Tens of thousands of New Yorkers are hitting the streets of Manhattan on a rain-soaked Saturday for the “No Kings Day” march against President Trump and his administration’s increasingly autocratic rule of the country.
The phalanx of protesters headed up 5th Avenue to Bryant Park, where numerous speakers were set to address the huge crowd. The gathering has been largely peaceful a day after Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD officials warned participants that acts of violence would not be tolerated.
The New York City “No Kings Day” march coincides with thousands of other demonstrations across the United States being held as Trump celebrates his 79th birthday and the Army’s 250th anniversary with a military parade in Washington, DC. It comes at a time where the Trump regime has increased deportation efforts against undocumented Americans and after Trump called in the California National Guard to squash protests in Los Angeles — a move considered by many to be an overreach of federal power.
“There’s a thing called the US Constitution that enshrines all of our rights, regardless of immigration status in this country, and we are going to continue to fight to uphold the law,” said Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition. “We are going to fight to ensure that all of us have rights, because if some of us do not, none of us do.”
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said that those who oppose Trump’s actions would not “be bullied into silence.”
“We will not stand by and let him demonize immigrants, separate families and upend our neighborhoods,” Lieberman said. “We will not let him use his cruel deportation crusade as an excuse to call out the National Guard and turn our cities into occupied territory.”
“Today shows that we the people have the power,” Lieberman added. “We the people will continue to stand together and speak out as long as it takes. We will not bend the knee to a wannabe king. We will bend the arc of history towards justice.”
National organizers said the “No Kings Day” movement is a “nationwide day of defiance … to reject authoritarianism—and show the world what democracy really looks like.”
The marches went on despite news Saturday that two Democratic Minnesota state lawmakers were shot, one fatally, in what the state’s governor, Tim Walz, described as a “targeted political assassination.”
This is a developing story; additional coverage later on amNY.com.
