“Today we march, tomorrow we organize and in November we ... vote,” Dayton NAACP President Derrick L. Foward said. “Verify your registration, volunteer with your local NAACP, help your neighbor register, and show up (as) if your freedom depends on it, because, quite frankly, it does.”
Organizers shared a list of grievances against the Trump administration, from aggressive and violent Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions, to the war in Iran, to more families struggling to afford basic needs.
“Masked secret police terrorizing our communities. An illegal, catastrophic war putting us in danger and driving up our costs. Attacks on our freedom of speech, our civil rights, our freedom to vote. Costs pushing families to the brink. Trump wants to rule over us as a tyrant,” organizers said on the No Kings website. “But this is America, and power belongs to the people — not to wannabe kings or their billionaire cronies.”
The White House issued a statement Friday deriding the planned nationwide No Kings protests as a non-news event.
“The only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson.
Dayton rally
Speakers, like Ohio Sen. Willis Blackshear Jr., D-Dayton, emphasized the importance of unity over division.
“We should not and will not let anything or anybody divide us, you see ‘cause that’s what they want to do, ” Blackshear said. “They want to divide us. They want us fighting amongst ourselves, but we’re better than that; we’re bigger than that.”
Credit: Jessica Orozco
Credit: Jessica Orozco
Former Dayton Mayor and current Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio President Nan Whaley encouraged people to protest and said the November election will be “the first great step in taking this country back.”
Andrés López, a representative of the Miami Valley Immigration Coalition, said growing up in El Paso on the border and working with migrants and refugees, he has heard stories of the sacrifices people make and the dangers they leave behind when entering the U.S.
“I heard stories of the conditions in which the migrants were held inside Las Hieleras, the coolers, in other words, the detention centers,” López said. “The holding cells were extremely cold, the lights were always on, and their meals were just a frozen burrito or something similar. There was no privacy to go to the bathroom, and their only sense of protection was a thin plastic emergency blanket. Our border has become extremely militarized in efforts to stop the so-called invasion of our country.”
But López rejected the idea that immigration policies protect the country from terrorism, criminals or illegal drugs, and said the growth in funding for ICE is “immoral” and a “violation of human rights.”
Perhaps the oldest protester there was Frieda Patrick, 90, a Lithuanian refugee who came to the U.S. after World War II after her father was executed by the Nazis and her mother died.
“I survived Stalin and Hitler; we have to survive this ... usurping of power in our country,” Patrick said.
Credit: Jessica Orozco
Credit: Jessica Orozco
Following speakers, songs and chants, attendees took to the streets, marching around city blocks.
Attendees, like Springboro neighbors Veronica Lasky, Gloria Hamilton and Carole Neubauer, said they wanted to “send a message” and use their voice for change.
“What we’re seeing in government in the past year is not government; it’s not America, not the America we know. And we’re going to let them know it and we’re going to take it back,” Lasky said.
Hamilton said she worries what the country will look like for her granddaughters, who are four- and six-years old.
Jennifer Wadsworth, who lives in Arizona but is staying in Dayton with family, said she grew up watching the news with her parents and learned that “you have to work for your rights,” which she said “are slowly being taken away.”
“I’m worried specifically right now about ballots being seized in the upcoming elections; I think that’s what they’re preparing for,” Wadsworth said.
Area, nationwide protests
There were area protests held in Springfield, Troy, Beavercreek, Xenia, Middletown, Lebanon, Hamilton, West Chester Twp. and Wilmington.
This is the fourth mass mobilization and the largest since Trump’s return to the White House, which organizers said signals increasing dissatisfaction with the president’s economic priorities, war in Iran and “authoritarian overreach.”
Protests were planned in red states and rural areas that had not historically hosted No Kings rallies, reflecting a growing anti-authoritarian sentiment in communities that have often been overlooked in national mobilizations, organizers said.
There were more than five million participants in protests across the country on June 14, 2025 and more than 7 million people joining 2,700-plus events across all 50 states Oct. 18, according to organizers.
Several million were expected Saturday, too, at thousands of protests across the nation.
Credit: Jessica Orozco
Credit: Jessica Orozco
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