Rain made the ink run on some of the signs held by early-bird protesters at the intersection of 103rd Street and Western Avenue in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood on Saturday, Oct. 18, but the growing crowd did not let the weather stop it from making their opposition to the Trump administration known.

Several dozen people, some protected by rain gear and some just getting wet, were on the southwest corner more than half an hour before the rally’s 3 p.m. start time. People were still arriving just before 4 p.m., adding to a crowd of several hundred that covered each corner of the intersection and stretched along Western Avenue in both directions.

The rally was part of a nationwide effort supported by a number of organizations under the theme, “No Kings,” a reference to authoritarian approaches employed by President Donald Trump, including ignoring the separation of powers, prosecuting political foes, attacking the media and, top of mind for many in the Chicago area, the aggressive apprehension of people suspected of being undocumented immigrants.

That effort, Operation Midway Blitz, began in September and has included often violent behavior by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, who have grabbed people off the street, at courthouses and at their places of work. In the process, ICE agents have detained immigrants despite their having proper documentation and as many as 170 U.S. citizens, according to a ProPublica report. ICE agents also have battled protesters, especially at the agency’s processing center in Broadview, shooting people with pepper balls and tear gas.

I stopped by the Beverly event because I had an event to attend in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood and couldn’t make it back in time for Homewood’s rally. Like events across the nation, the Beverly rally was non-violent, and protesters’ signs and chants alternated between anger, snark and whimsy. Some opposed Trump. Some opposed ICE. Some promoted democracy and decency.

I talked to five people before I had to leave about 4 p.m. Each of them was at their first protest. I asked what prompted them to show up in the rain to protest.

I talked to two young women, from Chicago’s Hyde Park and Chatham neighborhoods, who said the ICE operations in Chicago were alarming.

“That’s what the last straw was for me. People are saying United States citizens are illegal and it’s okay for them to be taken away from their families,” one of the women said. “And me, as a United States citizen, I feel like that is not next door, that’s in my home.”

Pat and Jean Kilcoyne said the immigrant crackdown feels personal to them. They have two Venezuelan grandchildren. Jean held a sign that read, “We won’t back down. No ICE!”

“There was a thing on the news the other day. Seventeen percent of the people that they’ve picked up have criminal backgrounds. Okay. Get rid of them,” Pat said. “The other 83%, they’re just trying to get into the country and be a good citizen. All of our families started out this way. Now we’ve instilled hate into this, and that’s not what we’re all about.”

He said immigration enforcement is not the only issue he’s concerned about. He worries about the erosion of other rights.

“Too many people lost their lives fighting for what we have now. If we don’t take a stand sooner or later, it’s going to be overtaken,” he said.

A young woman, Erica Barton, said her work schedule has conflicted with past protests.

“I’m totally nervous about being here, but it’s important to be here. It’s important to show up,” she said.

She sported a frog hat in honor of the now-famous protester in Portland, Oregon, who faced off with ICE agents on Oct. 2 while wearing an inflatable frog costume. Since then, inflatable costumes of various animals, from dinosaurs to unicorns, have become popular garb for protesters around the country. There was at least one other frog and a unicorn in the Beverly crowd.

“I’ve been watching a lot of the Portland protests, and they’re saying in Portland that the frog is kind of a symbol of this whole rebellion,” she said. “So I thought we should have some fun with it too, because it is ridiculous that what’s happening in this country.”

Barton’s sign was a riff on the famous poem by Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor who was an early supporter of the Nazi party in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s. He later had a change of heart and spent time in a concentration camp. His poem is a cautionary tale about complacency in the face of fascism.

Her sign read, “First they came for … socialists, trade unionists, Jews, immigrants, non-Christians, anti-fascists. When they came for me ….” 

“The Republican party keeps saying that Democrats are terrorists and they’re not,” Barton said. “They keep saying that we’re anti-American because we don’t want to have a dictator. What’s anti-American about that?”

Nothing. The country was born in rebellion against a dictatorial king, and the Constitution was written to forestall the rise of a dictator. Trump’s failure to respect the Constitution is making alarm bells go off for many people. An estimated 7 million people participated in rallies and marches on Saturday.

It’s worth noting, though, that the turn to authoritarianism is alarming to everyone who values freedom and democracy, it’s not as new or surprising to Black, Brown and Indigenous people. They have seen this before.

The Woodlawn event I attended was “Democracy and Civil Rights,” sponsored by the NAACP Project Committee of the Top Ladies of Distinction and the Connection and Social Action Committee of the Theta Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha. 

Civil Rights Movement icon Diane Nash was one of the speakers. 

“I have lived in a fascist society in Alabama and Mississippi before desegregation,” she said, and described the powerlessness and violence Black people experienced under one party rule.

I will have more to report next week from her presentation and the other speakers.