It started as most movements do.
Small.
Three people standing outside a Tesla car dealership in Mount Kisco on a chilly Saturday in February, toting signs opposing Elon Musk’s foray as the Trump Administration’s point man on government efficiency.
“Principle over Profit,” Fred Silverman’s sign read.
When it was over, Silverman turned to Nick Kuvach and his wife Karen Freede, the newfound friends who joined him that day.
“Ok, I’ll see you guys next week,” Silverman said.
“And they were like, ‘Next week, Are you crazy?’” Silverman recalled. “We’ll see you in a couple of months. And I’m like ‘no we should be doing this every week.’ ”
Kuvach and Freede, who’d organized the first protest outside Tesla that was well attended, were headed out on vacation.
The following week, Silverman, of Bedford Hills, was out there again. “Like an idiot I stood out there in the bitter cold,” he said.
Three or four people showed up. The next week more. It just kept growing.
When Musk left the administration, the protest shifted to the sidewalk outside Mount Kisco Town Hall, with crowds Silverman says peaked at 350.
Honk your support
By mid-September, they will have protested 30 Saturdays in a row, minus one when folks attended a rally in New York City.
On a sunny Saturday in July, dozens stood outside town hall carrying signs that read: “Dump Trump,” “No ICE Gestapo,” and “If you are not indigenous then we are all immigrants.”
Bells clanged, whistles blew and protesters swayed to Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love.” Cars drove by honking support. Silverman estimates 95% of the people who drive by are behind them. “Five percent say go to hell,” he said.
It’s a decidedly older crowd of protesters, maybe not aging hippies, but close.
“A lot of people here are angry and don’t want to be home yelling at the TV set all the time,” Silverman said that day. “For them it’s an opportunity to come out and express how they feel. We have Republicans here. We have Democrats here. We have all kinds of people here. We’re about democracy.”
In recent weeks, they’ve added guest speakers. Anna Canoni, granddaughter of the late folk singer Woody Guthrie, led everyone in a sing along. An actor read the grievances of the Declaration of Independence, the colonists’ complaints against King George III.
“How a king doesn’t have to adhere to his own laws,” Silverman said. “They could have been written today. It’s really quite amazing.”
A career in TV
Silverman, 71, is new to the protesting game. One of the few times he can remember joining a protest was at the tail end of the Vietnam War when he was in college.
He spent much of his career in television, first as a producer for CBS News before pivoting to public television where he produced hourlong documentaries on complex topics – healthcare, education, voting rights. He also served 25 years as a district leader for the Bedford Democrats.
He was retired, enjoying life at home with his wife of 35 years and spending time with his grandchildren when he found himself getting more “riled up” in the months after the Trump Administration took over.
“How can you not be standing up and saying something,” Silverman said. “For a lot of us we’ve grown up our whole lives with a set of rules, a set of systems. And basically, it feels like the Trump Administration is kind of a wrecking ball just coming in and knocking it down.”
Silverman’s “Stop the Billionaires” movement has evolved in recent weeks to include speeches about federal healthcare cutbacks and overzealous immigration enforcement.
“He said they were going to come after criminals and in fact who they’re coming after are the cooks and the lawn people and all of that,” Silverman said. “And these are really good, hard-working people.”
His new mantra is “Save our Democracy.”
“If I didn’t have children or grandchildren, I’m not sure I’d feel as strongly as I do because I’ll be gone in a few years,” Silverman said. “So it doesn’t matter. Whatever Trump does it’s going to affect me but not a tremendous amount. But it’s going to affect my children and their children a lot, right?”
This story has been updated with new information.
Thomas C. Zambito covers energy, transportation and economic growth for the USA Today Network’s New York State team. He’s won dozens of state and national writing awards from the Associated Press, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Deadline Club and others during a decades-long career that’s included stops at the New York Daily News, The Star-Ledger of Newark and The Record of Hackensack. He can be reached at tzambito@lohud.com
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: In his 70s, Fred Silverman of Bedford Hills led a protest. Months later, he is still at it
Reporting by Thomas C. Zambito, New York State Team / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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