‘No kings’ and ‘no war,’ Trump critics say at protests across Michigan
Protesters gather at the Michigan Capitol in Lansing for a 'No Kings' rally on Saturday, March 28. Photo credit: Simon Schuster/Bridge Michigan.
Editor’s note: This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan (bridgemi.com), a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. To get regular coverage from Bridge Michigan, sign up for a free Bridge Michigan newsletter here.”
It was the third national “No Kings” protest since Trump took office, and the first of its kind since the start of the Iran War and the killing of two US citizens in Minnesota by immigration and border enforcement agents.
At the state Capitol, where the crowd size matched previous protests, 26-year-old Jalah Jones of Lansing said she joined the demonstration because she’s “seeing a lot of injustice right now.”
“I feel like President Trump is giving an excuse for behaviors that I don't believe align with our morals, of our country and our values,” Jones told Bridge Michigan. “It's nice to get out here and just raise a voice for the people who can't raise a voice, or the people who feel silenced by this administration.”
On Friday, a White House spokesperson dismissed the planned protests as "Trump derangement therapy sessions" most people don't care about.
Like the first two No Kings protests at the Capitol, organizers avoided having politicians or candidates as speakers, instead opting for grassroots activists and advocates. But with election season gearing up, candidates were in the crowd, including 7th Congressional District Democratic primary competitors Matt Maasdam and Will Lawrence.
Lawrence told Bridge he had at least two dozen volunteers on hand and said the enthusiasm at the rally shows Democrats need to be “bolder” on progressive issues like universal health care and housing access “to convince folks that Democrats are actually with working class people.”
“I'm concerned that there's not a strong enough message coming from the national party about what we actually stand for,” Lawrence said.
Elsewhere in Michigan, there were multiple large protests in Detroit and surrounding suburbs, including Grosse Pointe, where Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel told attendees that "the chaos, the corruption, the criminality of the Trump administration is exhausting."
Nessel said her office has filed more than 50 lawsuits against the Trump administration, "and folks, I'm just getting started."
Meanwhile in downtown Grand Rapids, a demonstration at the Calder Plaza was organized as a mass sign-along. "Singing gives us a way to share what we’re carrying, to build community, and to stand side by side in solidarity," organizers said ahead of the event.
In northern Michigan, large crowds gathered in bigger cities like Traverse City and smaller communities like Benzonia Township, where protesters lined both sides of US-31.
More than 120 protests were planned across Michigan, from the southeast border in Temperance to the far west of the Upper Peninsula in Ironwood. Organizers predicted the Michigan demonstrations would be part of the largest mass protest in US history.
“Too many of our elected officials are not responding the way they must to the Trump administration and this unprecedented power grab that really aims at destroying everything it comes in contact with,” Michigan organizer Audrey Bourriaud said ahead of the protests.
“We’re here today to say, ‘Stop. No more. No kings, no war and no ICE.”
This article first appeared on Bridge Michigan and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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