Hundreds along Oakland’s Forbes Avenue rallied against U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick’s Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University, whose headlining speaker was U.S. President Donald Trump, on Tuesday, July 15.
CMU’s campus was all but locked down, with the Mall completely fenced off and the Fence painted over on CMU President Farnam Jahanian’s order, according to students. During the summit, Trump announced roughly $90 billion in AI investment for Pennsylvania. A portion of that, he said, would be spent on building data centers.
Down several blocks outside, demonstrators spoke out regarding a number of issues surrounding the current president and his proposals, including the environmental impacts of AI data centers, his incoming rescission bill, and recent backtracking on the release of high-profile sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein’s “client list.”
A march, organized by Indivisible, left from Schenley Plaza after an hour-long rally around 1:30 p.m. It filled about two blocks of Forbes Avenue before city and county police formed a line at South Craig Street, stopping the march.
“People are fired up against this administration,” Pa. College Dems president Austin Weise told Pittsburgh City Paper of the large initial turnout. “I think it’s a reflection that sometimes we have to make sacrifices for the betterment of our country; that’s what folks are here doing today.”
Nona Gerard, 64, of Kennedy Township carried a megaphone up and down a line of county police officers blocking South Craig Street. Gerard solemnly decried their complicity for a government she said was repressing them.
Gerard, too, praised the turnout for the march and expressed deep concern for the authoritarian direction she said the federal government is hurdling toward.
“We’ve seen it before,” Gerard told City Paper, “and we’re really worried this time, so we’re trying to rally people … We already killed the Nazis, and now there’s one living in the White House.”
The scene briefly got ugly later in the day around 5:30 p.m., when Pittsburgh police clashed with protestors who had been occupying the intersection of Forbes and South Craig Street and heckling exiting summitgoers.
About five people were pepper sprayed. The group eventually retreated back to Bellefield Avenue and moved out of the street and onto the sidewalk, which caused city police to disperse.
The clash involved roughly thirty people, a significantly smaller number than the initial march from Schenley Park earlier — most protestors had dispersed by 3 p.m.
The scene in Schenley Plaza earlier in the day, where music played over speakers, people were invited to speak, and various signage and flags were held high, stood in stark contrast to the demonstration’s conclusion.
The Schenley rally also saw the return of Pittsburgh’s chapter of ACT UP, an LGBTQ advocacy group meant to raise awareness regarding HIV. ACT UP marched into Schenley unannounced, clad in funeral garb and offering a eulogy in the center of Schenley’s lawn for “the lives lost to the Trump and McCormick budget cut.”
“We are here to mourn the fact that the president and Congress chose to sacrifice the most vulnerable people among us, including people living with HIV and AIDS … to put more money into the pockets of the super-wealthy,” Joe Macklin, an organizer with ACT UP, said.
ACT UP, which stands for “AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power,” was founded in the 1980’s in response to the federal government’s mishandling of the AIDS epidemic.
Macklin said the group was revived to curb that same mishandling from happening again.
“Ultimately, the power belongs to us,” Macklin said. “There are a few individuals who would like to see us deprived of our rights, and of our ability to live happy, fulfilled, dignified lives. But there are so many more, I believe, who genuinely want people to live in freedom.”
Gavin Petrone is a student at Point Park University and one of 10 Pittsburgh Media Partnership summer interns.
This article appears in Jul 9-15, 2025.
