Posted in Arts & Community
“We will not bow,” Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee told the thousands of East Bay residents who marched.
Thousands of protesters rallied and marched today in Oakland in opposition to what many see as increasing authoritarianism by the Trump Administration — part of a day of “No Kings” protests in an estimated 2,500 cities and towns across the United States.
The protest culminated in a rally on the shore of Lake Merritt where former Congresswoman and now Mayor of Oakland Barbara Lee said her city will not stand idly by while people’s rights are stripped away.
“We are not subjects. We are the people,” said Lee. “We are the people who will not bow to any king….we are free people and we intend to stay that way.”
Congresswoman Lateefah Simon gave a fiery speech about Trump and the Republicans who control both houses of Congress: “They smile while children are separated from their homes.”
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“We are living in the midnight of our democracy,” Simon warned, “but midnight don’t last forever — dawn is coming.” She called on the audience to not “capitulate,” saying, “From Oakland to Haiti, from the picket lines at Kaiser to Detroit…no empire stands up against the people who remember who the fuck we are.”
Organizers estimate that more than 10,000 people turned out for Oakland’s march on an unusually warm October day, similar to the turnout for June’s protest. Nationally, the protest group Indivisible, said it counted roughly 7 million attendees.
Some supporters showed up in costumes, mixing Halloween spirit with political messages. Others wore silly inflatable animal suites, similar to those protesters have used in Portland, Ore. to emphasize that their city is not a “war zone,” as Trump and others claim.
Karen Hsu and Gautam Machiraju, both 31-year-old Rockridge residents, came to the protest to speak up for people who “don’t have voices right now.”
“We’re both children of immigrants who came here to find a better life,” said Hsu. “That’s the America we believe in. Where everyone is welcome.”
“We also came to find community in resistance,” said Gautam. “The number of people in Rockridge headed to BART this morning was really inspiring.”A time-lapse video of the front of the march gives a sense of how many people showed up to Oakland’s “No Kings” rally on Oct. 18, 2025. Credit: Darwin BondGraham
The march in Oakland wound its way up Harrison Street and down 13th to Lake Merritt. A scraper car cruised by several times blasting YG and Nipsy Hussle’s protest anthem “Fuck Donald Trump.”
Mitch Plueger, a 37-year-old Oakland resident and Naval Academy grad served on an aircraft carrier for six years. “I took an oath to support and defend the constitution and Donald Trump has no respect for the constitution,” Plueger said. “He’s showing he’s against democracy, and I had a duty to do something.”
Plueger said about half the people he served with had the same view. “You saw the reaction when Hegseth gathered all of those commanding officers for that meeting, a bunch of them don’t believe in what they’re doing.”
Molly Lorenz and Christina Macalino, met at Montera Middle School in Oakland. This is not the first protest they’ve attended together. Lorenz was carrying a sign from the 2017 Women’s March. “We were reflecting on that today,” she said, “and how we’re still fighting for the same things.”
The friends, who work in education, said they came to the march to support Palestinian children and children detained by ICE. For Lorenz, it’s encouraging to attend protests and “be reminded that so many others feel the same.”
Oakland’s No Kings rally in June drew an estimated 10,000 people, along with a range of elected officials including Rep. Simon, state assemblymember Mia Bonta, and Alameda County supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas. An estimated 4 million people showed up at nearly 2,000 protests across the country on June 14, including an estimated 140,000 across the Bay Area.
House Speaker Republican Mike Johnson has condemned the day of protests as “The Hate America Rally.” But today, many marchers in Oakland and around the country carried American flags and signs with patriotic slogans. The No Kings’ slogan is “America has no kings, and the power belongs to the people.”
Berkeley, El Sobrante, San Pablo, and other East Bay communities also saw large protests today.
Read more about the No Kings protests
The East Bay ‘resistance’: A guide to local activism
Photos: Oakland ‘No Kings’ protest fills streets
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Natalie Orenstein
Natalie Orenstein is a senior reporter covering City Hall, housing and homelessness for The Oaklandside. Her reporting on a flood of eviction cases following the end of the Alameda County pandemic moratorium won recognition from the Society of Professional Reporters NorCal in 2024. Natalie was previously on staff at Berkeleyside, where she covered education, including extensive, award-winning reporting on the legacy of school desegregation in Berkeley Unified. Natalie lives in Oakland, grew up in Berkeley, and has only left her beloved East Bay once, to attend Pomona College.More by Natalie Orenstein
Esther Kaplan
Esther Kaplan was most recently the investigations editor at Business Insider. Before that, she was executive editor at Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, where she oversaw a reporting team that led investigations for a national podcast, and editor-in-chief at the New York City nonprofit Type Investigations. She launched the Ida B. Wells Fellowship, a program dedicated to diversifying the field of investigative reporting.More by Esther Kaplan
Darwin BondGraham
Before joining The Oaklandside as News Editor, Darwin BondGraham was a freelance investigative reporter covering police and prosecutorial misconduct. He has reported on gun violence for The Guardian and was a staff writer for the East Bay Express. He holds a doctorate in sociology from UC Santa Barbara and was the co-recipient of the George Polk Award for local reporting in 2017. He is also the co-author of The Riders Come Out at Night, a book examining the Oakland Police Department’s history of corruption and reform.More by Darwin BondGraham
