Cole said she felt compelled to mark the milestone at the large demonstration because it’s a “scary time” for Americans and democracy is at stake.
“It seems to me, (Trump is) taking our government, our democracy, and dismantling it piece by piece, slowly, but surely, if we sit by and don’t do anything about it,” Cole said.
The event was one of more than 2,700 “No Kings” rallies held across the country on Saturday, protesting what organizers describe as President Donald Trump’s “authoritarian” agenda. That’s hundreds more events than were planned for the first go-round in June, when about 5 million people across the country took to the streets to protest Trump’s administration as he held a military parade in Washington.
Nearly 7 million people showed up for Saturday’s rallies – including more than 100,000 people in New York, organizers and officials said. Along with larger events in major cities, small pockets of “No Kings” protesters cropped up along busy thoroughfares, in small town squares and at municipal parks in red and blue states alike.
Thousands of protesters fill New York's Times Square during a "No Kings" protest Saturday.
The largely peaceful protests followed a tumultuous summer of mass immigration raids, demonstrations against federal immigration enforcement and the deployment of federal troops into Democratic-led cities.
Trouble came later in the day when some individuals targeted protesters: A woman in South Carolina was arrested for brandishing a firearm while driving near a demonstration and a man in Georgia was seen on video taking a protester’s flag and pushing another demonstrator to the ground.
While the Trump administration and some GOP officials have painted anti-Trump protests as the work of “violent left-wing radicals,” the organization behind the “No Kings” events, the Indivisible Project, says it is committed to “nonviolent action” and had trained tens of thousands of people in safety and de-escalation. That became especially important amid growing political violence across the country, some organizers said.
Some demonstrators wore yellow – a symbol of unity and a reference to other nonviolent resistance movements, according to organizers. “Yellow is a bright, unmistakable reminder that millions of us stand together in the belief that America belongs to its people, not to kings,” reads a flyer on the “No Kings” website.
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A protester dres
A protester dres
Protesters could be heard loudly cheering and chanting slogans into megaphones, including, “This is what democracy looks like,” and “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” They waved American flags along with signs opposing ICE, authoritarianism and billionaires.
CNN field teams spoke with attendees at rallies across the country. Here’s what protesters had to say:
‘We can all save democracy’
Many protesters emphasized the importance of democracy – an institution they fear is eroding with Trump’s attempts to expand executive power.
“We’re a democracy. And that, in a democracy, people can stand up and voice their opinions. And that we are not going to be silenced,” Joan Press told CNN at a protest in Atlanta.
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A rally that kicked off the Atlanta protest featured high-profile speakers, including Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia.
“In this moment, in which we are seeing a president and an administration arrogating to himself power that doesn’t belong to him, our message is very clear,” Warnock later told CNN. “This is not about the people in power, it’s about the power in the people.”
Kimberly Diemert, an organizer and communications director for the Georgia chapter of 50501, a “decentralized” movement that has helped lead the wave of nationwide protests, reminded the crowd about the city’s civil rights lega
“Atlanta is the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement as well as democracy … we don’t want to lose that,” Diemert said.
In New York City, one demonstrator held a sign reading: “We protest because we love America, and we want it back.”
The protester, who asked not to be named for privacy reasons, said she’s been protesting since the 1960s, but this time feels different.
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People attend a "No Kings" protest in New York on Saturday.
“In the 60s we wanted to expand rights – women’s rights, gay rights, minority rights, voting rights,” she said. “But all that’s being taken away now. Now our entire democracy is being threatened, the basic tenets, the press, the judiciary.”
She described feel
