'No Kings' protesters rally in Philadelphia against the Trump administration

PHILADELPHIA — As President Donald Trump was preparing to celebrate his 79th birthday Saturday in Washington with a military parade honoring the U.S. Army’s 250th service anniversary, Vietnam veteran Herbert Smith stuck close to home.

The 76-year-old West Philly resident said he would rather be in Philadelphia, where organizers of the nationwide “No Kings” rallies held their flagship march amid a tense landscape that has emerged over incendiary anti-ICE protests not only in Los Angeles, but also here in the city.

“This is a dictatorship here,” Smith, a Marine, said. ”We made a mistake putting him in, now we’re paying.”

Smith was one of thousands of protesters who took to Center City’s streets for Saturday’s “No Kings” Philadelphia march. The demonstration was one of thousands around the country in response to Trump’s “self-aggrandizing” military parade, organizers with the 50501 Movement said. Trump has denied claims that the D.C. event served as a birthday party of sorts for him, but critics and “No Kings” protest organizers contended otherwise.

The Philadelphia march came just days after more than a dozen anti-ICE demonstrators were arrested following a clash with police officers in Center City. And in the Philadelphia suburbs, more than 20 people in Norristown have been taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since the start of June.

It also arrived amid escalating protests in Los Angeles, where Trump sent in California National Guard troops, over objections from Democratic leaders in that state, to confront protesters demonstrating against ICE actions. In Minnesota, a planned “No Kings” rally was canceled following the shooting of two state lawmakers, one fatally, in targeted attacks, organizers said, though Minnesota Public Radio reported that thousands of protesters rallied at the state Capitol anyway.

Philadelphia’s march, however, was orderly. Demonstrators began gathering in LOVE Park around 10 a.m. and made their way to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Chants deriding the president and ICE deportations were heard, including one suggesting the “Trump regime” needed “to go.”

As the march kicked off, Denise and Howard Trubman held hands in the crowd. They had been coming to protests against Trump since his inauguration in January. Americans, Howard Trubman said, had to stand up to Trump because “he is overreaching” in his powers as president. But, at least on Saturday, they were able to do so peacefully.

“There is no violence here,” Denise Trubman said. “We are people, seniors, parents and children.”

Participants joined from as far away as Maryland in their disapproval of Trump’s handling of everything from immigration to U.S. Postal Service privatization to funding for higher education. Among them was Delores Lombardi, whose late husband worked at the University of Pennsylvania’s dental school. Had he been alive to see the Trump administration’s cuts to science and medical research, she said, he would have been distraught.

“It breaks my heart to see the funding cut back — that will result in deaths,” said Lombardi, 69, of Upper Darby. As a tribute to her husband, Lombardi wore a white Penn lab coat, and she hoisted a sign evoking Benjamin Franklin, who she said represented the “No Kings” movement.

“They wanted separation from the king,” she said of the nation’s Founding Fathers. “Independence, freedoms, our Constitution.”

Others, meanwhile, focused on Trump’s treatment of immigrants, which has become a flash point around the country.

“It feels like people who are here legally are still not safe,” said Dorie Byrne, 42, whose husband became a citizen three weeks ago.

This being Philadelphia, there was some Eagles flavor to the criticism of Trump’s policies. Nick Salvatore, 40, hefted a massive crocheted sign that he constructed for the Super Bowl this year. But he decided to add to it ahead of the “No Kings” protest.

“Here’s a message we can all get behind,” Salvatore said, revealing a backside of a “Go Birds!” sign that read “Stop U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” He said the group’s raids and arrests are malicious and illegal, and needed to be stopped.

“It just seems like naked hostility and cruelty. It’s not a surprise, but I’m just tired of it,” Salvatore said.

And eagles, it turned out, didn’t mind the light rain that cropped up Saturday amid the effects of the New Jersey wildfire smoke making its way to the city. At one point during the protest, Nancy Kenney, who had no relation to Philadelphia’s former mayor, peeked out from a plastic screen affixed to her protest attire — an inflatable suit depicting a bald-headed eagle.

Kenney, a 55-year-old nurse from Riverside, Burlington County, said she joined the protest alongside her partner because of Trump’s authoritarianism in office. Her getup, she added, represented everything the president is not, despite the frequent sight of eagle symbology at MAGA rallies.

“It’s a symbol of freedom and the United States of America — not a divided people,” she said as she joined the ballooning crowd in LOVE Park.

As Saturday’s protest progressed, everyone in Center City seemed to want to fist-bump the mail carriers.

A trio of current and retired postal workers wore flash from the American Postal Workers Union, reminding the crowd of Trump’s threats to privatize the Postal Service. They drew nothing but love from their perch along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway protest route, where people shouted “we love USPS!” and thanked them for their work.

Charles Pinkney Sr., a postal worker for 27 years, wiped away the rain as he greeted marchers. Showing up, he said, is what postal workers do, rain or shine.

“It’s for the public,” Pinkney said, “not for the private industry. We deliver mail no matter what the condition is or what the weather is.”

Demonstrators gathered at the Art Museum steps until about 2 p.m., when the crowd began thinning out as speakers delivered their remarks. Helicopters and drones continued to fly overhead and, every so often, a speaker would elicit cheers from those who remained, or a chant of “The people, united, will never be defeated.”

Philadelphia police officers, meanwhile, lined up on the outskirts of the Parkway in anticipation of a clash that never arrived, though their attitudes seemed relaxed. As the last speaker took the stage, firefighters began packing up, putting away unused emergency wheelchairs into the back of a truck, and sanitation workers started cleaning up trash.

Hours after the rally ended, some marchers moved to protest outside the Federal Detention Center at Seventh and Arch Streets. An officer who asked not to be named said the group of about 50 people had been moving around Center City protesting the Trump administration.

During the main protest’s wind-down, a small confrontation unfolded on the Parkway, as one man accused protesters of contributing to the attacks in Minnesota. Dozens of officers began surrounding the man as participants stepped in.

“We just had a peaceful protest,” one of them said. “Don’t do this.”