Some 250,000 people attended Saturday’s “No Kings” demonstration in the Loop, one of thousands nationwide that were organized by Indivisible and marked by peaceful defiance of President Donald Trump’s efforts to consolidate authoritarian rule. The demonstrations are one of the largest single-day protests in U.S. history, and come at a time when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have rampaged across Chicagoland at Trump’s behest, abducting citizens and noncitizens alike and killing one person.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, Cook County Commissioner Tara Stamps and County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Lieutenant Gov. Juliana Stratton, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, State Senator Graciela Guzmán, Congresspersons Jonathan Jackson, Jesús “Chuy” Garcia, Delia Ramirez, and Mike Quigley, Senator Dick Durbin, and several City Council members joined grassroots organizers at the Butler Field bandshell in Grant Park before the march.
“Donald Trump is using ICE as his private, militarized occupying force,” Johnson said in his address. “We are saying, emphatically clear: We do not want troops in our city, we do not want our city to be occupied.”
Johnson noted that his enslaved ancestors partook in a general strike when, as W.E.B. DuBois observed in Black Reconstruction, they fled plantations and crossed Union Army lines during the Civil War. He called for similar direct action to resist Trump.
“I’m calling on Black people, white people, brown people, Asian people, immigrants, gay people, from around this country to stand up against tyranny, and to send a clear message to the ultra-rich and big corporations!” Johnson shouted. The crowd roared its approval.
In neighborhoods such as Beverly, Little Village and Lincoln Park, people gathered for smaller solidarity rallies. Midwesterners also came from around the Great Lakes to participate in Saturday’s protest, one of the biggest Chicago has ever seen. Thomasine Jones, who lives in Michigan, attended with her daughter Angela Coleman, a South Sider.
“If we’re gonna save our democracy, we have to show up,” Jones said. She added that ICE “were not requested to come here, and we want them out—not only Chicago, but all over our country.”
Coleman, a CPS teacher, agreed. “We’re all human beings, so everybody belongs here and we have a right to be here,” she said. “I cannot believe that this is happening, but I’m a teacher. We have a saying: ‘When we fight, we win.’”
In response to the nationwide protests, which Republicans have characterized as “anti-American,” the president posted an AI-generated video on social media of himself wearing a crown and flying a fighter jet over American cities while dumping feces on protesters.
After the rally, as throngs of demonstrators slowly made their way up Michigan Avenue, Congressperson Jesús “Chuy” Garcia (IL-4) stayed behind in Butler Field, chatting with constituents as Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” played over loudspeakers. Garcia told the Weekly that Trump “has it in for Chicago” because it’s a city that was built and strengthened by immigrants.
“The cruelty demonstrated by ICE, and lawlessness, and injury that’s being caused to communities all over the city of Chicago is terrible,” he said. “That, coupled with the [federal government] shutdown and the cuts in essential programs for people are literally starving and hurting people across Chicagoland and across the country.”
Diane Ruiz, a resident of the Southwest Side who was sporting a t-shirt that read “Hot Latinas Melt ICE,” said federal raids have worsened daily life in her community.
“People are afraid to leave their homes just to do normal things, taking their kids to school, picking their kids up from school, going out to eat, to get some groceries,” she said. She added that she hopes the demonstration brings people together.
“I’d like to see us really be there for one another, like in droves, and help each other and eventually get ICE out of here,” she said. “They’re not welcome.”
Jim Daley is the Weekly’s investigations editor.
