Thousands of people filled B.A. Clark Park and lined both sides of Division Street on Oct. 18 as part of the nationwide No Kings Day.
By 2 p.m. protesters were holding signs and chanting on both sides of the street for more than a dozen blocks from Gordon to Wellesley avenues.
Protesters waved flags and held up homemade signs to honking motorists, with many there protesting President Donald Trump.
Across the nation there were an estimated 7 million people at more than 2,700 No Kings rallies in cities and towns, including in Chicago. There, Mayor Brandon Johnson spoke to the crowd, calling for unity and resistance against the administration’s actions.
“If my ancestors, as slaves, can lead the greatest general strike in the history of this country, taking it to the ultra-rich and big corporations, we can do it too,” Johnson said at the Oct. 18 No Kings march downtown.
The events locally and nationwide were peaceful.
“We need to gather to remind each other that this is not normal, and that we still have power to push back – even if it’s showing up,” Angela Angel, a senior adviser for the Black Lives Matter PAC, told MSN.
The weekend’s mass protests came amid rising opposition to several actions taken by the Trump administration, MSN reported, including the deployment of military troops to civilian communities, where mostly Black and Brown Americans have had violent encounters with law enforcement.
On Oct. 22, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments for a consequential voting rights case that could either solidify or dismantle the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – which protects Black voters from racial discrimination in the electoral process.
Janai Nelson, a longtime civil rights attorney, was the woman who argued on behalf of Black voters and what is left of the VRA in Louisiana v. Callais, MSN reported. It was Nelson’s first case before the Supreme Court, marking a historic day for the Black, UCLA School of Law-educated lawyer.
Meanwhile, a federal grand jury in Virginia indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James earlier in the month on one count of bank fraud and one count of making a false statement to a financial institution – charges that come after steady pressure from President Trump to prosecute one of his longtime political foes, the Associated Press reported.
The NAACP staged a rally in Brooklyn on Sunday to show support for New York Attorney General Letitia James who only days earlier was arraigned on federal fraud charges.
James, facing accusations of bank fraud to which she has pleaded not guilty, attempted to rally her base at the First Baptist Church in Crown Heights by casting herself as a fighter, NewsBreak reported.
“I want to thank all of you for having my back because I didn’t elect a king and I don’t bow to a king,” she told the crowd.
James painted herself as the victim of political retaliation, in reference to the charges she pleaded not guilty to in October.
“Powerful people in Washington are seeking to silence truth; they’re seeking to punish decent and to weaponize justice for political gain,” she said.