See list of 36 rally locations in New Hampshire at the end of this story.
Fix on Littleton rally, ends at 5 p.m., not 8 p.m. Saturday
By Arnie Alpert, Active with the Activists
Arnie Alpert spent decades as a community organizer/educator in NH movements for social justice and peace. Officially retired from the American Friends Service Committee since 2020, he keeps his hands (and feet) in the activist world while writing about past and present social movements.
Under the banner of “No Kings,” thirty-six or more demonstrations will take place in New Hampshire on Saturday, October 18 to express outrage at President Donald Trump’s many affronts to democratic norms. Another two dozen “banner teams” will be visible on New Hampshire highway overpasses with signs opposing authoritarian rule.
More than 2,600 actions are planned nationwide. “Together, millions will send a clear and unmistakable message: we are a nation of equals, and our country will not be ruled by fear or force,” says a statement by national organizers.
The demonstrations come at a time when President Trump has pledged to mobilize federal forces, including soldiers, against “the enemy from within.” In an interview Monday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy accused No Kings of being “paid protesters” associated with antifa, a movement the administration has labeled “domestic terrorists.”
Groups planning to be in the streets on Saturday say they are undeterred and that their actions are rooted in the long traditions of free speech and peaceful protest. In a message to the group’s followers earlier this week, Louise Spencer of the Concord-based Kent Street Coalition wrote, “Courage in the face of tyranny can look like many things. It can be big and public, or small and private. But this Saturday, October 18th, courage looks like one thing: showing up. We show up because we know Trump wants nothing more than to scare us into silence. We refuse to be silent.”
Danielle Feole is organizing the No Kings protest in Salem on Saturday, the fourth such action there since spring. For the first No Kings demonstration in June, she said 150 people showed up, “which for Salem is huge.” Many of the protesters were associated with the Salem Democrats, but she said there were plenty of “new faces,” too. When they gather, “everybody leaves really excited and feeling a little bit more hopeful,” she said.
Their gathering point is Salem Commons, a corner she called “nice and shaded, but a pretty busy intersection, especially on Saturdays, so you get a lot of people passing by.” Most of their responses so far have been positive she said, though they have heard obscenities from a few drivers.
Trump’s rhetoric is “kind of scary,” she said, but “I think it’s really important that we’re all out there standing up and speaking out.” Feole said they have asked local police officers to be on hand, which has given participants a feeling of security.
Mount Washington Valley Resistance is hosting what they call a “two-sided” event in Conway on Saturday. One component will be a “visibility” action with signs, music, and speakers by a busy intersection at the center of town. The other side is a “mutual aid fair” in the Conway Library Park, with children’s activities, collection and distribution of things people may need, and information about local service agencies, explained Megan Chapman, one of the organizers.
The impact of federal budget cuts and the government shutdown are already being felt in the community, Chapman said. “The two-sided event is to both stand up, keep exercising and using our freedom of speech, calling for the changes that we need to see at the governmental level, and at the same time building up our resilience as a community to withstand the numerous attacks that we’re under.”
White Mountain Valley Resistance will also provide information on how to push back against ICE, which Chapman said “is trying its best to permeate and use resources to co-opt our local institutions, from county jails to local police, county sheriffs and our local transportation systems, and we really need to push up, push back and stand up about this issue. And we hope that others organizing No Kings events across the state and across the country will be joining this call to push back on ICE as the arm of the federal authoritarian state.”
David Holt has been organizing protest activities in Portsmouth since he became involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011. Occupy NH Seacoast, the only New Hampshire group that still publicly identifies with that movement, has been holding weekly demonstrations in Market Square since Trump’s first election, with a break during the Covid pandemic. Dubbed “Civil Rights Sundays,” these weekly actions highlight a variety of issues, with people bringing signs sparked by issues that change from week to week. Now, Holt is one of the organizers for the No Kings protest, too.
The times we’re in are “terrifying,” he said. The silencing of dissenting voices, the trumped-up “crime emergencies,” the dispatch of troops to American cities, the destruction of systems of checks and balances, all represent threats of fascism and grounds for protest. “We need to stand up,” he said, expressing hope that Saturday’s No Kings will be the largest yet.
The Market Square rally won’t feature speakers or music, Holt said. Instead, it will present an opportunity for people to make connections, circulate petitions, pass out flyers, and share information about other actions. At the “Workers over Billionaires” rally on Labor Day, he said he collected signatures on an “ICE Out of Pease” petition, which was delivered to the board of the Pease Development Authority in protest against the use of Portsmouth International Airport for deportation flights. For the time being, those flights appear to have ceased.
In Concord, the local arms of the 50501 movement will again hold a rally in front of the State House. Their program will include music and speakers associated with LGBTQ+ and indigenous issues, disabilities rights, veterans, immigrants, and Middle East peace. The Concord rallies have typically been the largest in the state since mass protests began in February.
Nationally, No Kings is backed by over 200 groups, including ACLU, American Federation of Teachers, Common Defense, 50501, Indivisible, Human Rights Campaign, League of Conservation Voters, MoveOn, National Nurses United, Public Citizen, SEIU, Federal Unionists Network, and the Sierra Club. Organizers say more than five million people participated nationwide in the last major No Kings demonstrations on June 14. The Crowd Counting Consortium, a research institute based at Harvard, called it “one of the largest single days of protest in United States history.”
Coinciding with the No Kings rallies, the NH Bridge Brigade will have banner teams on about 25 major highway overpasses from Nashua to Franconia Notch. Teams typically display signs visible to motorists with pro-democracy slogans. Greta Roberts, a spokesperson for the Brigade, said bridge protest actions will take place in nearly all states on Saturday.
Promotion of all No Kings events states that the actions will be based on a commitment to nonviolence, including an expectation that participants will “seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values and to act lawfully at these events.” Guidelines also preclude the presence of “weapons of any kind, including those legally permitted.” The national ACLU says it has provided “know your rights” training to tens of thousands of people in recent weeks, including 18,000 who were at an online training last night dealing with civil rights, de-escalation, and safety.
Members of the NH Peacekeepers Project will be present at several events Saturday to help maintain nonviolent spirit and de-escalate any conflicts which may arise.
“We won’t overcome the challenges if we each sit in social media bubbles and don’t come out and interact with one another,” commented Megan Chapman of Mount Washington Valley Resistance. “When we are in community together, interacting, we start to see through the lies and the rhetoric that are all around us, and we can start to see each other and our real shared humanity.”
Send your local No Kings photos to InDepthNH! Please include the place and the name of the photographer. Email to nancywestnews@gmail.com
No Kings Rallies in New Hampshire, October 18, 2025
- Alton – 10 to 11:30 am at Alton Circle
- Charlestown – 3 to 5 pm on Main Street
- Claremont – 10 am to Noon at Broad Street Park
- Colebrook – 9 to 11 am at Municipal Drive and Main St.
- Concord – Noon to 4 pm at the State House
- Conway – Noon to 2 pm at the Four Corners
- Dover – 11 am to 1 pm at Central Ave. and Washington St.
- Dover – 3 to 5 pm at Weeks Crossing, 238 Indian Brook Rd.
- Enfield – 11 am to 12:30 pm at Huse Park
- Exeter – 1 to 3 pm at 5 Water St.
- Gorham – Noon to 4 pm at Rte. 2 and 16
- Groveton – 9 to 11 am at 59 Church St.
- Hanover – 9 to 10:30 am at 53 Lyme Rd
- Lebanon – 12:30 to 2 pm at Main and Bridge Sts.
- Littleton – 3:30 to 5 pm at Littleton Community House, 120 W. Main St.
- Lincoln – 1 to 3 pm at 50 Main St.
- New London – 1 to 2:30 pm at 375 Main St.
- Orford – 10 am to Noon at Samuel Morey Bridge
- Plymouth – 8:30 to 11 am at 2 Armory Rd
- Jaffrey – 1 to 3 pm at 14 Peterboro St
- Keene – 10 am to 2 pm at Ladies Wildwood Park on the corner of Park Avenue and Arch Street
- (not Central Sq due to Pumpkin Fest)
- Manchester – 1 to 4 pm at City Hall
- Meredith – 3:30 to 5:30 pm at 327 Daniel Webster Hwy.
- Milford – 2 to 4 pm at Milford Oval
- Nashua – 4 to 6 pm at Soldiers and Sailors Monument
- Newmarket – 11:30 am to 1:30 pm at Main Street Bandstand
- Pelham – 10 am to 1 pm at Meetinghouse Park Roundabout
- Portsmouth – 1 to 3 pm at Market Square
- Rindge – 1 to 3 pm at Rte. 202 and 119
- Rochester – 1 to 2 pm at 111 N Main St
- Salem – 10 am to Noon at Salem Commons (Main and Bridge)
- Swanzey – Noon to 3 pm at 621 Old Homestead Hwy (Potash Bowl Amphitheater)
- Walpole – 3:30 to 5 pm at 8 Huntington Lane (across from Dunkin)
- Winchester- Noon to 2 pm at Old Bank, Keene Road & Richmond Road
- Wolfeboro – Noon to 2 pm at 153 S. Main St
No Kings rallies will also take place in border towns such as Pepperell, Amesbury, Haverhill, and Merrimack MA; Brattleboro, Bellows Falls, White River Junction, Newbury and Windsor VT; and York and Sanford ME.
See NoKings.org for updates and more information.