Thousands of people rallied in Downtown Pittsburgh on Saturday afternoon, calling for “No Kings” in America.
The protest joined national “No Kings” protests condemning President Donald Trump’s deployment of federal troops in U.S. cities and enhanced ICE raids, among other policies. Indivisible Pittsburgh organized the protest at the City-County Building, where public officials and local advocates spoke to demonstrators holding signs, waving American flags and wearing inflatable animal costumes.
The first “No Kings” rallies took place in June at the same time Trump held a military parade in Washington D.C. The protests have received pushback from Republicans, who are calling the Oct. 18 protests the “Hate America Rally.”
The protestors then marched down Grant Street to Mellon Square, holding signs that read “ICE is not welcome here” and “History is Repeating Itself ” while waving American flags and chanting, “this is what democracy looks like.”
From the steps of the City-County building, Congresswoman Summer Lee (D-Swissvale) told the crowd to stand in “radical solidarity” with marginalized people, especially those “being hunted by ICE.” She advised the crowd to be ready to fight for freedom and added that while she is away from Congress due to the government shutdown, she will advocate for her constituents.
“An authoritarian needs people who are silent,” Lee said. “[Congressmen are] going to be wherever our people need us to be, and right now, people need us to remind them that in a democracy, that as long as we have one, that means that power belongs to the people.”
Pennsylvania congresswoman Summer Lee addresses the crowd at the No Kings Protest on Saturday in downtown Pittsburgh.
(Alex Jurkuta | Contributing Editor)
In an interview with The Pitt News, Lee said Trump is becoming more severe in his actions every day as a political strategy.
“What he’s doing is he’s stress-testing the system — seeing what we’re willing to accept, what we’re willing to fight back against, seeing how far he can take things,” Lee said. “Every indicator right now is that he can take it a little bit farther every single time.”
Protesters of all ages, from students to retirees, lined the streets of Downtown. Oliver Rosen, a junior biochemistry and English writing major at Pitt, said he attended to stand up for transgender rights, women’s rights and — particularly — immigrants’ rights.
“I think it is absolutely deplorable, the way ICE is handling the treatments of immigrants in our country,” Rosen said. “We should be standing with our constitution. I think that due process is important, and it’s not being given to immigrants in this country.”
Sofiah Bozenske, a sophomore music education student at Duquesne University, said she has friends who are either immigrants or have immigrant parents and friends who are part of the LGBTQ+ community, who she feels she needs to speak out for. She also said she wants to safeguard the right to a diverse education because she will become a teacher in the future.
“I want to fight for our children to have a good education,” Bozenske said. “The part about controlling what’s in museums — because I’m a music major and art is something so close to me — it feels like I need to resist that.”
Andrew Koffmann, a retired Pitt psychology professor, shared concerns about higher education and research institutions being attacked by the Trump administration. Koffman recently travelled to Germany, where he saw universities taking initiative to recruit American students to work in a more “favorable atmosphere.”
Koffman said many of his former colleagues at Pitt have faced tough situations due to drastic cuts to research funding by the current administration.
“The graduate students that I used to teach are having difficulty finding research positions. Grants aren’t being funded. Former students tell me that their grants have been funded, but the money is simply not forthcoming,” Koffmann said. “It really has thrown research in health care into a tailspin.”
Addressing the crowd, Vic Walczak, the legal director for the ACLU of Pennsylvania, read a list of his grievances with the Trump administration. The crowd responded to each item by shouting, “Not OK.”
Vic Walzack, legal director for the ACLU of Pennsylvania, addresses the crowd at the No Kings Protest on Saturday in downtown Pittsburgh.
(Alex Jurkuta | Contributing Editor)
Walczak said people should speak out against actions like the deployment of the national guard, use of masked ICE agents and intimidation to threaten universities and the media by using their free speech.
“Every fight ever won started with free speech, with the freedom to say ‘Not today, not anymore, not like this,’” Walczak said. “There’s a reason freedom of speech is in the First Amendment. Democracy only works when we can criticize our government, demand accountability and push ideas to make us better as a nation.”
Sara Innamorato, the Allegheny County executive, told the crowd the county office is “fighting back against the chaos and cruelty of this administration,” through initiatives like joining a lawsuit with other counties against the Trump administration’s withholding of federal funds because of local immigration enforcement policies.
“[We are working on] keeping the National Guard off of these streets because we are suing the Trump administration,” Innamorato said. “As Republican leadership attacks our immigrant neighbors, we found the money to keep refugees and immigrants here in Allegheny County so they can call this place home.”
Innamorato told The Pitt News about the county’s effort in February to help resettle refugee families in Pittsburgh after the federal government stopped federal aid. Innamorato added she’s “appalled at the cruelty in which ICE is arresting immigrants and raiding our local restaurants.”
“[Immigrants] add a tremendous amount of economic development [by] creating businesses, [and working] in the fields of research and high technology,” Innamorato said. “And the federal government coming down on this and causing chaos and uncertainty and scaring people is going to be felt long-term in our neighborhoods.”
Lauren Coonfare from New Castle said she feels relatively insulated from federal policies by living in Pennsylvania, where the governor is a Democrat. However, she doesn’t believe the state is “100 percent protected” and is concerned about Trump’s intimidation of immigrants reaching Pittsburgh.
“The last couple of weeks, it’s been circulating about the presence of Homeland Security and ICE [in Pittsburgh], and that in and of itself just scares people. It brings people up in arms. It makes people afraid,” Coonfare said. “Until you see it, you don’t know if it’s actually happening or not. But the thought about it alone is mortifying.”
Jacob Ranelli from Brookline said he is mostly concerned about Trump’s strict actions towards immigrants, which he views as a warning for all citizens’ freedom of speech.
“Once you lose your freedom of speech, you really lose everything, and there’s nothing left in democracy,” Ranelli said. “We need everyone to know it’s not left versus right. It truly is up versus down.”