NH Medical Freedom Marchers Shut Down Downtown Concord: Video

CONCORD, NH — More than 1,000 Granite Staters, from all political spectrums, stopped traffic in Downtown Concord calling for medical freedom and an end to federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates on Saturday.

At just after noon, protesters gathered at the State Library on Park Street and marched south on North State Street. As the crowd began to build, to unofficial estimates of somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 people, they moved off the sidewalk and into the street.

By Pleasant Street, the crowd took up a single lane of traffic and were navigated north on North Main Street while chanting, “We will not comply” and “Freedom over fear.” One woman could be heard yelling, “You’re outside, take off your mask” and, “It’s OK to breathe,” while a woman and a child on the sidewalk, were walking on North Main Street and were heard counter-chanting, “Masks matter.”

While a lot of people downtown supported the marchers, by honking their vehicle horns and cheering, others were frustrated due to being stuck in traffic.

At one point, toward the end of the march, a Concord General Services truck, driving south in the northbound lane, drove to the intersection of North Main and Capitol streets, stopping just short of the marchers, appearing as if he was trying to get them to stop. A guide could be heard yelling at the city employee that they were moving the crowd along and were almost done.

As the crowd gathered at the Statehouse, Concord police officers showed up as well as a New Hampshire State Police trooper. Organizers, according to police, did not have a valid permit to march in the street.

Later, some of the protesters told police that they were concerned about a man in a mask with what appeared to be a loaded AR-15. The man was later found by police in the Durgin Block Parking Garage on School Street. Two Concord police officers guided him from the area.

Some left-of-center political activists and media outlets in the state have portrayed the medical freedom supporters as “fringe, far-rightwing extremists.” But that perception does not appear to be accurate. While there were MAGA hat-wearing Trump supporters and ReOpenNH members, who tend to be more libertarian, there were others, too. The crowd on Saturday in Concord was a mix of all kinds of different people including several nurses, retirees, veterans, and young parents and children. The Health Freedom New Hampshire organization was formed in 2016 — five years before the coronavirus pandemic and before Donald Trump was even the Republican nominee. Its website features videos from a number of different people involved in the movement including Robert Kennedy Jr. — a prominent Democrat and environmental attorney who has been challenging vaccine orthodoxy and the power of big pharma for decades.

Here is a video of some of the marching in Downtown Concord.

Here is a video of Becca Myari singing the National Anthem.

For more information, visit the org’s website here.

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