Demonstrators gathered at Main and University on Jan. 9 for a candlelight vigil for Renee Good, who was shot dead by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.
KANDAS MERRIAM
If the Trump administration’s detention-deportation approach was to scare Americans to shut up and go home, it backfired say people helping to arrange another coast-co-coast rally this month.
National and local organizers think the public will respond with greater involvement on March 28 in reaction to tactics used by armed and masked federal agents seizing, fighting or even killing people without warrants or proof of their targets being the “worst of the worst” criminals.
Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-director of Indivisible, one of the groups behind the nationwide “No Kings” protests, recently spoke to Katie Herchenroeder, a contributor at Mother Jones magazine, and he said the next “No Kings” protest could have the largest turnout of the three, which started last June.
Organizers in metro Peoria commenting to The Community Word agreed.
“[The first] ‘No Kings’ was an effort to provide a stark narrative contrast to (President) Trump’s version of reality,” Levin said. “He was throwing himself a ridiculous military birthday parade for himself, as authoritarians do. We wanted to make clear that he was small and weak and that the people were against him. The second ‘No Kings’ [in October] was largely in response to sending the National Guard to invade and occupy American cities. I think the third ‘No Kings’ is a response to the secret police force that’s terrorizing American communities.
“We had 147,000 people register for the ‘Eyes on ICE’ training in January. These 147,000 people saw (a) secret police force assault and murder fellow Americans, and one natural response you could imagine would be that people could do what the regime wants them to do, which is to be quiet and go home and not show up. Instead, we have the largest number of people ever to attend a training to learn how to do exactly what Renee Good and Alex Pretti were doing. (Both were killed by ICE agents n Minneapolis.) The attendance tells me that there’s real demand for this.”
Indeed, after that training of protesters on exercising First Amendment rights in nonviolent ways, the final number of participants was more than 200,000.
In Peoria, where some 6,000 people participated in “No Kings 2.0” at Peoria Stadium on Oct. 18, Ann Schreifels of Peoria’s Democracy 309 group of activists says, “There are a lot of people who, for the last year, may have been upset about what was happening, may have opposed what was happening, but may have not been actively engaged in pushing back.”
Levin feels the same way: “I think we all feel powerless watching our government lie, cheat, steal and kill,” he said. “But when we come together in a public display of solidarity we show the world that the citizens of the United States are not supporting the authoritarian regime headed by an addled, racist old man in the White House.
“It’s not all about just a one-day protest,” he continued. “We are developing organizational capacity that allows us to pull off historic levels of engagement in between these tentpole events. The ‘No Kings’ coalition is not just Indivisible, not just 50501, or MoveOn, or Working Families Party, or ACLU. We’ve all been working together.
“This is a movement that is being led and directed at the local level,” he added, “and I think that’s why it’s been so successful. When it comes to actually defending your community, you should not be looking to some talking head on TV. You should be gathering in your community with your neighbors and figuring it out yourself, because nobody’s going to save you but you.”
Peorian Jim Haptonstahl says, “Given the growing public sentiment against the lawlessness, cruelty, corruption and racism of the fascist regime, we at Peoria 50501 expect turnout for No Kings 3.0 will well exceed that of our October event, and we’re planning accordingly for a major outpouring for democracy.”
In Tazewell County, Mari Osborne of the Fired Up! group, says, “I am 100% optimistic about the upcoming ‘No Kings’ protest. Every day we wake up to this Republican administration’s created chaos, stress, fear and anger — people are ready to make some noise and stand together in unity. We have plenty of time to plan and get the word out; it’s going to be huge.
“I really am Fired Up! about it!”