Updated: Oct. 19 at 7 a.m.- Riverhead was the site of two No Kings protests Saturday, among more than 2,700 protests that took place across the country.
Organizers said nearly 7 million people turned out from coast to coast to protest against President Donald Trump. There were protests organized in all 50 states, from big cities to rural communities, in response to Trump administration policies criticized as authoritarian tactics and threats to democratic norms.
The first of two local demonstrations took place outside the county center Saturday morning, followed by another along Route 58 west of the traffic circle, which got underway at 12:30 p.m. Crowds at both numbered in the hundreds, with the larger protest on Route 58, where protesters bearing signs and U.S. flags stretched along the south side of the busy road from the traffic circle to roughly opposite the Riverhead Target shopping plaza. Passing motorists largely responded to the sign-bearing protesters with honking horns, waving hands and thumbs-up signs.
Massive crowds turned out in large cities, including New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Boston, according to reports by news outlets and television stations. All protests were “lawful and peaceful,” organizers said a statement Saturday night.
Saturday’s “No Kings Day of Action” was the second No Kings protest day this year. The first took place in June and drew about 2 million into the streets, according to organizers.
The No Kings movement is a decentralized movement of grassroots organizations that organized its first nationwide protests in June. The local No Kings protests have been organized by Indivisible North Fork. Protests were scheduled Saturday in more than a dozen places across Long Island.
“Today, millions of Americans stood together to reject authoritarianism and remind the world that our democracy belongs to the people, not to one man’s ambition,” Indivisible co-founders Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg said in a statement Saturday night. “Authoritarians want us to believe resistance is futile, but every person who turned out today proved the opposite. This movement isn’t about a single protest; it’s about a growing chorus of Americans who refuse to be ruled. Trump may want a crown, but in this country, there are no kings.”
RiverheadLOCAL photos by Denise Civiletti
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