On Friday, Jan 30, 2026, calls for a national strike resulted in many local businesses closing for the day, and a huge crowd gathering at in the downtown plaza at the steps to protest.
Protests were held throughout California and the country; Culver City, while being geographically small, has had a long tradtion of regular protest, and people showed up with enthusiasm. The rally was scheduled to begin at 3:30, with many students walking together from the school complex, and by 4 pm, there were several hundred protestors in the plaza.
The crowd continued to grow throughout the afternoon, and 5 pm there was more than a thousand people waving signs and singing together, on all four corner of the intersection of Culver Boulevard and Main Street.
School Board member Brian Guerrero was there, pleased with the students who showed up. “This is great,” he said, gesturing to the hundreds of teenagers who were part of the crowd. While sources at the district said that more than 800 students had ‘called out for the day’ at the high school, Guerrero noted that they had the option of using it as an independent study to get credited for the Friday attendance. Board member Stephanie Loredo was also present, handing out lists of emergency contact phone numbers, “Just in case…I don’t think we will have any problems, but, you know, good information to have.”
While some businesses were open, they were not seeing much traction, as the General Strike had asked for people to forgo shopping for the day. Both Honey’s Kettle Fired Chicken and the Village Well Books and Coffee had signs posted saying they were closed in respect of the strike, garnering comments from passers-by noting that they would make it a point to patronize those businesses soon.
The afternoon heat had many protestors joking about the temperature at which ice melts, but the anger over the injustices committed by the federal government stayed in focus.
The crowd continued to grow until sunset, when people began to disperse down the sidewalks in all directions, many of them making plans to attend the Saturday protest at City Hall.
Judith Martin-Straw
