‘What democracy looks like.’ Why thousands marched in South Florida protests
No Kings protests fanned out across South Florida and the country Saturday as thousands of people demonstrated against President Donald Trump’s policies on his 79th birthday and the day of a military parade in Washington.
Surrounded by a heavy police presence, the “No Kings’ protesters were passionate but peaceful. As people took to the streets, reports came in that two Democratic lawmakers were shot in Minnesota in what is being described as political violence.
More than 70 official rallies unfolded across Florida, including Miami, Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale and the Florida Keys. The demonstrations, about 2,000 nationwide, hit the streets after a federal crackdown on protesters in Los Angeles who were marching in response to the nation’s new stringent immigration policies and ICE raids.
MORE: Live updates: Anti-Trump protests start in South Florida. See what’s happening
Trump earlier this week said he doesn’t “feel like a king” when asked about Saturday’s nationwide “No Kings” protests.
Still, chanting protesters marched toward Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach and also the president’s Florida home. Police allowed demonstrators to march to the end of the bridge that connects West Palm Beach and Palm Beach near Mar-a-Lago before turning them around, according to the Palm Beach Post.
Downtown Miami
A downtown Miami crowd swelling into the thousands gathered around a steamy Torch of Friendship, many people holding signs and waving American flags.
“This is what democracy looks like,” marchers chanted as they made their way through the streets.
Many waved American flags, while a few Mexican, Venezuelan and Guatemalan flags also were visible.
“No hate, no fear — immigrants are welcome here,” echoed a chant, yielding a call-and-response vocal chorus.
Among the imagery on the signs: “Power to the People, Not the Crown.”
“This season of America needs new writers 0/5,” read another from a would-be critic, assigning no stars to their review of Trump’s first six months of leadership in his second term.
Bad Bunny’s recent tune “Lo que le pasó a Hawaii” blasted on a speaker. Childish Gambino’s 2018 single, “This Is America,” sparked cheers and dancing among the swelling crowd.
With a temperature pushing 90 and a heat index of 100, the weather proved a formidable foe. One person fainted near the torch and was carried away by a handful of people.
“We have security, we have medics — there’s training that goes into all of that,” said Raquel Pacheco, co-chair of the organizing group Indivisible Miami. She said the group worked closely with the Miami Police Department for the downtown event. “Safety is our number one priority. We’ve never had an issue at any of our events.”
Pacheco expressed concern over what she described as an “attack on our constitutional rights” and the “tyrant-type of actions” taken by the government during President Trump’s second administration.
Pacheco said one of her key goals is to unite people and encourage them to show up to events like the “No Kings” protests.
“We believe democracy is something you build every day,” added Ariana Hernandez, Pacheco’s co-chair. “We’re raising awareness and creating solidarity groups — that’s what we’re doing, too.”
Former Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio was spotted at the No Kings protest near the Torch of Friendship. On the first day of his second term in January, President Trump pardoned Tarrio for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the nation’s Capitol. Tarrio is now promoting an app that lets citizens report undocumented immigrants — and get paid for it.
Guena Rod, 44, didn’t carry any signs or flags — instead, he came equipped with camera gear, ready to film content for his YouTube channel, 23yflagler, which he says he uses to promote to his 65,000 followers events like Saturday’s protests.
A Cuban national who has lived in Miami-Dade County for 12 years, Rod is also a member of the leadership board at Indivisible Miami.
He drew sharp comparisons between his experience in Cuba and what he sees as emerging threats to democracy in the U.S.
“I know what happens when they start to ask you to give away your neighbors, your family, the people who surround you. I know how it feels. I know how it feels when they start using the military to threaten people. I know how it feels when they start to fight against the free press, and I don’t want that to happen here in the United States,” Rod said.
Rod emphasized that he would not flee again. “I escaped once from Cuba. I’m not going to escape from the United States. I’m going to fight to the end.”
While he said he respects traditional conservative values, what he sees now goes beyond ideology.
“This is pure and absolute fascism, textbook fascism,” he said. “Not in their end stages or in their final stages — this is how it begins.”
Miami Beach
About 250 people carrying signs with slogans such as, “This is the government our founders warned us about,” streamed into Pride Park in Miami Beach and formed a circle adjacent to a dozen police vehicles surrounding the park. Officers, dressed in riot gear, observed.
James Fabiano, a self-employed 57-year-old, stepped into the circle to address the crowd. He was dressed in a black shirt with a rainbow-colored American flag and a paper Burger King crown painted over to read, “No Kings.”
“When I grew up, I paid attention in social studies,” Fabiano said, recounting how, as a child, he was moved by the stories of Holocaust survivors he grew up around in New York. “I see the same thing happening in my country in 2025,” he said.
Fabiano said he moved from Brooklyn to Miami Beach in 1985, when he was 17, enamored with a feeling of safety and community he felt here as a gay man.
“I could walk around in eyeliner and Daisy Dukes with beach blond hair and nobody attacked me, I was free,” he said. “The immigrant community were loving and accepting; there was no judgment.”
Broadcasts of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials rounding up immigrants across the country incensed Fabiano and compelled him to rally.
“I came to protest Trump, the Republicans, the MAGA supporters, to me they’re no different from Nazis,” Fabiano said.
Speakers took to a megaphone to share concerns about what they see as the Trump administration’s divisive rhetoric, immigration policy and cutbacks to government agencies.
Monica Tracy, a 67-year-old retired real estate agent, organized the No Kings rally in Miami Beach.
“We were founded as a country — we all learned in grade school — founded in protest to King George,” Tracy said. “Our founding principle is that we didn’t want a king, and now we have one.”
Tracy’s motivation to organize the Miami Beach rally was spurred by the administration’s cutbacks to governmental agencies that monitor health and the environment. Her growing involvement in local environmental, political and community organizations flourished after she retired, she said.
“The destruction of government agencies that do the work of making our country a good place, like the EPA, the NIH, the CDC,” she cited.
“Young people don’t know what they have, and maybe they won’t — until they lose it,” Tracy said, casting her gaze around the morning crowd. “I don’t know why they’re not out there as much, it’s the older people that are fighting.”
Not everyone agreed.
A counter-demonstrator interjected, shouting that the country could not afford to support immigrants who enter the country illegally. Within seconds, the crowd drowned him out with boos and chants of “no kings.” Three police officers escorted the counter-demonstrator away, peacefully, along the sidewalk.
Afterward, demonstrators applauded and chanted “no hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here.”
“Authoritarianism, it’s not on the way, we’re there now,” Tracy said.
Fort Lauderdale
Hundreds of people attended the No Kings Protest along A1A and Sunrise Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. Dozens more cars passing along loudly honked their horns in support.
Hector Miranda, 57, has never protested before. A laid-back, “couch supporter” is how he says he’s chosen to fight for the causes he believes in.
However, seeing the fear in his co-workers’ and friends’ eyes who are vastly undocumented spurred him to don a gray shirt with a phrase so divisive those same migrants pleaded with him to keep it locked away — “I’m an illegal immigrant.”
“I never felt this strongly about anything to come out and protest,” Miranda said. “It was the fear I saw in the people I work with.”
Miranda, born in New Jersey and living in South Florida for the last 15 years, may not be an illegal immigrant but he felt he represented all the undocumented people he knew in the hospitality industry who wanted to join the No Kings Protest but couldn’t risk being thrown in a jail cell.
“I know the last time Trump was elected people were pissed, but nothing like this,” he said. “But this is different, we need to be out here now.”
American, Venezuelan, LGBTQ and anti-Trump flags flew high and waved under the near-blistering 90-degree summer heat. Some signs read “No Kings in America”; “No Cons, No Clowns, No Kings”; “Hands off Our Democracy.” Others depicted pictures of guillotines, shattered crowns and Trump in prison clothes.
Charlene Burke, 60, was raised by generations of American soldiers, she said. Her father served in a tank division during the Cold War. Her Uncle Bill slugged through European trenches, while her grandfather served as military police during the China-Burma-India campaign during World War II.
She has relatives who are still in active service, she said.
She proudly held a poster that urged veterans to call a hotline, which she listed, along with spurring on fellow protesters by leading dozens to chant, “This what democracy looks like.”
“I’m here to support all the protesters, support our right to protest peacefully, to assemble and just to say that we need to impeach Donald Trump, I’ve had enough,” she said.
The president’s lack of aid to those who have served the United States is abhorrent, Burke said.
“All veterans deserved to be respected and to have them denigrated and their benefits stripped is an absolute disgrace,” Burke said. “The lack of continuity of care for the service that the VA provides them is falling short, bad, and these people need help, and they’re not getting it.”
Organizing the protests
Plenty of behind-the-scenes work went into organizing the downtown Miami protest, said Pacheco, co-chair of Indivisible Miami, a progressive grassroots movement that co-sponsored the demonstration along with the 50501 Movement.
According to Pacheco, 50, clad in a pink flower dress for the protest, planning for the downtown Miami protest had been underway for about a month.
Indivisible Miami has been active since February. Pacheco, who was born in Angola and has lived in Miami Beach for 22 years, has long been involved in activism. A former Army veteran, she ran for Florida State Senate in 2022 against Sen. Ileana Garcia, the co-founder of “Latinas for Trump.”
Miami Republican Sen. Garcia broke ranks by condemning Trump’s mass-deportation campaign and immigration enforcement actions as “unacceptable and inhumane” last week. “This is not what we voted for,” Garcia said in a statement.
Monica Tracy, who organized the No Kings rally in Miami Beach, said she chose Pride Park’s location near the Convention Center for its convenience.
“I didn’t want to try to get downtown,” she said, referring to the downtown Miami protest. Tracy said it took two weeks to gain approval through the NoKings.org website to organize the rallying site.
Charmelle Gambill, a protest organizer working with Hope and Action Indivisible to arrange the Fort Lauderdale No Kings protest, emphasized that a peaceful and safe rally was a must.
“We appreciate everyone who’s come out, and it’s been peaceful and non-violent which we just wanted to stress,” Gambill said from the protest.
This story was originally published June 14, 2025 at 2:16 PM.
