Most outdoor events can be rained out, while others are important enough for people to ignore the weather. Saturday’s No Kings Day protest in Manhattan was the latter, as thousands of New Yorkers packed the whole block around Bryant Park before marching down 5th Avenue towards Madison Square Park, in spite of rain throughout, though the weather did prevent the participation of a New Orleans brass band that was supposed to march with the demonstrators and play funeral dirges. The protest is one of dozens of demonstrations being held around the country “in a nationwide day of defiance” against the Trump administration, according to the organizers’ website.
Among the attendees are Columbia University faculty wearing “Columbians Fighting Back” matching t-shirts. “We’re protesting the loss of free speech, we’re protesting the loss of academic freedom, and we’re protesting the loss of funding for research and science and education,” says Ulrich Hengst, a Columbia professor doing research on Alzheimer’s disease. Hengst says that grants supporting students have been canceled because their institution is not in alignment with the Trump administration.
Mimi Shirasu-Hiza, a PhD candidate at Columbia doing research on circadian rhythms, confirms that “the NIH has not been paying out even contracts that have been funded already,” and believes that Columbia is “feeling it most acutely because we were in focus very early.” The Trump administration froze the NIH grants to Columbia in April, even after the school caved in to the White House’s demands one month earlier to restore some $400 million in federal funding that had been clawed back by the government.
While many protests against the Trump administration have been made up of demonstrators that skewed older, there was no shortage of young faces in the crowds around Bryant Park and 5th Avenue on Saturday. “I’ve been to a bunch of these, and sometimes I’d look around and realize I was the youngest one there,” says Sage, 24, who works for a nonprofit. She decided to fix that by bringing a couple of friends this time – Adler, 19, and Olivia, also 24. Adler says that he’s “definitely going” to more events like this going forward. Olivia, a Nebraska native, says that she hadn’t been involved in political action before because “people see it very differently” where she’s from, and also expressed a desire to take part in events like this going forward.
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Saturday’s march comes as hundreds of Marines remain deployed in Los Angeles against anti-ICE protesters, and the possibility of that tactic being deployed in New York City looms large. “I think that this is not a one-off for him. This is a mode of operation or him, for the movement that supports him. It’s part of Project 2025,” says Halle, a math teacher, referring to a right-wing political manifesto written by the corporate-backed Heritage Foundation think tank, which indeed proposes using the military to quell protests.
Halle is attending the protest with Grace, a global health worker, who is skeptical of governor Andrew Cuomo’s claim that if he were mayor, Trump would not dare deploy troops in the city to squash protest. “Him having a hard head does not to me feel like protection,” she said. “It just feels like two idiots ramming those heads against each other, and that does not feel productive or safe to me.”
As the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles grew more intense earlier this week, Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch issued a statement warning protesters that those who impede government activity (blocking vehicles, occupying building entrances etc.) would be met with “zero tolerance.”
Halle, Grace, and Sage say that they are all voting for Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani in the upcoming Democratic mayoral primary.
