Voices rise: No Kings fills Greenfield streets

GREENFIELD — Messages of rage and hope collided in the songs, signs and speeches at No Kings 3 in Greenfield on Saturday, when a crowd of about 3,500 people set off at noon from Beacon Field, stretching the span of Sanderson Street.

Anger with the Trump administration colored many of the signs, from “Billionaire greed is destroying our country” to “Dump Trump, We the People have had enough” and “cruel, chaotic, corrupt clown show.” Others encouraged action, like “History has its eyes on you.”

“We have slipped backwards farther than we’ve come,” said Bob Wool of Springfield, holding a sign with “WTF” written over a photo of the Statue of Liberty. “I’m mad, I’m angry. If you stand back, who are you going to blame?”

“We are the ones that are going to make a difference,” Colrain resident Nancy Turkel said.

Above the signs, paper birds and butterflies along with puppets of the Statue of Liberty and the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg moved above the crowd. Greenfield resident Terry Adams joined the rally in an orange inflatable dinosaur costume. Her sign read, “Make authoritarianism extinct.”

“We need to save democracy, it’s a non-negotiable,” said Pru Smith of Wendell. Around her, protestors sang “This Little Light of Mine” as they walked and swayed along Federal Street.

The Greenfield march was one of more than 3,100 events in all 50 states on Saturday, including similar events communities up and down the Pioneer Valley. U.S. organizers estimated that the first two rounds of No Kings rallies drew more than 5 million people in June and 7 million in October. They expected 9 million participants Saturday, though it was not clear whether those expectations were met, according to the Associated Press.

For many marchers like Smith, Turkel and Wool, the protest marked the latest in a series of No Kings Day demonstrations they had attended, with several insisting that one is not enough.

“Protesting is essential to democracy,” said Greenfield resident Susan Renehan. As she walked, Renehan thought back to protests of her past, from the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam that drew millions of people in 1969 and later in the 1990s when she demanded reproductive rights for women.

On Saturday, she marched hand in hand with her young grandson, who carried a “No kings in the USA” sign over half his size. Renehan described the protest as a lesson for her grandchild “to teach him that we have to speak up and we have to be proactive.”

“Democracy doesn’t work if you just sit around and do nothing about it,” Renehan said.

Once protestors reached the town common, speakers took the microphone in front of Greenfield City Hall.

“We are here to support each other, we are here to build community, we are here to give each other courage and to remind ourselves and each other that courage is contagious,” said Bill Newman, a Northampton-based civil rights attorney. “The tide is turning.”

Local high schoolers Alaina Shearer and Nate Woodward shared their perspectives on the day’s demonstration as young organizers.

“Throughout elementary school, my generation was taught with pride that the recent history of racism, sexism, homophobia, classism and all the injustices in the world were a relic of the past. It promised me a better future than this, it promised everyone my age a better future than this, and here we are.” said Shearer, a junior at Mohawk Trail Regional School who helped organize a walkout on Jan. 20 to speak out against the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. “The youth of America will not be silent, we will not be fed lies, we will craft a future in our own hands.”

Woodward, a senior at Greenfield High School and co-chair of the Greenfield Human Rights Commission, also spoke to the thousands of attendees.

“Some people hear ICE, and they think it’s only about immigration, but for many Black people and people of color, it seems like something more, because history has shown us a pattern — a pattern where laws and systems are not just to protect, but to control or to decide who belongs and who does not belong,” Woodward said. “Black history is not just a story of oppression, but is a story of resilience — it’s a story of people who speak up when systems try to put them down… And that same spirit is alive today, it’s in our protest, our voices — a community refusing to be invisible.”

Between the speeches, Eventide Singers Music Director Joe Toritto, the Ladies of Liberty, West County Resistance Choir, and other local singers led the crowd through melodies of resistance and optimism with the help of the Montague Marching Band, along with listeners who drummed plastic buckets and empty water bottles. The crowd sang “Hold On” by Heidi Wilson, which protesters in Minneapolis popularized, “Hit the Road ICE,” a twist on Ray Charles’ classic and other tunes.

Wendell activist Court Dorsey reminded attendees that the gathering was one of over 3,000 No Kings rallies on Saturday.

“We are not alone,” Dorsey said. “Look around you, is it beautiful or what? This is the real United States of America. Donald Trump, open your eyes.”