By Mark Gruenberg and Cameron Harrison
Photos: People’s World\YouTube Screenshots
PHILADELPHIA—Dwarfing Donald Trump’s D.C. parade, at least five million people, including tens of thousands of unionists, turned out for massive “No Kings Day” protests nationwide on June 14 in response to what many deem as the president’s drive to destroy democracy with his dictatorial actions. The estimated crowd of only 50,000 at the military parade dwindled further in the evening as rain showers forced the cancellation of the air show by fighter jets.
The crowds peacefully marching and rallying to protect immigrants and save democracy were two-and-a-half times the projections by No Kings Day organizers, who had expected two million.
Indivisible.org and the Teachers/AFT led the organizing for what may well have been the largest ever nationwide protests. Other sponsors included the Communications Workers, the Postal Workers, retirees of New York City’s AFSCME District Council 37, the Federal Unionists Network, Federal Workers Against DOGE, the Labor Campaign for Single Payer, and the United Electrical Workers.
Those unions and union-allied groups, plus Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, the Progressive Democrats of America, and others, marched and rallied in more than 2,000 locations across the country.
The crowd in Chicago filled Daley Plaza shoulder to shoulder and surrounded the Civic Center on all four sides, filling those streets, too, and stretching for blocks adjacent to them in all four directions.
Turnouts like that led Teachers/AFT President Randi Weingarten to laud “the scale, power, and the solidarity of this movement.”
The millions of marchers in the morning and afternoon dwarfed Trump’s military parade down D.C.’s Constitution Avenue in the evening. He demanded 250,000 people, but got fewer. Capping off the disappointment of the MAGA forces was Mother Nature, wielding a thunderstorm, grounding the Air Force jets that were supposed to provide pageantry at the end of the day….READ MORE…
