Recovery from a recent surgery for colon cancer will not stop James Phipps, 75, from attending Saturday’s No Kings demonstration in Chicago, Illinois. “I have a burning desire to be a part of the protest.” he said, “because that’s all I’ve done all my life.”
Phipps, born in Marks, Mississippi, was involved in the civil rights movement in the 1960s from the age of 13, when he was part of racially integrating his local high school and organizing with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. At 15, he became involved in the Mississippi Freedom Labor Union (MFLU), which organized sharecroppers for better wages.
At the time, the MFLU was organizing cotton pickers. “They were paid 30 cents an hour, working in the hot sun, 10 hours a day, which was $3, two and half cents per pound of cotton,” said Phipps. “It broke their necks, backs, pelvis and knees.”
‘There’s no reason why you should … [take] people out of their home, and they’ve been here for 20 or 30 yearsJames Phipps
“They had no medical care,” he added. “That’s one of the key things in my mind right now.”
Phipps, who now works in administrative support in Cook county, is a member of SEIU Local 73.
He was thankful he had health insurance to cover his recent cancer surgery. The federal government shutdown continues, after Democrats demanded that Republicans address recent Medicaid cuts under Donald Trump and extend health insurance subsidies scheduled to expire at the end of the year. The expiration would set the stage for rapidly rising insurance premiums and risk driving an estimated 3.1 million Americans off health insurance.
James Phipps at Greenville air force base in Mississippi, in 1966 during a sit-in protest. Photograph: Courtesy of James Phipps
“You have greedy men thinking about one thing, and that’s about enhancing their pocketbook, their financial wellbeing,” said Phipps, who has also been alarmed by aggressive Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raids in Chicago. The Trump administration has defended the raids with false and misleading claims about crime.
“There’s no reason why you should walk the streets, taking people out of their home, and they’ve been here for 20 or 30 years,” he said. “I had Mexican neighbors live next door to me 41 years. They were some of my best friends in life. We coalesced with each other.
“We were social with neighbors, with each other, and we loved each other. When one saw somebody died or there was a problem, we were already there.”
There are parallels, Phipps said, between how immigrants are being treated under Trump to the discriminatory laws he grew up under in Mississippi.
“The same struggle that Mexican Americans and people of color are going through, we went through that since 1619, especially in the south when we had Jim Crow,” he said. “If you dared do anything at that time to confront them about the way you were treated, you would end up being found in the river or lynched somewhere, so I identify with what is going on.”
‘We didn’t want kings then, and we don’t want kings now’
Some of the largest labor unions in the US are involved in organizing the No Kings protests, with more than 2,600 demonstrations planned across all 50 states, with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and American Federation of Teachers anchoring events.
The real threat to this country isn’t peaceful protesters. It’s politicians shutting down our government to protect billionairesJaime Contreras
“Unions understand that a voice at work creates power for regular people at work. Unions understand that a voice in democracy creates power for regular folks, for working folks in a society,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “These are two of the main ways that regular folks have any power.
“We and labor understand that you need to have a voice to have freedom. Freedom does not come without a voice.”
While prominent Republicans and Trump administration officials have claimed the protests amount to “hate America” rallies – in stark contrast to Trump’s description of January 6 rioters as “patriots”. The Republican congressman Tom Emmer went so far as to suggest that Democrats were bowing to the “pro-terrorist wing of their party” by standing by demands that Republicans address recent Medicaid cuts and extend health insurance subsidies.
Weingarten said the events were actually a response to abuses of power by Trump, and designed to express frustration over his administration’s failure to deal with issues such as soaring grocery and healthcare prices.
“I love America and I resent anyone attempting to take away my patriotism because I want the promise of America to be real for all Americans,” she said. “That’s where labor is. They want the promise of America to be real for our members, and for their families, and for the people we serve.
James Phipps with SEIU secretary-treasurer Rocío Sáenz (center) and SEIU Local 1 member Magdalena Munoz at the Justice Journey rally outside an immigration detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, in July 2025. Photograph: SEIU/Courtesy of SEIU
“Our founders were a rebellious lot who said, ‘We don’t want kings.’ And now 249 years later, people are saying, ‘No, we meant it.’ There’s a lot of things that we’ve changed in America, but one of the things that had stayed constant is we didn’t want kings then, and we don’t want kings now.”
“The real threat to this country isn’t peaceful protesters. It’s politicians shutting down our government to protect billionaires and corporate greed,” said Jaime Contreras, executive vice-president for SEIU 32 BJ, which represents 185,000 janitors, security officers, airport workers and other service employees around the east coast of the US. “What’s ironic to me is you call peaceful protesters ‘terrorists’, but then the people who destroyed our nation’s Capitol building ‘patriots’.
“On 18 October, SEIU members will be in the streets across the country as part of the No Kings [protests], because America belongs to the people, working people, not to billionaires or a few politicians who think they can rule like kings in a democracy like ours.”
