Thousands Turned Out for Saturday's 'No Kings' Rallies
Inflatable costumes at the Great Barrington protest in this submitted photo.
"If you're quiet and don't voice your opinion, then you're complicit," said Kathryn Foley, holding a sign in front of Adams Town Hall. "It's that simple."
More than 1,000 people were estimated at the rally at North Adams City Hall, where they held signs along the Hadley Overpass and around the intersection at Main Street.
Holding signs like "Hate Does Not Make America Great" and "Stop ICE Invading Our Cities," they listened to speakers and sang patriotic songs.
Drew Zuckerman, 15 years old and a student at Mount Greylock Regional School, said some his age are wondering about their futures — and their lives — in a world where supports are being taken from the most vulnerable.
"It's a really weird moment to growing up right now, kids just like me are taking classes on dictator-like regimes in 20th century Europe but when we look around we're still told to pledge our allegiance to a country conceived in liberty even when some of us don't have freedom over our bodies or over our future," he said in a video posted to Facebook.
"It doesn't take a political science major to realize this is not what our nation is supposed to look like."
Michael Bedford said he was there because "I believe in our country and the Constitution, and I do everything to protect it."
Organizers in Great Barrington said the rally there also attracted more than 1,000 people, making it the largest hosted by the South County Resistance far.
"People ask if rallies like this can make a difference. The answer is, absolutely. Mass mobilization gives people courage and hope. It lets them know they're part of something big which gives them the resolve to speak out about the abuses of power we're seeing everyday," said Jonathan Perloe, a SCR organizer, in a statement. "And it shows them they aren't powerless; it lets them know that change is possible."
Perloe described the participants as joyful and determined to protect democracy. There, too, American flags and songs were prominent.
Foley counted 213 people along Park Street and at the Town Common at the height of Adams' morning protest and participants filled Pittsfield's Common and lined First and Fenn Streets.
Some participants dressed in costumes, including inflatables made popular by protestors in Portland, Ore., as a way to exemplify demonstrations as peaceful in contrast to often armed authorities.
An estimated 7 million Americans turned out to protest actions by the Donald Trump administration — the deployment of federal agents to largely Democratic cities, immigration raids, cuts to and disabling of federal agencies and threats to higher education institutions and news organizations. They held signs and American flags, sang songs and spoke out against the president.
The president responded Sunday on his Truth Social account with an AI-generated video of him in a crown, spewing diarrhea on protesters from a jet. The White House's official Twitter (X) account posted AI images of Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance in crowns.
The rallies were reported as peaceful across the nation, with a 125,000 people taking to Boston Common and tens of thousands in New York City's Times Square.
It's considered the second-largest protest in American history, behind the 1970 Earth Day rallies that drew some 20 million. Protests were also held in other countries, tagged "No Tyrants" or "No Dictators" in the United Kingdom and Canada.
Bedford, one of the North Adams organizers and a marshal for the event, said, "we had a huge demonstration, and there was no violence, there was no injuries, there was no provocations.
"It was very, very safe and nonviolent. It was great that way, because we were worried."
There was an incident with a black truck that kept going around (police were called) and as the rally wound down, a passenger in a blue truck swore loudly at the departing protestors.
Some 2,600 demonstrations across the nation were focused on democracy as American prepares to enter its 250th anniversary.
"I am now here to support democracy and to hopefully put a stop to the craziness that is happening by being a single voice in a small town, along with everyone in our nation and globally, who are all marching today to draw some small attention to the nuts that's happening," said Adams resident Marty Hamilton.
Tags: protests,
