From the Women’s Suffrage Parade (1913) to the Black Lives Matter movement (2020), peaceful protesting has always been a part of American History. On Oct. 18, around seven million people nationwide attended protests for “No Kings Day,” a movement expressing negative opinions of Donald Trump’s presidency.
Junior Grace Ryan Rillorta attended the No Kings protest in Boston, Mass. She was visiting colleges with her family when she heard about the protest happening just down the street from her hotel.
“I have two moms and then I live in a biracial household … due to just specific things that have happened over the past couple months … it doesn’t put me in direct fear of what will happen, but more of what could happen,” Rillorta said.
Rillorta takes AP Comparative Government at Wando and is interested in pursuing a career in either politics or law. Working towards this goal, for Rillorta, means participating as much as she can and making a difference even while she is a teenager.
“I am a strong believer in political participation, especially in democratic countries such as ours, and I believe that using our democratic political participation … helps with the efficacy of the people,” Rillorta said. “I feel like that’s so important in democracy, especially if there’s not … a direct referendum going on where the people are voting on every little thing, because here we have the Electoral College, popularity votes, all the stuff like that … [but] the popular vote is not going directly able to equate to who gets elected, just because … that’s not the way our party still works.”
While many young adults and teenagers like Rillorta attended the protest, many of the protesters were from a slightly older generation. Andrea Parco, a Mount Pleasant resident and mother of three adult children, showed up at the North Charleston protest and made her voice heard.
“I’m Jewish, and I grew up hearing from a very early age that this could happen again, because of ancestors that lost their lives in the Holocaust. And it’s something I think about all the time, and watching what’s happening … ever since January 6, [I’ve been] extremely alarmed,” Parco said.
Protesters lined up on the side of a highway in North Charleston with signs and gear expressing their discomfort with our current government.
“[Protesting is] important for anybody that believes in freedom of speech, and in your amendments, and understanding what America is really made of, to come out and be able to be heard and march peacefully,” Parco said.
Although some claim that the protest was set up and executed entirely by the Democratic Party, that’s not actually the case. The protest was always meant to be nonpartisan, and while there were significantly more Democrats, there were many Republicans and third-party voters in attendance as well.
“I really love the fact that there was a really large Republican turnout as well as a large Democrat turnout because I feel like it shows… we’re not doing this based off a party … you can make it a party related thing all you want, but it’s not. It’s what the people want, and it is simply … the needs of the people,” Rillorta said.
“While No Kings focused on change at a presidential level, there are still other methods people can do to assist change in their own communities,” Rillorta said.
“Call your mayor, call your governor,” Rillorta said. “Mail the president a letter. People will feel like … you have to protest, or … you have to speak, or you have to do all these things to participate in the government. But you don’t … just vote, just show up, mail, annoy the crap out of these people.”
