Each time Terri Childers clocked a lap around the Crown Point Square Thursday evening, she smiled as the crowd cheered her on.

Turns out Childers, of St. John — who the crowd dubbed “The Lady in Red” for her little subcompact — was looking for parking spot close to the northeast corner to get into some “good trouble,” so she wasn’t just a driver cheering on the protesters out for the event honoring the late Georgia U.S. Representative and civil rights activist John Lewis. But the confusion made everyone happy just the same.

Eighty-eight people came out, which surprised organizer Katharine Hadow since it was a Thursday evening, when most people are still busy with their week. And if they weren’t holding a sign on the corner, they contributed other ways, such as the young man with curly hair playing his trumpet and the man enjoying libations at the bar across the street who went to his Harley and blasted Jimi Hendrix’s version of the “Star Spangled Banner” for the protesters to enjoy.

Several of them, like Mike Nonos, had come to her protest immediately after hitting one held in Valparaiso earlier on Thursday.

“I walked 2 miles from my home to get here,” Nonos, of Crown Point, said. “I’m not sure protesting makes a difference, and I’m not out here for me because I’m going to be dead sooner rather than later, but I’m concerned for my kids and my grandkids.

“Never in my life did I think we’d be living in a fascist regime. (President Donald J. Trump) has no respect for the Constitution, none for due process. I mean, he’s married to an immigrant, so it’s rich with irony that three of his four children, by his rule, could be deported. It’s unbelievable.”

Protesters also rallied in Highland on Thursday night.

Rachel Walker, also of Crown Point, said she’d suffered an injury to her leg and couldn’t stand for the “No Kings!” protest last month that coincided with Trump’s birthday. So she improvised.

“My child drove me around the Square many times so I could yell my support,” she said with a laugh. “My first one, though, was the “Hands Off!” protest, and I went to the protest in Knox, which was their first one ever. There were a lot of people there, but there were also a group of people standing across from us holding guns, so that was really unnerving.”

Walker said she’s been coming out to every protest she can because of something Scientist Bill Nye said awhile back: “When you elevate the lives of women and children, you elevate the lives of everyone.”

“We’re not working to elevate the lives of women and children right now, and I’m really concerned about it,” Walker said.

Kathy Schaeflein, of Dyer, and her husband were chatting with Walker. She glad to see so many middle-age to elderly people out there doing their part.

“People think we’re invisible, and that’s OK, because teens and people of color are targeted,” she said. “We’re the ones who need to be out here front and center to support them.”

Hadow said she keeps accurate track of protester numbers by handing out flyers and then subtracting the number she hands out from the number she brings. The “No Kings!” protest in Crown Point, for example, brought out 1,000 people, she said.

“It’s easy to organize now: You go to mobilize.com and put in your event, and then people start signing up,” Hadow said. “There are so many things wrong with Trump, from the loss of Medicaid and SNAP and ICE, and he thinks he’s above the law.”

When Shannan Tetrault’s son Edison was four, then went to a protest where he held a sign that said, “Good boys are nice to girls.” Now 10, it still rings true for him, she said.

“I’m really proud that he keeps telling us to come out here,” Shannan Tetrault, of Crown Point, said.

Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.