URBANA — Thousands took to the streets of downtown Urbana for the third ‘No Kings’ protest. This gathering was one of over 3,300 rallies planned across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
The protests are growing in size, along with the list of grievances that people have with President Trump, said Tracey Dugan, one of the co-leads for Champaign County Indivisible, a local advocacy group that organized Urbana’s ‘No Kings’ protest.
Dugan cited “illegal wars,” increased ICE presence and the deployment of armed forces as some of these grievances.
“The president is doing things every day that give us more to protest,” she said. “What I want to do today is make sure that people understand their constitutionally protected rights and understand what those rights are, so that they are well aware when the government is violating them.”
Julie Pryde is among those growing unhappy with these issues. She’s a long time activist and the recently retired administrator of the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District.
“We’ve seen just outright stealing, outright corruption, outright grafting and certainly the money that’s going flowing over to kill people in the war that I don’t recall anyone asking for or thinking necessary,” she said.
She said she sees hope in the “No Kings” protests and urges others to continue getting involved.
“Let’s leave a better country to our kids than what we had,” she said.
Sheila Bourke, 18, a freshman at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studying anthropology, said she feels the actions of the Trump Administration are “tipping over the edge into fascism.”
She has attended the last two ‘No Kings’ protests in downtown Chicago and said she believes protesting is important to send a message to lawmakers that “we’re not just standing by and letting it happen.”
But for her, it was the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration that hit close to home.
Bourke said she was adopted from China when she was only a year old and that during Trump’s first presidency, she feared being taken back.
“I’m an American citizen, but I remember the 2016 election even all the way back then, it was so scary because I was seeing kids in cages on my TV and and worrying that like, what if they take me back?” she said.
The current state of immigration enforcement is scary for her and for all people of color, she said.
Still, many who attended Saturday’s protest said they see signs of hope.
Traci Bula attended her first “No Kings” protest on Saturday, but said she is no stranger to voicing her opposition to the Trump administration.
Bula said she’s been working to educate those around her on their rights as voters.
“During election time, I go out and get the word out there… I do everything I can to get young people registered,” she said. “I’ve always been a voter, and now more than ever our lives literally depend on it.”
She said that through protests, there can be real, viable change as long as they continue to grow.
“I believe that [with] every new voice that is out here, every new sign, every new smile, yes, it will eventually get there,” Bula said.
