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LEWISTON — A week ago, Bates College students traipsed to the polls with enthusiasm and hope, spurred on by messages written in chalk all over campus urging them to #DumpTrump.

Seven days later, with the chalk fading, more than 400 students gathered to bemoan Donald Trump’s presidential victory and vowed to fight for their ideals in what they fear could prove a dark time.

Under gray clouds, students and some faculty members rallied in front of the Commons dining hall as part of a walkout at several local colleges.

After listening to a few short speeches, they marched and chanted slogans as they snaked through campus, including the library and a main academic building, where some professors released students to attend.

Near the end, in front of Lane Hall, they shouted in unison: “Donald Trump — go away! Racist, sexist, anti-gay.”

For junior Sammy Purnell, who got out of a poetry class to join in, the rally was a nice break from the pall that’s hung over the mostly liberal campus since election night Nov. 8.

“It’s almost like there’s been a death,” she said, with students upset that Americans voted for a man many believe is against minorities, immigrants and others who deserve a helping hand.

Purnell said she felt like she had to come to the walkout “because it’s the most critical thing happening in our country” and students need to disrupt the normal environment if they are going to make a difference.

“I’m here for solidarity,” first-year student Lizzie Ottenstein said.

The New York City native said she knows people who feel threatened by Trump’s victory. “They just feel really targeted,” she said, and need to have allies at their sides.

She said she knows some students say Trump won’t be their president, but that’s not her view.

“We may as well make the best of it,” Ottenstein said. “It’s our job as Americans to unify the country.”

Bates Student Action, the rally organizer, asked people to congregate at 3 p.m. by walking out of class or wherever they were to begin the process of “protecting our communities and building the world we want.”

“We are having this walkout to capture the moment in which many college students are grieving” over Trump’s win, said one of the leaders, Cash Huynh.

Huynh, whose family immigrated from Vietnam almost a quarter-century ago, said she initially “felt really hopeless” and betrayed by Democrat Hillary Clinton’s defeat.

But, she said, she quickly realized the imperative of organizing to fight Trump’s plans to deport illegal immigrants and other proposals that are deeply unpopular on campus. She said it’s also important to keep the pressure on for free college tuition and health care despite the outcome at the polls.

“We are the voice of the next generation,” Huynh said. “We are going to impose our vision of what America should be.”

Another student, junior Ayesha Sharma, said it’s important for students to realize they don’t really live in “the Bates bubble” that keeps the college and surrounding Lewiston in separate spheres. The reality, she said, is that students can and should have an impact on the outside world.

Sharma urged students to organize to take advantage of the strength that unity can bring. “We do have power here on campus,” she said.

The Student Action group, part of a national network of campus organizations that fight for economic and racial justice, organized walkouts Tuesday on five campuses in Maine, including at Bowdoin College in the University of Maine in Orono, and others in California, Illinois, Michigan and New York. It is not clear how successful the others were.

At Bates, the nonviolent protest turned out about one in five students. There were no incidents and no sign of anyone siding with Trump, who won northern Maine’s electoral vote.

With the help of a dozen clipboard-carrying activists, the crowd enthusiastically chanted one slogan after another as it marched across campus.

“Black Lives Matter” was the most common one, but students also loudly proclaimed, “Love trumps hate,” and, “We are unstoppable. Another world is possible.”

At the conclusion, at Huynh’s urging, they thundered, “I believe that we will win,” over and over, breaking up just before the first raindrops started to fall and began washing away the chalk messages that remained on walkways.

As #VotingIsSexy” washed away from a sidewalk, students wandering to a quiet gathering spot discussed whether #StopTrump is the best hashtag for the days to come.