Tens of thousands of Coloradans showed up in their hometowns to rally for democracy Saturday as “No Kings” protests unfolded across the state.
At the largest of the demonstrations, in Denver, more than 10,000 people holding banners and waving signs protesting the Trump Administration lined the streets around the Colorado Capitol.
They joined a display of dissent that stretched from Grand Junction on the Western Slope to tiny towns on the Eastern Plains.
In Pueblo, two hours south of Denver, hundreds gathered outside the county courthouse, some with canned goods and election ballots ready to drop off as they mingled and chanted on the spacious courthouse lawn.
While many said they came in defense of democracy and the freedoms Americans cherish, protesters said they also were there to build community, and to show unity in the face of division.
“Look around you now,” Kevin Abernathy, part of the coalition organizing the event in Pueblo, said as he addressed the crowd during opening remarks. “These are your neighbors. These are your friends. These are your people.”
Billed as a “No Kings: Power Belongs to the People” rally, organizers emphasized in their announcements that they wanted it to be “a day of courage, creativity, and community that will echo across Southern Colorado.”
That description of the protests was in sharp contrast with how prominent Republicans were describing them, with House Speaker Mike Johnson previously calling the No Kings effort a “hate America rally.”
As many 60 demonstrations were held across Colorado on Saturday organized by Indivisible, a grassroots movement with thousands of local groups around the country that want to push back against President Trump’s agenda.
Hundreds more No Kings protests were held around the country and dozens in other countries.
Denver police said they made several arrests Saturday evening when about 100 demonstrators broke off from the main protest and began marching toward the 20th Street onramp to Interstate 25. Police ordered the group to stop and threatened to use smoke canisters, pepper balls and force. When the group did not disperse after about 40 minutes, officers used pepper balls and smoke to push the group back downtown.
The second coordinated day of action this year
It was the second No Kings day of protest, and organizers expected it to be larger than the first. That one was held on June 14, attracting an estimated 5 million people at about 2,200 events around the country.
In Pueblo, the Southern Colorado Labor Council joined the event to collect nonperishable food for furloughed federal workers, and encouraged people to help care for each other in the community.
And participants were urged to bring completed election ballots to drop at the courthouse and to sign up for teams working to get the vote out.
Marisa Lopez, also part of the coalition that organized the Pueblo rally, said the events keep growing and they are trying to get more people more involved in their communities and local issues. “Municipal elections don’t get much attention here. They don’t get the turnout, but they’re just as important.”
She added: “We’re going to push people to our canvassing area. We have on-the-spot training and we want them out in the neighborhoods today.”
On a sunny, breezy day, a steady stream of people joined the hundreds who were already assembled as the crowd answered calls for action with cheers. At one point, they chanted, “We all rise!”
Colorado demonstrators carried on a theme that began in Portland, Oregon, where a man attempting to diffuse the “violent insurrection” narrative around protests at an ICE detention center had pepper spray discharged into the breathing hole of his frog costume. LEFT: A costumed protester in Cortez riffs on a famous Patrick Henry speech in 1775 arguing that a militia should be raised to defend against British attempts to suppress American liberty. (Gabe Toth, Special to The Colorado Sun) RIGHT: A protester wearing a blow up frog costume in Lafayette holds up a sign referring to the rising cost of living. (Dana Coffield, The Colorado Sun)
Protesters fan out across state
Similar messages were heard at rallies across Colorado.
In Broomfield, thousands of protesters quickly filled the sidewalks at the intersection of Sheridan Boulevard and 120th Avenue. The Broomfield rally started at 10 a.m. and people were still streaming in an hour later.
The suburban crowd ranged from small children dressed in Halloween costumes standing alongside their parents to older adults navigating the protesters with canes and walkers.
Drivers going by honked in support of the protesters as traffic backed up and Broomfield police patrol cars were stationed in nearby parking lots.
Homemade signs on display ranged from the Colorado-centric “Trump Skis in Jeans” to “I’m afraid of crowds but I’m more afraid of facism” to “No sign is BIG enough to list all of the reasons I’m here.” A mountain biker rolled up wearing a black “NICE Agent” T-shirt.
By 11:30 a.m., the Broomfield crowd lined the north side of 120th Avenue for more than a half-mile with the crowd at times eight-to-10 people deep.
In Centennial, hundreds gathered at the busy intersection of South University Boulevard and East Dry Creek Road, cheering and ringing cowbells.
As passing cars sounded their horns, the crowd broke out in a chant of “Constitution, not King!”
At rallies in Lafayette and Louisville, costumes were king — or at least a central part of the show among demonstrators who spread out along prominent intersections with pro-democracy messages.
In Lafayette, the crowd of a couple hundred people at U.S. 287 and South Boulder Road included roughly a dozen protesters donning blowup costumes as frogs, polar bears, dinosaurs and even a rainbow-themed unicorn. Numerous cars honked their horns as they circled the nearby parking lots for the Sprouts, Starbucks and Jax Outdoor Gear.
Also present were parents with toddlers in baby backpacks, silver-haired protesters and University of Colorado fans wearing Buffs gear in the town east of Boulder.
In Louisville, among the more than 1,000 people who crowded McCaslin Boulevard near Dillon Road was a man dressed as a green alien “abducting” an ICE agent.
LEFT: Protesters at the intersection of U.S. 287 and South Boulder Road in Lafayette included flag-toting families rubbing shoulders with at least a dozen people in blow-up costumes, including a cow and a Mexican skeleton unicorn with a rainbow mane and tale. RIGHT: In Broomfield, a person in a blow-up clown costume stood toward the back of a demonstration that filled all four corners of Sheridan Boulevard and 120th Avenue. (David Krause, The Colorado Sun)
Criticism of the agency was pervasive Saturday, highlighting the deep divisions over the Trump Administration’s aggressive moves to deport undocumented residents, including in Colorado, where the recent detentions of a Salida woman and her 7-year-old son were among local arrests that drew scrutiny and condemnation.
Donelle Slader paraded her two burros, Hannah May and Stanley, across McCaslin Boulevard in Louisville — one with a sign that read “Braying for Democracy.”
“We’re just trying to remind everybody the freedom of speech and we, the people, have the power, not the Kings, not the government,” Slader said.
The No Kings rally near the Colorado Welcome center in Cortez was estimated to draw more than 900 attendees, up by about 100 compared to their previous rally, Indivisible Montezuma organizer Julia Anderson said.
“The people were just totally positive, going up and down the street, really a good feel.”
“We had nonstop positive honking at us going up and down the street, it was in the hundreds, people driving by and honking and thumbs up,” she said.
A few counter-protesters in the rural town blasted their sign-waving neighbors with heavy black exhaust as they drove along U.S. 160. A least one of those people was pulled over by local police. Deliberately emitting visible emissions, or “rolling coal,” is illegal in Colorado.
Police also are investigating a cluster of six vehicles parked about a block away that had windows broken during the rally, Anderson said. The police haven’t determined that the incident was related, but she said one of the damaged vehicles had an Indivisible bumper sticker.
“From an Indivisible point of view, we’re certain it’s retaliation. That doesn’t happen in Cortez every day,” Anderson said.
In Littleton, some older demonstrators brought their portable oxygen units as they held signs aloft near West Bowles Avenue and South Santa Fe. Small children joined in the demonstration, too, including some who waved flags as they were pulled in a wagon by their parents.
A Tesla with “Trump” written in red on its roof stopped in the street in front of demonstrators at one point, but people on the sidewalk just smiled and waved.
“This is fantastic. I didn’t expect this. ”
The scene in Grand Junction was no less kinetic, with upward of 7,000 people filling up 12 blocks downtown. That’s more than double the attendance at the first No Kings rally in June, according to Claire Ninde, a spokesperson Indivisible Grand Junction.
Retiree Liz Johnson said she came to her first rally ever because “every day the news makes me angrier and angrier and angrier.”
She had worked as a sheriff’s deputy and dispatcher as a single mother of two kids and said she knows how much the cuts the Trump administration is making are going to hurt working people.
Johnson also said she came because her late father fought in World War II and she knows he would have been out protesting.
Norah Olley, a young woman dancing through the crowd with a “Fake tan, real treason” sign, said she has been at every Grand Junction rally against Trump to send the message that “the American people are not supportive of this administration.”
Judy Christman came out for her first march even though she broke her ankle two weeks ago and was in an orthopedic boot and leaning on a walker. She had taped an American flag to her walker.
She said she has had an aversion to Trump since her mother used to watch “The Apprentice.”
“I have never heard anyone lie so much,” Christman said.
She came expecting to see a sparse crowd because Mesa County is predominantly Republican.
“But look at this. This is fantastic,” she said, waving her hands to take in the crowd. “I didn’t expect this.”
Protesters call for due process, “a peaceful resolution” to rancor
In Colorado Springs, thousands of protesters swarmed America the Beautiful Park before marching down Colorado Avenue to downtown, where they held signs and chanted to honking from passing motorists.
Martha Hazel Jackson, originally from Alabama but now in the Springs, said she was motivated to attend by a broad spectrum of issues — including questions around the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, and his former connections with powerful people, including Trump.
“I want the release of the Epstein files,” Jackson said. “And I believe it’s a bipartisan issue, and I believe that anyone in those files needs to answer.”
Jackson also came in the name of due process, she said, and pushed back against claims that demonstrators are anti-American.
“The fact that anyone could pretend to be ICE and take anyone off the street scares me as a mom, and I’ve deployed twice for this country. I’m a veteran. I love my country. I’m a patriot. I’m protesting peacefully because I think that there’s a better way to do things, and I want a peaceful resolution.”
Freelance writers Sue McMillin, Nancy Lofholm, Lincoln Roch and Gabe Toth, and Sun journalists David Krause, Larry Ryckman, Dana Coffield, Tamara Chuang and Lance Benzel contributed to this report.