITOR:

The First Amendment to the Constitution gives the right to protest. Our country was founded on protests. We called George Washington a patriot; England called him a terrorist.

You must have a valid reason to protest. White women protesting for the right to vote in a white man’s world, imagine that. Civil rights for equality, social justice and public safety.

Independent small business truckers in the 1960s, from Minnesota to Pennsylvania, known as the Steel Belt, waiting for hours, sometimes days, to load at steel mills with no detention pay, now known as the Rust Belt.

In the 1970s, for the high price of fuel with no fuel surcharge. In the 1960s and 70s, unarmed college students across America protested the no-win Vietnam War and were shot to death by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University.

The ongoing shooting and strangling deaths of unarmed black men, women and children is a valid reason for peaceful protests. As for Donald Trump sending his “mercs” with no I.D. and unmarked vehicles to protest federal buildings in Democratic cities and states is just an extension of his re-election campaign.

Trump has no resemblance of a leader, especially when it comes to the novel coronavirus, the emissary of death to American people and our economy.

Remember November, vote against Trump and anyone he supports to make America a safe, indivisible, progressive America.

DAVID P. GAIBIS SR.

Edinburg, Pa.