Heather Bell
CHRISTIANSBURG – An estimated 1,550 – 2,000 people turned out for the New River Valley’s No Kings rally held Saturday, Oct. 18 in Christiansburg.
Residents of Blacksburg, Christiansburg, the City of Radford and throughout the New River Valley participated.
The local rally was one of thousands of No Kings events held throughout the United States and beyond, with protests held in other countries as well. It is estimated that more than seven million people turned out for the rallies. The Christiansburg rally was organized by NRV Indivisible, a local chapter of the national Indivisible movement (indivisible.org). Susan Thompson, co-coordinator of the NRV rally,
“We felt extremely happy with the success of the event,” said Thompson. “It was a joyful expression of our first amendment right to assemble and petition the government to address our grievances. [The local rally] and the other No Kings events address profound concerns about, and organizing against, threats to our country’s democracy and all our basic rights.”
Similar No Kings protests were held in June.
“In one of the largest single-day nationwide demonstrations in U.S. history, nearly seven million Americans gathered today, two million more than June, in over 2,700 cities and towns for the No Kings Day of Peaceful Action, standing together in nonviolent defiance of authoritarianism and affirming that this nation belongs to its people, not to kings,” announced NoKings.org on Saturday.
For firsthand accounts of Saturday’s event from our News Messenger and Radford News Journal columnists, see page four.
