{"id":364307,"date":"2026-03-29T13:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T13:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/364307\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T13:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T13:52:07","slug":"want-to-continue-demonstrating-after-the-no-kings-protests-heres-what-you-can-do-next-protest-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/364307\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to continue demonstrating after the No Kings protests? Here\u2019s what you can do next | Protest (US)"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 8 million people showed up across 3,300 No Kings<\/a> protests on Saturday, calling for an end to the war in Iran, immigration agents in their communities and what they see as Trump\u2019s creeping authoritarianism. Organizers say it\u2019s the greatest number of protests in a single day in US history.<\/p>\n

But movement scholars say social change doesn\u2019t begin and end with one protest. It takes activism at the local and national level, and in a variety of forms, to bring about change.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo Kings was conceived to unite a cross-movement push against authoritarianism. And there is not one way to fight it,\u201d said Leah Greenberg, a co-executive director of the Indivisible Project, which founded the No Kings movement. \u201cWe see No Kings as part of a tapestry of defiance that is going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the past year, Americans have demanded change through a variety of actions. When Donald Trump sent federal agents into Los Angeles<\/a> and Chicago<\/a>, people rallied in the streets and called for \u201cICE Out!\u201d When consumers wanted to express disapproval of corporations\u2019 ties to Trump, they initiated boycotts<\/a> of Target, Tesla and Amazon. When students were upset at the presence of ICE agents in their schools and communities, they organized walkouts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cProtests build power by garnering attention and pulling people off the sidelines into action,\u201d said Hahrie Han, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Prisms of the People: Power and Organizing in Twenty-First-Century America. \u201cAnd if we look historically and across different movements, change is often a combination of people taking action through a variety of means and then leaders negotiating for power given the actions that people have taken.\u201d<\/p>\n

Han pointed to activists in Minnesota who were able to pass a raft of progressive and pro-labor laws in 2023<\/a> \u2013 paid family and medical leave and driver\u2019s licenses for undocumented residents, among others \u2013 as an example of successful movement building by organizing with multiracial coalitions, strategizing with legislators and negotiating proposed legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the most generous social safety nets in the country, and organizers were able to put grassroots energy together with institutional politics,\u201d said Han.<\/p>\n

No Kings\u2019 success, organizers say, will be defined by whether attendees have signed up to organize in their communities and follow through on other actions, like know-your-rights trainings and mutual aid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we think is actually important are the ways in which these large-scale gatherings fuel ongoing organizing that might look like economic non-cooperation, local mutual aid organizing or legislative advocacy at the state or local level,\u201d said Greenberg. \u201cIt\u2019s all connected if we do it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at how these efforts have worked over time.<\/p>\n

Protest<\/p>\n

Some of the earliest protests in America include covert and overt acts that enslaved people took to object to bondage, including working slowly in the fields, breaking or misplacing tools, setting fires or running away. Enslaved people also attempted to free themselves by organizing armed rebellions and revolts.<\/p>\n

Occupation has historically been another effective form of protest. Throughout the 1900s, Indigenous Americans protested US treaty violations by occupying Alcatraz Island, Mount Rushmore and the bureau of Indian affairs building to demand land back.<\/p>\n

Indigenous Americans at Alcatraz settle into their new \u2018home\u2019 on an abandoned missile base, as part of a 19-month occupation to protest broken treaties and Indigenous sovereignty. Photograph: Bettmann\/Bettmann Archive<\/p>\n

But probably the most recognizable form of protest is the one in the streets, immortalized in the marches, freedom rides and sit-ins of the civil rights movement for social justice and equal rights in the 1950s and 1960s.<\/p>\n

Over the past 10 years, numerous mass protests have swept through the country<\/a>, including March for Our Lives in 2018 to demand stricter gun control measures, the Black Lives Matter protests, triggered by the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, and the No Kings protests against the Trump administration last October. In 2025, the first year of Trump\u2019s second term, more people protested in the streets<\/a> than in 2017, the first year of his first term, according to data from the open-source project Crowd Counting Consortium<\/p>\n

\u201cThe amount of people protesting is record-breaking,\u201d said Hunter Dunn, an organizer with the grassroots organization 50501, which co-founded No Kings. \u201cThere\u2019s also enthusiasm for using protests as a launchpad to get people involved in local organizing \u2013 whether it\u2019s election defense with the midterms coming up, or immigrants\u2019 rights organizing or organizing against AI data centers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rally, march and parade<\/p>\n

During rallies, people often gather at parks, on streets and other public locations to bring attention to a cause. A street protest or march can also culminate in a rally, where participants take turns speaking, performing music or leafleting attendees to share goals and literature about the cause.<\/p>\n

Much like \u201crally\u201d, \u201cmarch\u201d and \u201cparade\u201d are also terms used interchangeably with \u201cprotest\u201d. In 1913, suffragists held the Women\u2019s Suffrage Parade to draw attention to how women could vote in only nine states.<\/p>\n

In 2017, activists held the first Women\u2019s March the day after Trump\u2019s first inauguration, protesting his rhetoric and platform as misogynistic and an overall threat to women. Activists and scholars have credited the march with driving the #MeToo<\/a> movement and a record number of women to participate in the 2018 midterm elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was something special and different when people said #MeToo,\u201d Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women\u2019s Law Center, told the Guardian. \u201cWe had worked on issues related to harassment and gender-based violence over many decades. But the #MeToo movement really gave people a framework to speak out and name their experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

General strike<\/p>\n

Labor unions have a rich history of protest in the US, particularly in the form of a strike or a work stoppage in which workers demand better conditions, including healthcare benefits, on-the-job safety protections and higher wages.<\/p>\n

A general strike is much larger; it\u2019s when a sizable portion of the workforce in a certain town or region stops working to bring about economic or social change.<\/p>\n

The first general strike in North America was in 1835 in Philadelphia, where 20,000 workers across 40 sectors demanded a 10-hour workday and fairer wages. In the end, they won \u2013 incorporating rallies, parades and newspaper campaigns to secure 10-hour workdays for skilled and unskilled workers in the city \u2013 and became the catalyst of labor organizing in the US.<\/p>\n

After federal immigration agents killed Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti this January, organizers called for a national general strike of \u201cno school, no work, and no shopping\u201d to protest the presence and brutality of federal agents in the city. Thousands in Minnesota participated in protests, hundreds of businesses closed and work stoppages occurred across a variety of sectors, backed by labor unions.<\/p>\n

Protesters cast shadows on the sidewalk at the entrance to the UC Berkeley campus during a demonstration. Photograph: San Francisco Chronicle\/Hearst Newspapers\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThose of us in the trade union movement understand the leverage and power that our labor has, and we are going to try and use that, because really there\u2019s nothing else left,\u201d Kieran Knutson, the president of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 7250 in Minneapolis, told the Guardian in January<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Boycott and divestment<\/p>\n

Boycotts of corporations have historically involved a refusal to purchase their products or engage with their services, with the hope that punitive pressure can change attitudes and behaviors. Alternatively, a \u201cprocott\u201d involves shifting resources to entities that people want to support \u2013 such as small local businesses \u2013 as they suspend support for others.<\/p>\n

In the 1930s, Black Americans led \u201cDon\u2019t Buy Where You Can\u2019t Work\u201d campaigns in northern cities to advocate for Black jobs at white-owned businesses in Black neighborhoods. The boycotts and picketing, in which protesters stood outside of businesses and held signs, created jobs for Black workers<\/a> during the Depression.<\/p>\n

Divestments are a related form of protest. In 1985, UC Berkeley students demanded the university divest from South Africa in protest against apartheid. Students led rallies, teach-ins and encampments to pressure the university. A year later, the University of California board of regents voted to divest $3bn from companies with ties to South Africa.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Americans\u2019 boycott of Target \u2013 after the company rolled back its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts \u2013 had an impact: Target acknowledged<\/a> the boycott was one of the reasons sales were down last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are reclaiming our power,\u201d LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, told the Guardian during a Black Friday boycott<\/a> the group helped spearhead last year. \u201cWe are redirecting our spending. And we are resisting this rise to authoritarianism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mutual aid<\/p>\n

Under an ethos of \u201csolidarity,\u201d mutual aid involves a network of volunteers gathering resources \u2013\u00a0food, housing assistance and childcare \u2013\u00a0to support the needs of people in their communities.<\/p>\n

In response to the HIV\/Aids crisis of the 1980s, LGBTQ+ groups across the country developed care networks<\/a> to support vulnerable community members. During the coronavirus pandemic, local organizations across the country stepped up to help low-income families, frontline workers and immunocompromised people through grocery delivery programs. One such aid program<\/a> in Brooklyn, New York, supported 28,000 people with groceries between March 2020 and June 2021.<\/p>\n

An unidentified man helps a group of kids with their coats during a free breakfast for children program sponsored by the Black Panther Party in winter 1969 in New York. Photograph: Bev Grant\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

During Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis in January, in which 3,000 ICE agents killed two Minneapolis residents and arrested hundreds, mutual aid networks<\/a> were vital for distributing food, money and diapers to immigrant families sheltering in place out of fear of being stopped by ICE.<\/p>\n

Brittany Kubricky, a Minneapolis resident, told the Guardian earlier this year she was organizing donations, grocery deliveries and school pick-ups from her dining room table. \u201cI haven\u2019t really ever done something like this before,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is just something I tried, and it happens to be working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walkout<\/p>\n

When students and employees walk out of schools or workplaces to express their disapproval over a certain issue, the idea is to do so in numbers \u2013 the more people who participate, the more impactful the message.<\/p>\n

In 1968, 15,000 students walked out en masse as part of the East Los Angeles Walkouts<\/a> to protest disparities in educational outcomes between white American and Mexican American students. After the walkout, students submitted demands to the Los Angeles board of education to improve the bilingual education curriculum, among other issues. Even though police arrested organizers and the board rejected their demands, the walkout was one of the largest student protests in history.<\/p>\n

Founding co-editor of La Raza Ruth Robinson (right) with Margarita Sanchez at the Belmont high shool walkout, part of a series of 1968 student protests for education reform in LA. Photograph: Los Angeles Herald Examiner Photograph Collection<\/p>\n

Walkouts remain a viable protest tactic for young people today, including to voice their grievances against ICE. \u201cThis was our way to make our voices heard,\u201d Lark Jeffers told the Guardian after participating in the Free America walkout<\/a> on 20 January in Silver Spring, Maryland. \u201cBecause at the end of the day, we\u2019re 16 \u2013 what we say isn\u2019t going to make the lawmaker listen to us.<\/p>\n

Teach-in<\/p>\n

This longtime form of protest is about sharing knowledge. Activists and protest leaders spend time lecturing people in the movement about their causes, often opening debate and discussion as a means of raising awareness and spurring further action.<\/p>\n

Teach-ins were popularized during the Vietnam war when students used them to discuss the war draft and strategies to curtail the US government\u2019s involvement abroad. The first teach-in, which included lectures, debates and films, took place at the University of Michigan in 1965 and was attended by 3,500 students and supporting faculty members. The teach-in boosted the national anti-war movement and inspired other campuses to protest and hold teach-ins of their own.<\/p>\n

A scene from the first 1965 teach-in at University of Michigan Photograph: Photo by Doug Fulton, courtesy of Anna Fulton<\/p>\n

Teach-ins once again became popular on US college campuses in 2024 as Israel bombed the Gaza Strip following Hamas\u2019 attack. The teach-ins<\/a>, often in student encampments, educated participants about the long fight for Palestinian freedom and the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to isolate Israel economically, politically and culturally over its oppression of Palestinians.<\/p>\n

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