Across West Virginia, at least 20 communities held their own demonstrations and rallies as part of the national No Kings movement. The protests are named in response to what organizers call authoritarian overreach by President Donald Trump’s administration.
In Fayetteville, just up the road from Bridge Day festivities, social media posts show a small contingency lined U.S 19 with a banner that read “No Kings in America.”
In Fairmont, WBOY 12 reported on X a group of around 100 demonstrators lining the Fairmont Gateway Connector at the intersection with Merchant Street.
Several hundred people turned out at the state capitol to mark the nationwide No Kings Day protests. A litany of community activists and speakers took to the microphone to rally the crowd to get involved and to stay informed.
Attendees varied in age from small children to senior citizens. Taking their cue from the Portland, Oregon frog, a protestor on the front lines of the ICE protests in that city, several attendees were in costumes as well.
Photo Credit: Eric Douglas/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The first No Kings rally was held on June 14 not long after President Donald Trump shared an AI generated photo of himself dressed like royalty and wearing a crown.
There were only a few counter protestors, mostly remaining quiet. One man stood silently at the edge of the protest along Kanawha Boulevard holding a flag while a group of young women stood in front of him and obscured his message.
The Charleston rally lasted from noon to 3 p.m.
Photo Credit: Eric Douglas/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Photo Credit: Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
In Morgantown at many as 400 demonstrators marched through downtown and to an amphitheater on the banks of the Monongahela River.
As in Charleston, some protestors donned inflatable animal costumes. Morgantown demonstrator Abigail Wiernik said she dressed as a frog as an homage to a Portland protestor’s dedication after being pepper sprayed wearing a similar outfit while protesting outside of an ICE detention center. She said she hoped that the day’s action might help stop cuts to the country’s health care system.
“We need to speak up against the things that are happening, cutting our health care for our neighbors,” she said. “That’s not cool.” she said.
Wiernik, who volunteers at a food pantry, said the shelves are nearly empty every time she shows up for a shift.
“We’re going to have kids that are starving once the SNAP benefits are cut,” she said. “We have got to stop cutting our services and spending more money on ice and military that we do not need. Take that money back, put it back into our services and let the people live.”
Photo Credit: Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Photo Credit: Bill Lynch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Cynthia Fox was one of the main organizers of the Morgantown event as part of the Mountaineers Indivisible Citizen Action Group. Fox highlighted the name of the event, “Stand With Labor And Working Families: A No Kings Event” as an indication of organizers’ desire to build community and solidarity.
“We don’t want people to just be a knee jerk reaction to every little direction the wind changes, because we’re also looking at long term community building,” Fox said. “If you look at the people that we’ve reached out to, a broad community, people come table, tell us about the work you do in the community. NAACP is here, Sierra Club is here, League of Women Voters are here, and they don’t usually do things like this. So we’re reaching out to people in the community.”
Organizers like Fox recognize the appeal of a large, flashy event like No Kings. She acknowledges that after a similar event in April, where more than 1000 people attended, support and engagement quickly evaporated. But Fox hopes that hearing from planned speakers like teachers and nurses about the impacts of the administration’s actions will inspire them to maintain the day’s momentum and take one other action to build a community in the coming days.
“Volunteer your time,” she said. “The biggest gift that you can give in this is your time to get out of your comfort zone and just maybe step away from something that’s sort of more fun to do and get into something that’s more meaningful to do.”
