By: Michael Achterling, Jeff Beach, and Amy Dalrymple (ND Monitor)
Thousands of North Dakotans in 10 cities joined the national No Kings protest movement Saturday, with organizers saying they saw new faces joining the effort to oppose Donald Trump’s policies.
Kathy Bullinger of Bismarck showed up at the state Capitol grounds with her two sons, including one who has disabilities. She said she worries her son’s care could be affected if proposed Medicaid cuts are implemented.
Bullinger, a longtime teacher, also is concerned about the elimination of the Department of Education. An organizer estimated the Bismarck crowd to be about 1,700.
“People are nervous and they’re tired,” she said. “They are here today because of that and I’m one of them.”
Organizers estimated about 3,000 gathered at City Hall in Fargo, while smaller protests were held in Grand Forks, Jamestown, Bottineau, Devils Lake, Dickinson, Williston and Minot. A No Kings group also walked in the Valley City Community Days parade on Saturday.
The movement served as counter-programming to Trump’s military parade in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, which commemorated the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army and also fell on Trump’s 79th birthday.
In Devils Lake, organizer Julie Schuler said about 80 people joined the protest, double the turnout of two recent local rallies.
“What was so exciting was that there were so many new faces,” said Schuler, who is involved with a recently formed local group known as Voters for Democracy.
Participants gathered outside the Lake Region Heritage Museum and took turns with a microphone sharing stories about why they joined the rally.
“I was so impressed with the stories that were shared, whether it was from a farming situation or whether it was just from pure fear out of what’s going on with our administration,” Schuler said.
In Jamestown, about 180 people met at the top of Mill Hill where they had a moment of prayer before marching with signs and singing “America the Beautiful” and other songs, said organizer Lily Cizadlo.
“I’ve watched the numbers grow in every turnout, so that’s been very exciting,” Cizadlo said.
At the Bismarck event, Cheryll Rush, 79, of Hazen said she was embarrassed to reveal her age because she is the same age that Trump turned on Saturday. Rush said she protested in the 1960s and 1970s and she believes the country is moving backward.
“We’ve become a police state with his ICE,” Rush said. “It’s un-American.”
Rush said Hazen and Bismarck are Republican-leaning towns, but she was reinvigorated by the large crowd of demonstrators pushing back.
Dyllon Faul of Bismarck attended Bismarck’s Capitol Pride festival Saturday and also stood with the protesters along the roadway.
“With how our commander-in-chief is behaving, we need somebody that is in political office that is going to represent the people in an ethical, moral way, and I don’t see that happening,” Faul said.
At Fargo’s event, which also drew participants from neighboring Minnesota, Jacob Pruneda of Fargo was wrapped in a Mexican flag.
“We didn’t vote for this,” he said. “The Constitution protects rights for all.”
Lyn Dockter-Pinnick, an organizer for Indivisible Fargo-Moorhead, said the increase in activism recently is noticeable.
“There’s just so many issues and the more people become aware of the fact that this is going to impact me, the more people want to get involved,” she said. “Action is truly the antidote for despair.”
No major incidents were immediately reported at the North Dakota rallies.
In Bismarck, a handful of counter-protesters assembled on the opposite side of the street as the No Kings demonstrators.
Charles Tuttle, a conservative who was attending the North Dakota Republican Party reorganization meeting across the street from the protest, waved a large American flag with Trump’s face screen printed over the stars and stripes.
“We should always stand up for what we believe in,” Tuttle said. “We should all be able to be out here without being antagonistic to each other.”
A vehicle with Pennsylvania plates sped at least four times past the Bismarck event with a passenger making obscene gestures and screaming a racial slur at the crowd. In Fargo, a truck blared its horn for part of the event in an attempt to drown out the speaker. In Devils Lake, a motorcyclist yelled at the protest group, but participants responded by chanting “USA.”
Elijah Robinson, a Chicagoan spending his summer in North Dakota for an internship, also joined the Fargo rally. He said as Black person, there is a tradition of standing up for one’s rights, though he said it was his first protest.
“I’m glad they had it. I’m glad it remained peaceful,” Robinson said.
