More No Kings protests will be taking place across the country on March 28, and are likely to draw demonstrators across Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. This mass mobilization comes on the back of two previous protests in June and October of last year.
No Kings protests essentially oppose what demonstrators call authoritarian actions and abuses of power by the Trump Administration.
“His administration is sending masked agents into our streets, terrorizing our communities. They are targeting immigrant families, profiling arresting and detaining people without warrants. Threatening to overtake elections. Gutting health care, environmental protections and education when families need them most,” a portion of the organization’s website reads in part. “The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings — and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption and cruelty.”
The president and his allies have dismissed the movement. House Speaker Mike Johnson has branded them as “hate America” rallies, according to NPR.
The protest movement started largely online, with a group known as 50501 organizing on websites like Reddit and Facebook. The organization’s numerical name is also a goal statement: fifty protests, in fifty states, but one unified movement. The 50501 group has since joined a coalition of other progressive groups like Indivisible, which started during President Donald Trump’s first term in 2016, and has since become a primary protest organizer throughout the country. All groups involved stress that the demonstrations are peaceful.
The two previous No Kings events in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky have attracted some national attention. At last October’s protest, Ayman Soliman spoke to a crowd of 10,000 at Smale Riverfront Park. Soliman, who was detained for nearly three months at Butler County Jail following his arrest by Immigration Customs Enforcement agents during a routine check-in, is an imam and former chaplain at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
Ayman was released in September.
In Ohio, these upcoming weekend protests are planned outside of the Cincinnati city hall, along Main Street in Batavia, and at the One Renaissance Center Plaza in Hamilton; while they can be found across the river on Mall Road in Florence and Roebling Point in Covington.