Iowans in 61 cities turn out for No Kings the third, protesting fresh Trump horrors at now-routine rallies

There were more than 3,300 “No Kings” rallies across the country on Saturday, including 61 in Iowa. The rallies protesting President Trump and his policies took place across the state, in both Iowa’s largest cities and smaller communities like Onawa and Tipton. National organizers estimated the overall participation across the country at 8 million. It is regarded as the largest mass demonstration in U.S. history, topping the No Kings protests from October and June of last year.

“We are not really protesters,” Sue Thompson of Indivisible Johnson County said at the beginning of the Iowa City No Kings rally. “We are, in fact, protectors. We’re protecting our democracy, we’re protecting our constitution, we’re protecting our neighbors.” 

Thompson expressed the same sentiment at the beginning of the National Day of Action protest in Iowa City last year in April. Thompson and Indivisible Johnson County took the lead in organizing that protest as well as Saturday’s rally, as they have done with the previous No Kings rallies in Iowa City. Saturday’s protest took place in the same location as Day of Action, a cordoned off block of Iowa Ave in downtown Iowa City. Last year’s protest attracted hundreds. On Saturday, more than 2,000 were there. 

There was an even larger protest in Des Moines, where some of the thousands rallied at the Pappajohn Sculpture Park before marching to the Iowa State Capitol to join a much larger crowd. In Davenport, approximately 4,000 people gathered in LeClaire Park and along River Drive for the largest No Kings rally the Quad Cities has had. Cedar Rapids saw thousands lining Eighth Avenue SE, holding signs and chanting, before they marched to NewBo City Market. 

“Stretching from the Eighth Avenue Bridge, past the railroad tracks near Fourth Street SE, the crowd was estimated at more than 3,000 people,” Cedar Rapids journalist Cindy Hadish reported. 

Smaller cities like North Liberty and Indianola had hundreds turn out to line major streets to make their voices heard. 

In Iowa City, Thompson began her remarks by looking back at the protests over the past year — not just No Kings, but also the protests over immigration policies and the rally that followed the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent. 

“Nearly a year has gone by, and every day I cringe at the thought of what’s happening in our country, the horrific events that are a part of our corrupt regime that we call our government,” she said. 

Many of the topics covered by the dozen speakers were familiar from previous rallies, but this was the first large rally in Iowa City since the U.S. and Israel launched the war against Iran on Feb. 28, and the war loomed large on Saturday. 

“You do not have to choose between supporting the troops and supporting an unjust, illegal, immoral war,” Andrew Callahan of Veterans for Peace, the final speaker before the rally’s finished with a march. “In fact, support for the troops means opposition to this war.”

Callahan, a 20-year veteran of the Marine Corps and the Army, reminded listeners that even though billions have already been spent on the war, the real cost is measured in lives lost, as well as lives shattered. 

“I’m an example of that,” he said. “I have crippling PTSD, I struggle to make it through the day. I don’t like crowds, I don’t like loud noises, but I’m here because I believe in what we are trying to do.”

ICE and the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies also loomed large on Saturday, as they have at the previous No Kings rallies.  

“The resistance is working,” Ninoska Campos of Escucha Mi Voz told the crowd, speaking through an interpreter. “They want us to feel alone, they want us to feel we can’t make change. But if we work together we can. Look around you, we’re not alone, we’re not defenseless. We’re changing things.”

Campos warned that ICE is changing, too, shifting tactics to increase its focus on detaining people following traffic stops. Fear over the possibility that a routine traffic stop could escalate into an ICE detainer “makes everyday life chaos for immigrant family members,” she said. 

Elizabeth Rook Panicucci and Elizabeth Bernal of the Prairielands Freedom Fund (PFF) also addressed the problems caused by ICE. PFF is a volunteer-run nonprofit that “buys freedom from ICE detention by paying immigration bonds,” Rook Panicucci explained. 

Posting a bond is almost the only way an immigrant detained by ICE can be released from jail while their case is pending before an immigration court. 

“It’s typically $10,000 to $30,000,” Rook Panicucci said. 

Immigration bonds are different from bail in a criminal case. There are no bondsmen willing to put up a bond for 10 percent down and property cannot be pledged to secure a bond. Immigration bonds must be paid in full each time. So far, PFF has secured the release of more than 470 detained immigrants, since it launched in 2017 as the Eastern Iowa Community Bond Project. Those bonds represent $2.5 million provided by the nonprofit nationwide, and each bond has a unique story behind it, Rook Panicucci said. The money for each bond is returned to PFF after the case is settled, and goes immediately to pay for the next bond.

But Rook Panicucci said the still-increasing number of ICE detentions is straining the funds available to the nonprofit. They are trying to encourage more people to become active in raising funds for the bonds. 

Bernal emphasized the human stories behind PFF’s work. Her voice choked with emotion when she told about receiving a phone call from a member of the Iowa National Guard about to be deployed overseas, asking her to look after his parents. He was afraid of what might happen to them while he was gone and unable to help. 

“One of the most important things we can do right now is tell the truth,” Mandi Remington, executive director of the Corridor Community Action Network and a Johnson County supervisor, said when she took the stage. “No sugar-coating, no soft edges, because we’re watching decisions get made that are taking things away from people. Not hypothetically, not eventually, but right now.”

“Here in Iowa people have already lost healthcare that they depend on. We have some of the strictest abortion laws in the country, because politicians in Des Moines have decided that they know better than patients and doctors. We also have some of the most aggressive anti-trans laws in the nation, targeting people simply for existing, for being visible and for living honestly.”

This isn’t true just in Iowa; it’s happening nationwide as “we are watching democracy itself get tested by people who are more interested in controlling us than helping us,” Remington said. 

She added, “this is not normal and we are not going to normalize it.” 

Remington told the crowd that attending protests is not enough, that they must commit to action beyond protests. 

“So, do not leave here thinking you witnessed something, leave here ready to be a part of it,” she said. “Ready to organize, ready to show up and ready to fight for each other. Because that is how we win.”

The importance of doing more than gathering together for large protests was also addressed by one of the rally’s briefest but most affecting speakers, Kaveh Akbar. A poet, bestselling novelist and professor of English at the University of Iowa, Akbar was born in Iran before his family immigrated to the U.S. when he was 2. 

“Right now, this second, the country where I was born, my family members are being bombed by the administration to which I pay taxes,” he said. “That sucks.”

He spoke about the impossibility of communicating with family still in Iran. 

“I have relatives I haven’t heard from for 27 days,” Akbar said. “I have an aunt with Stage 4 cancer who’s cut off from the chemo she needs to stay alive, who I haven’t heard from for 27 days.”

Akbar closed his remark by reading Gwendolyn Brooks’ 1949 poem, “Fight first. Then fiddle,” which ends with: 

       Rise bloody, maybe not too late

For having first to civilize a space

Wherein to play your violin with grace.

Art or any form of expression — including attending rallies, creating protest signs or even just writing on social media — can point the way to a better tomorrow, but action will always be needed, Akbar said of the poem.