On Saturday, October 18, on the steps of the state Capitol, speakers including Rep. Lloyd Doggett, Rep. Greg Casar, and Rep. Gina Hinojosa looked out into a crowd of tens of thousands of Texans, raising thousands of handmade signs, gathered for the second No Kings rally in Austin. \u201cYou should see this crowd from here,\u201d Hinojosa said.<\/p>\n
There were more than 2,700 No Kings events held across the country on Saturday, with organizers estimating nearly 7 million in attendance nationwide and over 20,000 in Austin.<\/p>\n
Locally, the sea of posters directly confronted Donald Trump\u2019s administration as a threat to democracy and spoke to this deeply disturbing moment in American politics. \u201cStop pretending your racism is patriotism.\u201d \u201cImagine hating an immigrant more than a pedophile.\u201d \u201cRelease the Trumpstein Files.\u201d \u201cAnti-Fascist Grandma.\u201d Several attendees held up campaign signs for Rep. James Talarico, now running for the U.S. Senate, and Hinojosa, who announced her run for governor against Gov. Greg Abbott last Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re marching for the immigrants who built this country, and children who should feel safe in their schools,\u201d Sophia Mirto, president of Hands Off Central Texas, said into the megaphone. \u201cWe\u2019re marching for ourselves and our neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Above the speakers, soldiers in green scanned the crowd through binoculars. Gov. Greg Abbott announced on Thursday that he would deploy state troopers and National Guard soldiers to Austin for the \u201cantifa-linked demonstration,\u201d though No Kings was organized by nonpartisan nonprofits like Hands Off Central Texas. Mayor Kirk Watson made a statement before the event, saying, \u201cWe are told that the Guard will not be on the streets of Austin unless there is a determination that there is an emergency need.\u201d The Austin Police Department later tweeted that the rally had been entirely peaceful with zero reported arrests.<\/p>\n
The mass began marching down Congress Avenue toward Auditorium Shores, chanting \u201cFuck Trump\u201d and \u201cImmigrants built this nation.\u201d Clad in red, white, and blue, David Barrow, in his 70s, had driven into Austin from Georgetown to march alongside his wife. \u201cWe\u2019re out here walking for our grandchildren,\u201d Barrow said. \u201cThe corruption and the hatred coming from the MAGA movement \u2026 My father fought in World War II. Our parents fought fascism, and you know, I guess it\u2019s our turn.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emily Salazar has admired Hinojosa\u2019s father, Gilberto, for years as a representative of her community, and marched holding his daughter\u2019s campaign sign. \u201cMy family comes from Mexico, they were migrant farm workers,\u201d Salazar said. \u201cIt\u2019s for my family, all immigrants, all young people.\u201d<\/p>\n
At Auditorium Shores, organizations like Mothers Against Gun Violence, the Sierra Club, and Save Our Springs tabled for new volunteers and had speakers onstage. UT-Austin students handed out protest flyers against the university, which is poised to sign the White House\u2019s \u201ccompact,\u201d<\/a> an agreement to protect \u201cconservative ideas\u201d in exchange for funding that could threaten women\u2019s and ethnic studies and further eliminate use of gender and race in admissions.<\/p>\n Greg Stoker, an Austinite detained last month<\/a> by the Israeli military alongside other activists while attempting to deliver humanitarian aid into Gaza, stepped up to the microphone to emphasize that while the highly organized No Kings rally served as a powerful community-building event, Americans should do more than simply march once in neatly permitted zones.<\/p>\n \u201cOur safety does not come from submission. It comes from solidarity,\u201d Stoker said. \u201cThis violence started long before [Trump] and will continue long after he\u2019s gone \u2026 After today, we\u2019ll start doing the real work.\u201d<\/p>\n See photo gallery for more images from Saturday\u2019s No Kings rally.<\/a><\/p>\n