While the spotlight Saturday, Oct. 18, was on the national No Kings protests, local volunteers helped organize a protest along Harwood Avenue in Homewood, giving people a chance to protest the policies of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Estimates are that between 700 and 1,000 people were part of the peaceful protest.
Indivisible, a national political action committee, and the South Suburban branch of Action for a Better Tomorrow (ABT), helmed by Annie Lawrence, Greg Weiss, Jennifer Peterson and Leslie Meyer, organized Homewood’s No Kings protest.
“It’s obvious that the desire is there (in Homewood) to participate in the national and the bigger conversation,” Lawrence said, explaining why ABT organized the protest. “Our community really wants to be a part of this. So, as long as they keep showing up, we’ll keep doing it.”
The demonstrators included Homewood Mayor Rich Hofeld, Homewood Trustee Jay Heiferman, Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller and community members traveling from around the South Suburbs.
Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller speaks at the No Kings rally in Homewood on Oct. 18. (Nick Ulanowski / H-F Chronicle)
“When I went into the army, I took an oath to uphold the Constitution. I don’t see that being done in Washington by the president,” Hofeld said.
For about two hours, protesters chanted “Hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go,” “This is what democracy looks like” and “Whose streets? Our streets.” Many carried handmade protest signs, referencing issues such as immigration, abortion rights and the defunding of public media.
Passing cars honked in support of the protest. Two pickup trucks waving “Donald Trump 2024: Keep America Great” flags drove by the protest several times. The crowd booed each time the trucks passed.
Demonstrators lined both sides of the street for several blocks, stretching from Aurelio’s Pizza at 18162 Harwood Ave. to the Shell gas station at the corner of 183rd Street and Harwood Avenue.
Lawrence, a Homewood resident who works as a school guidance counselor, said she has immigrant students with legal documentation who are afraid to go to school, fearing an action by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Lawrence said she and her loved ones are affected by cuts to Medicare in the Big, Beautiful Bill, signed by Trump on July 4, and layoffs at the Department of Education by this administration.
According to Capitol News Illinois, the Big, Beautiful Bill will cut Medicaid funding by roughly $1 trillion in the next decade. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said the bill will result in over 330,000 Illinoisans losing coverage and heavily impact rural hospitals.
Thousands of Department of Education employees have been laid off, including in the office that oversees special education.
“There are a lot of people who are pro-removing the Department of Education,” Lawrence said. “They’re suddenly going to need it and realize they don’t have it anymore.”
Homewood resident Caitlin Archer said events like No Kings are important to show a sign of strength and to see community members who care about the nation’s current political state.
“It’s horrifying and terrifying watching what’s happening to our community members,” Archer said, adding she will work to stop the country from turning toward fascism.
Park Forest resident Becca Fassbender said, “I am an outspoken, loud and proud lesbian woman who is fearing my rights are about to be stripped. (…) I’m a woman in general. I enjoy having rights over my own body, and I don’t have that right now under this presidency.”
“We just want to be heard,” Fassbender said. “We want our rights to be respected. We want ICE out of our neighborhoods.”
Homewood resident Aqila Wilks carried a sign with a photo of Grumpy Cat, a popular meme in the 2010s, and a pun about women’s bodily autonomy.
“I recently went on birth control, and it was the best thing ever for me. I’m also very, very gay,” Wilks said. For her, birth control was “like a miracle pill for me,” she said, but she fears a right to contraceptives could be overturned by the Supreme Court, just as the Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing a right to an abortion was overturned.
Gabriela Valdez carried a sign with the American flag, the Mexican flag and the slogan “Yelling what our (family members) were too scared to yell” in Spanish.
“We are protesting for them and the people who can’t speak out for themselves,” Valdez said. “Immigrants made this nation. There’s always been immigrants. I don’t like the idea of families being separated or hardworking people being targeted.”
Homewood resident Caroline Kjors wore a Reading Rainbow shirt and held a sign protesting the Trump administration’s complete defunding of PBS. She said she’s been watching PBS her whole life and listens to NPR every morning.
“They need our support, but I mean, all publications, all press, do right now,” Kjors said. “Free speech in general, the First Amendment, is in jeopardy.”
The largest single-day protest in American history was on the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, but this No Kings protest, with an estimated 7 million participants nationwide, was the second largest, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. The fourth largest was the No Kings protest on June 14.
