Hundreds of students at two San Diego high schools and a community college walked out of classes Wednesday and marched through the urban center of the city in protest of the election of Donald Trump as the 45th U.S. president.

The noisy rallies began in the late morning outside Lincoln and San Diego high schools and San Diego City College and continued in various locales for about five hours.

The demonstrators blocked sections of Imperial Avenue, Park Boulevard, C Street, Broadway, Front Street and other roads as they paraded through town, displaying signs, waving flags and joining together in chants — including “the people united — we’ll never be divided” — to decry Trump’s perceived hostility toward minorities and lack of qualifications to serve as president.

The protest was largely peaceful, though one man was arrested on suspicion of assaulting an officer and resisting arrest, and another participant was cited for spitting on someone, SDPD spokesman Tony Martinez said.

Much of the boisterous throng wound up gathering for an hour or so in the area of Horton Plaza and nearby Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building before doubling back and heading east to the grounds of the Park Boulevard college, where the demonstration continued into the mid-afternoon.

The rally had broken up by 3 p.m., Martinez said.

— City News Service

Chris Jennewein is founder and senior editor of Times of San Diego.