Amherst community members put on their winter jackets and gloves, grabbed their poster boards and filled the Amherst Town Common to join the nationwide No Kings Day protests on Saturday, March 28 at 1 p.m.
According to their website, the No Kings movement is a nationwide non-violent day of protest against the “authoritarian power grabs” of President Donald Trump. There were over 3,000 protests across the country, including several in Western Massachusetts.
“This country does not belong to kings, dictators, or tyrants. It belongs to We the People — the people who care, who show up, and who fight for dignity, a life we can afford, and real opportunity. No Thrones. No Crowns. No Kings,” the website states.
Jessica Ryan, an Amherst resident, brought her dog, Elsa, and a small sign with her. She’s attended many ‘No Kings’ protests in Massachusetts to show that “we are not impressed with this government.”
“I feel very lucky to be in a blue state in a blue town,” Ryan said. “In 2026, it’s a wonderful time to live in the world and it’s just heartbreaking to see like the rest of the country and democracy under assault like this.”
Over 1,500 people echoed Ryan’s sentiments at the protest, chanting, “No I.C.E, No KKK, No fascist U.S.A.” Most signs targeted Trump and his supporters, with one saying, “MAGA = Morons Are Governing America.”
“I’m sick of [Trump]. I think he’s an awful human in every aspect,” former Amherst resident Andy Chartiersaid at the protest. “From women’s issues to immigration [and] treating immigrants like they’re not human beings. His whole cabinet is just a bunch of appointed yes men and criminals … I’m just sick of the whole Congress, which is basically enabling him.”
John Bonifaz, an Amherst-based attorney and political activist, said that the people were here “to stand up for our democracy, stand up for our Constitution, … to demand accountability and justice, … to fight for our basic rights and our basic freedoms, … [and] to stand up for that fundamental principle that no one is above the law, not even the president of the United States.”
“I’m furious about the injustice that is going ignored every single day, every single second in this country. I am witnessing people dying. We are witnessing people suffering and people are treating this as a spectator sport,” Annike Downey, a senior biology major at the University of Massachusetts, said.
Downey has been attending protests for years. “We all feel like we don’t have enough that we can do, because we’re just one person,” Downey said. “But when we’re here and there are hundreds of us, and there is something that we can do, because there are hundreds of us.”
No Kings protest on the Amherst Town Common on 03/28/2026. (Neelah McCarthy)
Many attendees said they feel hopeless and furious about the current actions the Trump administration is taking.
“It’s a steady decrease of everything, and it’s starting to piss me off, not gonna lie,” Heather Doucette, an incoming UMass transfer student, said.
Doucette and her friend, UMass applied plant and soil sciences major Jayne Weaver, held up signs that read “This is your sign to Protest” and “Protest!”
Lisa Andras, a UMass alum, said, “[By] coming together as a nation, [we are] showing the rest of the world that this is not what we want from [the Trump administration].”
Helen Fortier, an registered nurse in Bay State, Northampton, and a part of Indivisible West Quabbin, a grassroots pro-democracy and social justice group based in Western Massachusetts, was a member of the first aid team at the tents sectioned near Amherst Town Hall.
“Everybody feels like they need to have groups right now because there’s a lot more power in groups,” Fortier said. “So, there are multiple groups that are involved in setting up the actual whole event … I feel like it’s just giving people a sense of solidarity, knowing that there are people that really need to speak out.”
Several speakers, including Massachusetts State Senator Jo Comerford, spoke about the importance of coming together.
“We’re doing today an action to be counted with our neighbors so that organizers nationally and internationally can say there is resistance, there is opposition, there is momentum and together we will take back our nation,” Comerford said.
Massachusetts State Rep. Mindy Domb, D-Amherst, attended the event as well. Domb encouraged attendees to “keep demanding that we keep doing more, whether it’s the House or the Senate in the state. Tell us what you want.”
Domb also mentioned the passing of the Protect Act on Thursday, March 26. The bill, developed by the Massachusetts Legislature’s Black and Latino Caucus, bans “warrantless civil immigration arrests in courthouses” and prohibits law enforcement officials from asking about someone’s immigration status unless the information is directly related to a criminal offense.
“This happened not only because of the leadership of my colleagues, which was phenomenal, but because they knew the public wanted this,” Domb said.
Domb also pushed for the support of LUCE Immigrant Justice Network, a Massachusetts-based coalition of immigrant-led organizations dedicated to protecting immigrant communities from ICE.
No Kings protest on the Amherst Town Common on 03/28/2026. (Astrid Wilder)
Several speakers told stories of Massachusetts residents taken by ICE, including of Marcelo Gomes da Silva. The 18-year-old was detained by ICE in June while on the way to volleyball practice in Milford, Mass.
A giant papier-mache Trump head on a spike travelled around the protest with the words, “TRUMP; Burned alive 168 School children in Minab, Iran.”
“We have a message for Donald Trump today: we are not afraid of you,” Bonifaz said. “You are a lawless wannabe dictator. You have committed high crimes against the state. We will hold you accountable. You must be impeached and removed from public office.”
“Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice,” Vikram Vallabhanath, a member of Amherst College Democrats, said. “He sends out a tiny ripple of hope and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and injustice.”
Chartier, holding a handmade sign of Trump in jail, said that organizing at the local level is a good way to dissent against Trump’s actions, but that it’s important to continue those actions after the protest ends.
“Support programs he’s cutting … So that they stay alive when they’ve gotten their funding cut, so that when we’re done with these people, they’re still alive and they’re not having to start from scratch,” Chartier said. “That’s something concrete people can do.”
As passing cars honked continuously in agreement, Andras said, “Keep united, keep working together, keep fighting as much as possible.”
Alexandra Hill can be reached at [email protected], Aiyanna Torres can be reached at [email protected] and Kalina Kornacki can be reached at [email protected].
