Thousands of peaceful protesters took to Bay Area streets on Saturday amid nationwide “No Kings” rallies that cast President Donald Trump as an authoritarian ruler intent on subverting opponents and U.S. institutions.
Democratic-aligned groups in the Bay Area organized about 50 protests in San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Walnut Creek, Hayward, Pittsburg and a slew of other cities and towns.
“History has its eyes on you,” read one sign hoisted by Louise Sumpter of Santa Clara. “Democracy is for everybody, and we need to fight for it,” she said.
Nationally, millions of protesters clogged streets and public squares in major cities and tiny towns from New York City to Boston, Chicago and San Diego. Police estimated 100,000 had rallied in New York City alone and said they had made zero arrests related to the “peaceful” gatherings. Thousands of protests drew residents in suburbs and rural communities, including areas that helped propel Trump into his second term.
After activists began gathering in downtown San Jose at noon, organizers estimated that more than 10,000 people had turned out. They held signs condemning Trump and his approach to governing: “Moron with a war on,” read one sign; “ICE is the Gestapo,” read another.
Among the protesters at St. James Park in San Jose was Isabella Moreno, 20, who moved to San Jose a week ago from the Central Valley and is searching for a job as an emergency medical technician.
Moreno said the Trump administration posed a threat to Medicare and Medicaid. She said she also attended the protest to stump for Measure A, Santa Clara County’s proposed five-eighths-of-a-cent sales tax increase to counteract the estimated billion dollars annually in lost federal revenue to the county.
“No Kings,” Moreno said. “The only real king is God.”
The Saturday protests — which Republicans had characterized as “hate America” rallies — focused on a slew of issues, from defending gay rights and climate action to protesters’ calls of “getting rid of the dictator,” said Larry Gerston, a political science professor at San Jose State University.
“We know that there are massive numbers of people who have their issues with the Trump administration,” Gerston said.
The national “day of action” was the third major show of public defiance since Trump took office again in January and began his push to dramatically reshape the American government and economy. In June, more than 140,000 attended anti-Trump protests in the Bay Area. The protests were largely peaceful.
Organizers said they were committed to nonviolence.
Trump has recently pushed back against his characterization as a king. However, in February, the White House posted an image of Trump on a fictional Time Magazine cover wearing a crown. “LONG LIVE THE KING,” said the post on X.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican ally of the president, has blasted the marches as un-American dens of “pro-Hamas” and “Marxist” agitators. Earlier this week, Johnson said Democratic lawmakers in Washington, D.C., were seeking to drag out the ongoing partial shutdown of the federal government.
Republican rhetoric didn’t appear to give protesters pause in the Bay Area on Saturday, and local Republicans appeared to stay on the sidelines. Rallies in Oakland and San Jose did not see significant counter-protests.
A spokesperson for California GOP Chair Corrin Rankin did not respond to a text seeking comment on Democrats painting Trump as authoritarian. Calls to Republican officials in Santa Clara County, Contra Costa County and Alameda County were not immediately returned.
In San Francisco, hundreds of activists went viral for creating a “human banner” at Ocean Beach that read “No Kings” and “Yes on 50” — a nod to Proposition 50 and the Nov. 4 election, when voters will decide the fate of Democrats’ plan to gerrymander the state’s congressional districts in response to similar tactics by Texas Republicans.
About 20 minutes before a demonstration started in Walnut Creek, hundreds gathered in the East Bay city’s downtown shopping center. It was the first-ever protest for 78-year-old Concord resident Pay Saye.
“I’ve never felt more afraid of losing the America I grew up in,” she said, adding that Trump “is ruining everything we believe in — America and how it started.” She was especially concerned about the “erosion of checks and balances” under the Trump administration.
In Oakland, the rally at Lake Merritt may have seemed more like a celebration than an urgent protest were it not for signage declaring that the U.S. was giving way to fascism. Melvin Doweary, an 80-year-old Oakland resident, held a poster depicting the word “democracy” as letter blocks tumbling apart.
“This is as bad as I’ve ever seen it,” Doweary said of the Trump administration. “I don’t know where this goes from here.”
The peaceful atmosphere became more excited when a flood of thousands more demonstrators arrived to the lake’s amphitheater, having marched from Wilma Chan Park a half-mile away. The rally’s emcee, Oakland school board Vice President Valarie Bachelor, estimated 10,000 people were present.
Mayor Barbara Lee framed her speech at Saturday’s rally in Oakland around patriotism — the kind, she said, that protects civil liberties instead of “tearing apart our democracy.”
“We cannot let them shrink democracy while they shout freedom,” Lee said. “We cannot let them crown a king while they wave our flag.”
Jinsu Elhance, 26, created a sign asking fellow protesters to imagine Oakland’s future beyond the Trump administration. Another protester scrawled that the city should “stand with unions.” Draped over with a Palestinian flag, a sign urged “housing for everyone who lives here.”
“There’s so much more going on in the world than just this president,” said Elhance, a former Oakland resident who recently started living in his van in the East Bay. “This moment is incredibly important, but if we can’t use our imagination to picture what it is that we are moving toward, then we are going to trip over ourselves in the process.”
Bay Area News Group writer Martha Ross contributed to this developing story.
Originally Published: October 18, 2025 at 10:53 AM PDT