Bay Area residents opposed to the administration of President Donald Trump began pouring into parks and other sites as “No Kings” rallies kicked off, part of a nationwide day of defiance.
Recent outrage over this week’s takedown by Secret Service agents of California’s senior U.S. Senator, Democrat Alex Padilla, along with Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines in Los Angeles, was compounded by worries after a gunman shot and killed Minnesota state legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark on Saturday, and wounded another Minnesota lawmaker and his wife.
“We heard it on the news this morning,” Jake Smith of Napa, who joined his girlfriend from Pittsburgh at the No Kings protest in Walnut Creek on Saturday. “We thought it was a way to sow fear in people. I feel it’s still important to be here. We were going to be here anyway.”
Others passing by as protesters packed the Broadway Plaza in Walnut Creek voiced concern that the shootings were intended to deter people from attending No Kings events.
In downtown San Jose at St. James Park, hundreds of families with children mingled with older protesters in the sunny noon hour, some waving multicolored signs lampooning Donald Trump, and calling for unity and to “reject kings.”
Organizers speaking to the crowd in San Jose urged the crowd not to incite or respond to violence.
Elijah Hoying of San Jose came with his mother to his first protest out of concern for immigration issues and, the teenager said, “where we’re headed right now.” Hoying said protests in Los Angeles over the seizure and deportations of people in the country without permission “inspired me to do what I can.”
San Jose resident Susan Hayase, 69, said she came out because she sees parallels between the Japanese internment camps of WWII and the administration’s immigration crackdown. “We are an immigrant community,” Hayase said. “We were slandered, we were denied due process.” She and her organization San Jose Nikkei Resisters are fighting to repeal the Alien Enemies Act, which the Trump administration has cited to justify deportation of migrants. “This country has to learn that everyone deserves due process,” Hayase said.
A minute of silence was held at near the start of the San Jose event for the Minnesota shooting victims, while in Walnut Creek, East Bay Democratic Rep. Mark DeSaulnier initiated a similar call for a moment of quiet “out of respect for those people who lost their lives to meaningless violence.”
Protests large and small were set for Saturday throughout the Bay Area, from banner-hangings on overpasses, to major gatherings in San Jose’s St. James Park, and in Oakland’s Wilma Chan Park where attendees were streaming in around noon. One event takes aim at Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who until a recent break with Trump led the controversial Department of Government Efficiency. Protest organizers hope to create a seven-mile human chain down El Camino Real between Tesla dealerships in Palo Alto and Sunnyvale.
At the Oakland event, retired San Leandro resident Carla Dillard Smith said she was “really concerned that democracy is being rolled back.” Smith attended the protest, she said, “because I need to be a part of the solution. I need to do something.”
Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee stood on stage in front of a sign-waving crowd, saying, “We are going to protect our democracy. We are not going to allow this country, our country, to devolve into an autocracy.” She also called on attendees to “circle the wagons” and “make sure that our immigrant community knows that we stand with them.”
In Walnut Creek,12- year-old Rory Nolan of Pleasant Hill made her own cardboard sign — a crown with a red line across it — to join her mother, her 15-year-old brother and her grandparents, from Lafayette, at the protest. “We don’t want this terrible person leading this country,” the rising 8th grader said. “He’s not doing what people thought he would do. He’s making it worse.”
The girl’s grandmother, Kathy Nolan, of Lafayette, and other family members expressed particular outage over the manhandling of Padilla at U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s press conference, though they had planned to come to the protest anyway. Nolan also said she had no concerns about bringing the kids, saying she had come several times before over the past few months and the protests had always been peaceful.
The protests are organized by Indivisible, an organization founded in 2016 after Trump was elected for his first term.
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The day of dissent across a nation deeply divided politically comes as the Trump administration is engaged in an aggressive campaign to deport migrants and immigrants, sparking widespread protests, including in Los Angeles. The president’s takeover and deployment of California’s National Guard to Los Angeles, and his mobilization of U.S. Marines to that city, have ratcheted up tensions.
Videos taken Thursday showing Padilla being taken down and handcuffed by Secret Service agents during a news conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday in Los Angeles were likely to boost interest in Saturday’s No Kings protests, political analysts said.
The Trump administration has infuriated Democrats by slashing federal staff and programs, as well as funding for scientific, medical and atmospheric research, as it seeks to combat efforts to address racial and gender inequality and climate change.
Trump in a February social media post likened himself to a king over his administration’s attack on fees for entering New York City by car. On Thursday, he spoke about the No Kings events. “I don’t feel like a king,” Trump said at the White House. “I have to go through hell to get stuff approved.”
No Kings organizers scheduled the “nationwide day of defiance” for the same day as Trump’s $45 million military parade in Washington, D.C. celebrating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, which coincides with his birthday. Trump at the White House on Thursday said of the parade, “If there’s any protester wants to come out, they will be met with very big force.”
Indivisible has a stated policy of non-violence, and Saturday’s protests are intended to be “a very thoughtful, calm, non-violent expression of resistance,” Nagel said.
Iconic folk singer and political activist Joan Baez was set to appear at Rinconada Park in Palo Alto on Saturday afternoon, along with South Bay and Peninsula Democratic Congressman Sam Liccardo and others.
“In the ’60s and the ’70s we still had laws that somebody paid attention to,” Baez, of Woodside, said by phone this week. “We had a Constitution that people were really attentive to. That’s all crumbling now. It’ s a pretty big leap downhill for a country that really has been a country that people look up to, rightfully or wrongfully.”
Nancy Nagel, a leader of Indivisible’s mid-Peninsula chapter, said the No Kings protests were intended “to demonstrate that citizens are not going to go quietly into the night while Trump is executing this authoritarian takeover of our entire country.”
“I don’t feel like a king,” Trump said at the White House. “I have to go through hell to get stuff approved.”
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Baez said she remains committed to the non-violence that has guided her activism since high school. Raised Quaker, she offers an aphorism from that pacifist religion when asked about Trump supporters.
“There is an expression the Quakers have: ‘There is that of God in every man.’ And of course now it’s ‘man and woman.’ It’s hard to remember that now, but those people are sacred on this earth,” Baez said.