It’s not just another protest.
Several Berkshire communities are planning protests and rallies in support of “No Kings National Day of Defiance,” a national movement opposing the Trump administration’s policies and actions.
With tensions rising nationally over President Donald Trump's use of masked federal officers to apprehend, detain and deport people suspected of civil immigration violations without due process, organizers are hoping attendance will show grassroots opposition, as well as a contrast to a planned military parade in Washington the same day.
Saturday is the 250th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Army. It's also Trump's birthday.
“June 14 is Flag Day, and I'll be damned if they're going to take the American flag away from me,” said Sherwood Guernsey, president and treasurer of the Rural Freedom Network and co-organizer of the event.
Organizers and community leaders discussed Saturday's plans earlier this week during a meeting with The Berkshire Eagle's editorial board.
“What's happening ends up getting reported as a series of discrete events, attacks on immigrants, attacks on benefits, attacks on our institutions,” said Wendy Penner, a co-organizer of Greylock Together Indivisible. “And I think people really need to have it put together for them that this is a rise of an authoritarian regime, and that our freedoms and our institutions are under assault, and we are at risk of losing them.”
Hundreds of people gathered in front of Town Hall in Great Barrington on April 5 for the Hands Off protest. Another crowd is expected on Saturday for the national "No Kings" rally.
No Kings events have been planned in all 50 states. In Berkshire County, they’re starting early Saturday morning at 8 a.m. at Field Park in Williamstown, followed by events at 11 a.m. at City Hall in North Adams, at noon at 45 Main St. in West Stockbridge and at Town Hall in Great Barrington, and at 3 p.m. at The Common in Pittsfield.
“This country has had a history of progression towards freedom. Now there's an attempt to try to take those freedoms back,” said Pittsfield activist and educator Shirley Edgerton.
“You know, my ancestors died, my ancestors worked hard, so that I could sit in this room with each of you, so I can live where I live, where my neighbors are white. So for people that look like me, there's a great fear," Edgerton said. "But yet ... there's a determination that we're not going to tolerate this. So we are here to stay, and we will not allow our freedoms to be snatched.”
The Williamstown event will feature a WWII era battle flag that will be driven north through Vermont, stopping at events on its way to the Canadian border. Speeches, doughnuts and cider are planned.
Many of the events have scheduled live music and food trucks on site. “Forbidden words” parades also are planned for North Adams and Pittsfield.
The organizers are a coalition of countywide groups — Stand Up Berkshires in Pittsfield, Greylock Together in North County, Indivisible Pittsfield, the Rural Freedom Network and several local Democratic committees among them.
Organizers noted that according to research by Harvard Kennedy School of Government researcher Erica Chenoweth, when about 3.5 percent of a nation’s population takes part in nonviolent protest, those people win.
For the U.S. in 2025, with a population of about 340 million, that’s about 11.9 million people.
“We don't have to convince 50 percent of the country. We have to convince those who are starting to listen and feel the pain,” Guernsey said.
What's different about this effort, organizers said, is that people who would otherwise feel powerless are finding strength in coming together for a common cause.
“We are in coalition together. We feel that it's not just a movement to be reading about in the newspapers. We're living it,” Greylock Together co-organizer Jessica Dils said. “We are directly in relationship with groups who are serving the most marginalized, the most the most vulnerable, the most attacked communities right now. ... And a lot of these relationships aren't us going out and seeking. It's organically people coming together. It is organically people saying, ‘What can I do?’”
About 40 protesters gathered at the Silvio O. Conte Federal Building in Pittsfield on April 24 to protest threats to the Social Security system.
While these are not the first anti-Trump rallies to be held in the Berkshires, they are the first to take place since the president used anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles as a pretext for activating and sending the National Guard and U.S. Marine Corps troops — against the wishes of the mayor and the governor.
That action — and the potential for violence or property destruction, either by protesters or white nationalist militia groups loyal to Trump — has raised concerns about the possibility of additional military deployments, or even martial law, should tensions and rhetoric continue to escalate.
Robin O’Herin, who is co-organizing the Pittsfield protest, says her group has safety marshals who will ensure that the group remains “a peaceful angry people” that will not engage with counterprotesters.
“I've taken six de-escalation trainings so far, and I'm not going to stop, because there's always new information we are learning — how to not react, how to calm people down, how to avoid intense confrontations in a positive way,” O’Herin said. “And that's going to be in place this Saturday.”
Pittsfield Police have been working with organizers, as has been the case for previous anti-Trump rallies, and will be on patrol Saturday. There are good lines of communication open with organizers, and there’s been no trouble at previous demonstrations, Capt. Matthew Hill said.
Still, he said, police are monitoring for any planned counterprotests, and have resources they can call if a worst-case scenario develops.
“The climate right now in the country is not one of the best,” he said.
