As many as 220,000 protestors took to the streets across Bay Area cities Saturday as part of a nationwide “No Kings” protest that aimed at pushing back against what protestors viewed as President Donald Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, according to a survey of organizers conducted by Bay Area News Group.
The hundreds of thousands of partipcants joined nearly 7 million protestors nationwide who gathered peacefully in 2,700 cities from coast to coast, according to a press release from No Kings.
From San Francisco to Oakland to San Jose, protestors held signs reading “History has its eyes on you” and “ICE is the Gestapo” — with key issues for protestors ranging from garnering support for Proposition 50 to opposing Trump’s immigration crackdown. More than 60 protests were planned from Santa Rosa to Gilroy and marked the largest local turnout in a protest since Trump took office in January.
“Every single time we do this, it’s a flex … What we’re communicating with the world (is) that we’re here and we care about the country and we’re not giving up,” said Nancy Latham, an organizer with Indivisible East Bay. “When you see 7 million people at more than … 2,500 gatherings across the country, from tiny towns to huge mobilizations in Chicago and New York, we see ourselves, we see each other, we can feel our collective power.”
The weekend’s protests follow a steady stream of nationwide days of protest in recent months — including a “No Kings” protest in June that mobilized more than 140,000 people around the Bay Area. Other notable protests included a “Hands Off” protest in April that drew attendance in the thousands and a “No Kings” protest two weeks later that drew smaller crowds.
“Because the banner of ‘No Kings’ is so broad, people come with all the things that they particularly care about,” Latham added.
Organizers used a variety of methods to estimate attendance at the protests, including aerial photography analysis, calculations based on crowd density and police counts. A Bay Area News Group calculation of the totals showed the high end of the estimates at over 224,000 and more than 162,000 people on the low end.
The San Francisco march and rally was estimated to have between 101,193 and 144,163 attendees based on a tally by Harvard University’s Crowd Counting Consortium, said Liliana Soroceanu, an organizer with Indivisible San Francisco.
Indivisible East Bay estimated that between 20,000 and 30,000 protestors joined in the Oakland march and rally, according to the organization. That is more than double the number of attendees at the June “No Kings” protest, which saw about 10,000 attendees.
In San Jose, organizers believe that at least 10,000 and possibly up to 15,000 people joined in on the protest, said James Kuszmaul, an organizer with 50501 San Jose, which organized the protest. That marks a similar turnout to June’s protest, which saw about 12,000 protesters.
“We were thrilled with the turnout. It showed that as with in June and many of the prior events, people care deeply about these issues,” Kuszmaul said. “It is also a sign of the severe problems that we’re trying to address — that the abuses of the Trump administration have been so egregious that people still feel a need to keep turning out when many of the people at these protests have never been to a protest before, have only started attending protests this year.”
Walnut Creek’s protest had between 7,950 and 11,930 attendees, said Kathryn Durham-Hammer, an organizer with Indivsible ReSisters.
Smaller cities also saw notable turnouts. On the Peninsula, a parade and “democracy fair” planned in Palo Alto had about 10,000 attendees between both, said Mariya Genzel, an organizer with It’s Blue Turn. A protest along 16 major intersections on El Camino Real between Sunnyvale and Palo Alto attracted an estimated 7,500 attendees, said IdaRose Sylvester, an organizer with Together We Will.
“We are thrilled with the enthusiasm people showed, the peaceful and joyful crowds, and the support of our communities,” Sylvester said.
A protest in Berkeley had a turnout of about 1,000, said David McGuire, director of organizer Shark Stewards, adding that it was “joyful, peaceful and impactful.”
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A protest in San Mateo had attendance of about 4,000, according to a social media post from Indivisible San Mateo. One in Colma had about 500, according to a social media post from Colma Indivisble.
National organizers added that the nationwide turnout was 14 times larger than Trump’s two inaugurations combined.
“Authoritarians want us to believe resistance is futile, but every person who turned out today proved the opposite,” Indivisible co-founders Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg said in a statement Saturday. “This movement isn’t about a single protest; it’s about a growing chorus of Americans who refuse to be ruled. Trump may want a crown, but in this country, there are no kings.”