As President Donald Trump celebrates his 80th birthday with a UFC fight on the White House lawn this Sunday, the “No Kings” movement will hold its fourth nationwide event to protest his policies.
The group will hold a live concert in New York City to celebrate the First Amendment. The show will be livestreamed at hundreds of community watch parties and can also be viewed at home.
“As America approaches its 250th anniversary, we have a choice about what story we tell,” “No Kings” organizers said on its website of the “Rise Up, Sing Out” events. “We can let strongman politics and corruption define the moment. Or we can make the story of America about people coming together — across race, background, identity, belief and community — to defend our rights and build a future rooted in people power.”
Billed as “an uplifting evening of song, solidarity and action,” the 90-minute concert at The Town Hall in New York City on Sunday night will feature singers Rufus Wainwright, Bette Midler and Patti Smith, and actors Julia Roberts, Lily Gladstone and Jane Fonda, among others.
The event’s organizers say the concert is to celebrate the First Amendment’s five core freedoms, including the right to free speech, to practice any religion, to report the news as part of a free press, to peacefully assemble in public and to protest — all of which they say are under attack during President Donald Trump’s second term.
“The only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement to Spectrum News about Sunday’s “No Kings” events.
Dozens of progressive organizations have partnered for this Sunday’s locally organized events, including Indivisible, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups affiliated with the 50501 Movement named for 50 protests, 50 states and 1 movement.
The lead organizer for the concert is the Committee for the First Amendment — a group that was first established during the McCarthy era of the late 1940s and early 1950s, when U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy persecuted members of the entertainment industry and federal government alleging they had been infiltrated by communists.
Original members of the committee included stars of the day, such as Ava Gardner, Benny Goodman, Katharine Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Vincent Price and Billy Wilder.
Its newly incarnated form lists more than 1,000 artists and cultural leaders as standing in solidarity “to defend free expression against government repression, industry complicity and intimidation,” according to its website. The site lists writer/director Aaron Sorkin, singer/writer/director Barbra Streisand, actor Cate Blanchett and writer David Sedaris as committee members.
Locally organized, no two “No Kings” events are the same. While the focal point of Sunday’s event is the concert, the watch parties may include sing-alongs, barbecues and art making, organizers say. Sunday’s concert can also be livestreamed on multiple YouTube channels and on social media platforms for viewing at home, according to organizers.
Sunday will be the fourth “No Kings” nationwide day of action. The first held last June 14 included about 2,000 events and drew 5 million participants, according to its organizers, while a second event in October included at least 2,700 events and drew 7 million, organizers said. The most recent rallies in March included more than 3,300 events and drew about 8 million people, the group said.
“Each time we show up, we disrupt President Trump’s attempts to rule through repression and remind the country, and the world, that people power is our path to a truly free America,” Sunday’s organizers wrote on the “No Kings” website. “Authoritarians want fear, silence and isolation. We choose joy. We choose community. We choose people power.”
Like last October’s “No Kings” rallies, which took place during a federal government shutdown over Affordable Care Act subsidies, Sunday’s events are taking place amid a fraught political backdrop as Americans struggle with inflation, including higher food and gas prices, exacerbated by the Iran war.
Prior to last October’s rallies, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., referred to them as “hate America” protests attended by “antifa types,” “Marxists,” “pro-Hamas supporters” and “people who don’t want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this Republic.”