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 since 2020, he keeps his hands (and feet) in the activist world while writing about past and present social movements.
Two weeks after the last national day of anti-Trump protests and two hundred and fifty years after American patriots fired the “shot heard round the world” in Lexington, Massachusetts, April 19 will be another day of nationwide demonstrations, many of them with a theme of “No Kings.”
At least sixteen demonstrations are planned in New Hampshire, from Colebrook to Kingston and Portsmouth the Keene. Organizers of a rally planned at the State House steps in Concord said, “the event is a reminder that the fight against tyranny is ongoing—and that power must always remain in the hands of the people, not a single individual.”
Indivisible, a national network of local activist groups, was listing 871 demonstrations on its national protest map at 4:30 pm on April 18. Another project, called, We (the people) Dissent,” was listing 842 as of Friday morning.
Those taking to the streets have plenty of grievances, including unwarranted arrests, shipments of people facing no criminal charges to a notorious foreign prison, threats to cut Medicaid, and the ongoing march of Elon Musk’s DOGE through the federal workforce. On Friday, NPR reported that the State Department’s annual Human Rights Reports will no longer condemn violations of the right to free speech and assembly, the failure to hold fair elections, or harassment of groups that advocate human rights. The change does not bode well for American democracy.
Attention is likely to be paid, as well, to the fear that President Trump will invoke the Insurrection Act, granting extraordinary powers to the military to function as a domestic police force. Claiming that immigration from Mexico constituted an “invasion,” one of Trump’s Inauguration Day Presidential Actions ordered the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security to “submit a joint report to the President about the conditions at the southern border of the United States and any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807.” The order’s 90-day deadline comes on Sunday.
Trump reportedly considered invoking the Insurrection Act in 2020 in response to a small number of violent acts during protests that followed the police murder of George Floyd. While more sober figures within his administration convinced him to hold off the first time around, Trump 2.0 appears to have excluded any presidential advisers willing to exercise similar restraint. The administration has already militarized its domestic affairs, for example by applying the Alien Enemies Act to accused gang members and declaring a 60-foot strip of land from California to Texas to be military property.
Knowing that past movements have been disrupted by paid infiltrators, some of whom were undercover police agents, protest organizers are intent on keeping their actions nonviolent. “Instigators are individuals who deliberately incite conflict, violence, or chaos at protests – often to discredit a movement, justify police repression, or gather intelligence,” warned a social media post from 50501, the group which has organized several Concord demonstrations since February 5. “These actors can be police officers, hired agitators, or counter-protesters. Knowing how to identify and respond to them is crucial for maintaining peaceful, effective demonstrations,” they said.
Perhaps it’s ironic, but President Trump, too, has marked the 250th anniversary of the Lexington uprising. In a proclamation issued April 16, he said, “April 19, 1775, stands to this day as a seminal milestone in our Nation’s righteous crusade for liberty and independence. On this day 250 years ago, with the fire of freedom blazing in their souls, an extraordinary army of American minutemen defeated one of the mightiest armies on the face of the earth and laid the foundation for America’s ultimate triumph over tyranny.”
Saturday, April 19, No Kings Day
Colebrook – 10 am to noon, 21 Parsons St. “Support Vets and USPS”
Concord -3 to 6 pm, State House. “No Kings”
Derry – 1 to 4 pm, Macgregor Park, 12 Boyd Rd. “The Party’s Over”
Dover – Noon to 1 pm, Weeks Crossing
Exeter – Noon to 2 pm, Exeter Town Hall. “No Kings in America”
Franconia – 10 am to noon Post Office, 308 Main Street. No Kings
Keene – Noon to 1 pm, Central Square. “Unite and Resist”
Kingston – 11 am to 2 pm, across from Kingston State Park. “No More”
Lebanon – 1 to 2:30 pm, Colburn Park. “No Kings”
Nashua – Noon to 2 pm, Library Hill. “No Kings”
Newmarket – Noon to 1 pm at the Bandstand.
Peterborough – 1 to 2 pm, corner of Rtes. 101 and 202.
Portsmouth – 10 to 11 am, 2454 Lafayette Rd. “Tesla Takedown”
Portsmouth – Noon to 2 pm, Market Square. “Day of Protest”
Salem – 12:30 to 2:30 pm, Lou’s Corner, corner of Main and Bridge.
Wolfeboro – Noon to 2 pm, Pickering Corner. “Wolfeboro Area Peaceful Protest”