No Kings protest: Retirees mobilize on Route 1, urge students to take action
Indivisible Route 1 Corridor joined the nationwide No Kings protest to defend democracy against what the ACLU described as the Trump administration’s abuses of power, such as “attacking free speech” and creating “a climate of fear” in communities.
Route 1 Corridor is Prince George’s County’s local chapter of Indivisible, the nationwide grassroots organization that arranged the No Kings protests. Many of Saturday’s protesters were retirees who had rarely demonstrated before but said they felt compelled to act.
“I have to be out here,” said Chris Garcia, a retiree from University Park and member of Route 1 Corridor. Now, she said, her job as a retiree is to advocate for marginalized communities by organizing and attending protests.
The protesters were among more than 7 million people across the nation who participated in the No Kings Protest, one of the largest days of peaceful protest in U.S. history according to CNN.
“I’ve always voted, but I’ve never been politically active. That’s over…” Garcia said. “The current situation is beyond anything I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Garcia said she felt a surge of energy as people drove by and interacted with her and the other protesters. She waved her sign enthusiastically in the air and blew bubbles out of a tiny blue toy gun as drivers incessantly pressed their horns, yelled out their windows, and stuck their hands out in solidarity.
“It’s so energizing. I know it’s just a honk, but it means people are paying attention,” Garcia said.
But Dana Nau, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland’s Department of Computer Science, said he was surprised to see how low student participation was. However, his wife Lise Nau, a retired musician, said she thought it was understandable, since students are often focused on surviving.
“But students really need to be aware of how unusually bad things have gotten … it’s not business as usual,” Lise Nau said.
Lise Nau did not protest frequently in her youth, but she mobilized for the No Kings protest, as she believed that protesting became a necessary form of expression with age and experience.
“I have seen with my own eyes how things can get,” she said. “I don’t want to wait to stand up.”
On the ground at Route 1
Sarah Weber worked in various positions for the U.S. Agency for International Development for 10 years. But in July, the Trump Administration shut USAID down for “wasteful spending,” according to BBC News, which cost Weber and over 20,000 other Americans their jobs that month, according to the USAID Stop-Work tracker, an online tool created by Molloy Consultants to track USAID job losses and project cancellations.
Weber hopes the protest’s monumental turnout across the country will give the protesters a stronger stance in their fight.
“I hope…it will encourage people who are driving by, honking and happy to support from their cars, to actually also get out and take action,” Weber said.
Protesters adorned multiple symbols of resistance to express their discontent with President Trump, such as Dana’s sign mocking Trump as a king in a clown hat. Another was a biker who rode with the inverted U.S. flag attached to his bike, a symbol of distress across various political contexts.
In previous years, right-wing protesters also adopted the inverted flag, most notably during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to Newsweek.
