Critics of President Donald Trump’s controversial policies that include mass deportations and cuts to Medicaid and other safety nets for poor people rallied across Southern California and beyond Thursday.

The “Good Trouble Lives On” national day of action honors the late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis. More than 1,600 protests were organized along streets, at court houses and other public spaces nationwide. Organizers called for protesters to be peaceful.

In the Inland Empire, rallies and events from Riverside to Claremont to San Bernardino were planned for late afternoon and early evening Thursday. Events in Los Angeles were expected to draw significant crowds.

Community members were invited to join Shardé Alexande, education and community outreach specialist at the Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California, at the Riverside Main Library to learn more about community organizing and voter registration.

“We are seeking justice for people who have suffered from discrimination,” said Kris Lovekin, an organizer with Indivisible Riverside. “So banding together in community is important.”

A panel discussion was planned, as was a partial screening of “John Lewis: Good Trouble,” a documentary about the late congressman.

Earlier in the day, around 40 or so demonstrators rallied along the Pacific Coast Highway in front of the Huntington Beach Pier, their anti-Trump signs and cheers greeted with supportive gestures from visitors enjoying a sunny day at the beach.

One of the protesters, Cassie Helm, a 31-year-old mother of two from Huntington Beach, said Lewis’ history of fighting for civil rights motivated her to speak out against the Trump administration.

“We have things that we can stand to lose by being out here, but we do it anyway because we have more to stand to lose as America if this continues,” Helm said.

There were no signs of counterprotesters Thursday at the pier, a common rallying spot for pro-Trump supporters.

Events Thursday were planned to honor the fifth anniversary of Lewis’ death.

Lewis first was elected to Congress in 1986. He died in 2020 at the age of 80 following an advanced pancreatic cancer diagnosis.

He was the youngest and last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists, a group led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In 1965, a 25-year-old Lewis led some 600 protesters in the Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Lewis was beaten by police, suffering a skull fracture.

Within days, King led more marches in the state, and President Lyndon Johnson pressed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act that later became law.

“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem the soul of America,” Lewis said in 2020 while commemorating the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Events scheduled for Thursday were expected to draw peaceful protesters angered by Trump administration actions, including intensified immigration enforcement, cuts to programs like Medicaid and SNAP and actions that activists say will restrict voting rights.

“We are navigating one of the most terrifying moments in our nation’s history,” Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert said during an online news conference Tuesday. “We are all grappling with a rise of authoritarianism and lawlessness within our administration … as the rights, freedoms and expectations of our very democracy are being challenged.”

Public Citizen is a nonprofit with a stated mission of taking on corporate power. It is a member of a coalition of groups behind Thursday’s protests.

Pushback against Trump so far in his second term has centered on deportations and immigration enforcement tactics.

Earlier this month, protesters engaged in a tense standoff as federal authorities conducted mass arrests at marijuana farms in Camarillo and Carpenteria. One farmworker died after falling from a greenhouse roof during a chaotic raid.

Those raids followed Trump’s deployment of the National Guard outside federal buildings and to protect immigration agents carrying out arrests in and around Los Angeles. On June 8, thousands of protesters began taking to the streets in Southern California.

A week later, organizers of the “No Kings” demonstrations said millions of people marched in hundreds of events nationwide. Demonstrators at the June 14 rallies labeled Trump as a dictator and would-be king for marking his birthday with a military parade.

Staff writers Madison Hart and Michael Slaten contributed to this report.