Last Saturday, Oct. 18, approximately 80 people attended a “No Kings” rally on the corner Main Street and East Seventh Street in Wayne to protest the current administration heading the U. S. government.
The event in Wayne went from 10 a.m. to noon and consisted of protestors holding signs with messages like “honk to protect free speech” and “protect democracy”. An organizer for the event said a major goal was to spread their message to people driving through Wayne. Some people in vehicles honked in support of the message. Some attendees wore inflated animal costumes. The event was mostly attended by older members of the population, though there were some college students present as well.
The nationwide “No Kings” movement is headed by a group called Indivisible, which describes itself on its website as “a grassroots movement of thousands of local Indivisible groups with a mission to elect progressive leaders, rebuild our democracy, and defeat the Trump agenda.”
Indivisible claimed Oct. 18 to be “No Kings Day”, sparking many rallies across the country. Wayne County’s Indivisible group is headed by Connie Hassler, who says she has been involved in protests since the 1980s. She has also been hosting weekly protests at the same spot in Wayne for the past few weeks.
“My friend Karen and I decided to do the weekly ones,” Hassler said. “And we’re gonna continue to do that. But since this was a national protest, we decided we needed to participate in it and put Wayne on the map.”
When asked what her biggest concerns were, Hassler said that the concentration of power and wealth was especially alarming.
“This current administration is leading our country through dictatorship,” Hassler said. “All the power being concentrated by just one branch of government, we no longer have representation under that type of government. That’s our biggest concern: losing our constitution, losing our First Amendment rights, all the other rights. And the rich continue to get richer. They always get the breaks, and then we working class end up with the burden of doing all the work, paying taxes and then not getting the services we need.”
When asked why Wayne was chosen as the site of the event, Hassler said it was because Wayne “is a bigger community in the area and [a] great traffic area.” The chosen location was at a four-way stop with traffic lights, so some cars were forced to stop nearby.
One stand-out part of the crowd was the people wearing inflatable animal costumes. Cindy Rhode, one of the people wearing a costume, explained that they help combat the perception of protests being violent.
“I saw they were wearing these in Portland where they’re militarizing the streets there, and I’m like, ‘what a great way to show that we’re just peaceful people wanting to get our message out there,’” Rhode said. “We are anything but violent. The lion’s share of us, as you can see, are older and probably mostly retired people who care about our future.”
Although it is true that most attendees were on the older side, there were some participants who were younger. Wayne State College junior Jesse Brewer was there in support of minority groups.
“One of the things I’m most concerned about is how this administration is targeting people who are different,” Brewer said. “Targeting people who are trans or part of the LGBTQ+ community. Targeting immigrant families or even American citizens just because they have a different skin color or different beliefs. That’s not right.”
Brewer and Rhode both described the event as peaceful. They said that they stood by the road holding signs with music playing out of speakers. Some people were dancing to the music and others had “nice conversations together”.
Hassler also described her work and future plans of activism through Indivisible. She explained how the protest was to get more people involved and to “take all this energy and put it into action”.
“[Our goal today is] to let other people know that we’re here and to unite people. We have an Indivisible group that meets twice a month,” Hassler said. “We are looking at focusing on immigration and learning about the path to how you become a citizen and how we can approach our representatives to make it an easier pathway… We call our representatives and write to our representatives.”
The protest ended at noon with no notable disturbances. Hassler said that the police chief was made aware of the event ahead of time in case something happened, but no violence or other serious problems were reported by attendees.
