The Public Theater hosted an event it called “The People’s Filibuster” on Saturday, January 31, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the theater’s home at 425 Lafayette Street, according to a press advisory sent that day by the Manhattan theater’s press team and to coverage of the demonstration.
The advisory, which carried the subject line “The Public to Host The People’s Filibuster Protest on Saturday, 1/31,” did not include any further detail describing the gathering. The Public Theater did not specify in that same-day reminder a start time, a location, the organizers or speakers involved, or the protest’s stated cause in the material it circulated. The event had been publicly announced days earlier, on January 28, as free and open to the public.
The event was logged internally under a title tying the protest to Minnesota. Organizers described it as a demonstration of solidarity “with our neighbors in Minnesota and across the country who are angry and grieving, protesting state-sanctioned violence and abuses of power,” a response to the recent ICE killings of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti, Renee Good and Keith Porter Jr. On the day itself, the eight-hour event drew artists, Broadway actors, elected officials and community members who rotated continuously at the microphone, reading from founding-era American texts alongside contemporary writing and performing music.
