Atlanta’s No Kings rally drew thousands of residents on Saturday in opposition to the Trump administration’s agenda and perceived authoritarianism.
One of dozens of protests held across the country, the crowd of an estimated 10,000 people first met at the Atlanta Civic Center, where they heard from speakers including Democrats Stacey Abrams and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and advocates like Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia.
Attendees carried signs calling out the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrants, freedom of speech in higher education, reproductive rights, racial justice, and federal workers.
“We have a paramilitary called ICE that’s breaking into houses and arresting people,” Abrams said during her remarks, referencing Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We have the National Guard occupying our country, occupying our cities. We have a military occupation of Washington, D.C., and if we heard that on the news anywhere else we would be up in arms.”
The crowd cheered on Abby Tighe, co-founder of Fired but Fighting, an organization of people laid off by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this year. She specifically called out the current administration’s misinformation campaign around vaccines and medical research linking it to the August shooting at the CDC that killed DeKalb County police officer David Rose.
Despite the weighty subject matter of the day, the crowd maintained an overwhelmingly enthusiastic atmosphere.
“They want us to believe that we’re in danger if we speak up, that we’re in danger if we aggregate. That if we assemble like the First Amendment tells us we can, that there’s a problem,” Abrams said.
Thousands of attendees were escorted by Atlanta police officers as they marched the 1.3 miles to the Georgia State Capitol.
The next day, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that the protests were “a joke” and denied accusations that he acts like a monarch. He also suggested the protesters may have been paid by George Soros, a high profile Democratic Party donor.
