Driver after driver honked horns on June 14 in solidarity with the crowd lining Beacon and Centre Streets in Newton Centre for the No Kings protest against President Donald Trump and his actions.
On a day drizzly and cool for a summer Saturday, more than 1,200 Newton residents and those from other communities joined together chanting for change. According to NoKings.org, the protest was “a national day of action and mass mobilization in response to the increasing authoritarian excesses and corruption of the Trump administration.”
Josephine McNeil, a Newton affordable housing activist who has been attending No Kings rallies for many weeks, said this was the largest turnout she had seen so far.
Showing up “is the least we can do,” she said.
The protestors said they came for a variety of reasons including exercising their First Amendment rights; voicing their outrage about ICE enforcement actions; and expressing their anger about Trump’s military parade in Washington, D.C., marking the Army’s 250th anniversary.
“I think this military parade … is outrageous,” especially after Trump has pushed to cut more “positive programs,” said Newton resident Ricky Greenly. She and her husband, Rob Greenly, wore handmade crowns adorned with triangular tortilla chips that symbolized a “TACO” meme (“Trump Always Chickens Out”).
After attending a No Kings event in Waltham last month, Rob Greenly said he wanted to participate in Newton’s protest. He was inspired partly by a quote found on NoKings.org and attributed to Harvard University political scientist Erica Chenoweth: “It only takes 3.5 percent of the population engaging in sustained, strategic protest against authoritarianism to achieve significant political change.” Therefore, he noted, having a large turnout was critical.
Asked whether he felt apprehensive about attending the large public gathering, Greenly said, “Whatever risk we’re taking is minimal” compared to what other activists have done. “It just takes a little bit of courage.”
Clasping a sign that said, “We won’t go back,” Oak Hill teacher Carol Bolton Kappel said, “Our democracy is in danger. … [The] only way the tides are going to shift is if we stand up.”
Reflecting on her work, she said it has been “tough teaching civics these days.” In the Newton Public Schools, staff emphasize that children should be “upstanders” and understand the red flags indicating parallels to other times in history where democracy has been in jeopardy.
“They get it,” she said of her students who know about the importance of freedom of the press and the dangers of polarization.
Like McNeil, Kappel said she was not nervous about participating in the Newton protest and “exercising First Amendment rights.”
Most of the protesters appeared to be middle-aged or older, with a few younger participants throughout the crowd.
A family who brought their two young children stood holding political signs as cars drove by.
One parent, who asked to remain anonymous out of safety concerns, said they came to the No Kings protest to exercise their Constitutional rights “and we want our children to see that.”
The 10-year-old child, whose parents asked that no name be used, summed up the feelings of many fellow protestors when they said, “I feel like it’s important to be here as a citizen of America.”
