Correspondent photo / Sean Barron Brandon Carrion, an activist from Pennsylvania, in red outfit, plays the role of President Donald Trump during a humorous skit that was part of the “No Kings” protest against the Trump administration in downtown Youngstown on Saturday.

YOUNGSTOWN — In an Oct. 26, 1967, speech he gave to middle school students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. told his young audience in part, “If you can’t fly, then run; if you can’t run, then walk; if you can’t walk, then crawl; but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”

In a real sense, Jay Bangle took the iconic civil and human rights leader up on his suggestion.

“He’s violating the Constitution left, right and center, and it’s untenable,” Bangle, of Austintown, said about President Donald Trump.

Suffice it to say that she didn’t fly, run or crawl, but she did move forward — with some pain and wearing a knee brace. Nevertheless, Bangle refused to allow an accident she suffered a few weeks ago from having been struck by a vehicle while crossing a downtown street to keep her from being part of a peaceful “No Kings” protest Saturday afternoon outside of and around the Mahoning County Courthouse. As a result of the accident, she suffered a torn ligament. and a hairline fracture.

“The only way I wouldn’t have come would have been if I couldn’t walk at all,” said Bangle, who attended the event with her husband, Sean Corfield, to protest the Trump administration’s policies and actions.

Abortion rights, which she sees as an extension of human rights, along with gerrymandering certain congressional districts, were the top reasons Bangle wanted to make her voice heard, she added.

She also was among an estimated 2,500 children, teens and adults who filled both sides of Market Street for two blocks to protest what they call an administration ruthlessly trampling on many people’s First Amendment rights, planning to take away health care coverage for millions of Americans, allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to snatch people off the streets in several cities and hold them without due process, giving tax breaks to billionaires and a slew of other issues. The crowd also demonstrated against, hate, racism, sexism, bigotry, misogyny, prejudice, intolerance, authoritarianism and fascism.

The protests in Youngstown and Warren, as well as several others in nearby Lawrence and Mercer counties in Pennsylvania, were among the estimated 2,500 such demonstrations in small towns to large cities across the U.S. and beyond. The turnout nationwide Saturday was estimated at 7 million, 2 million more than similar No Kings protests in June.

The number of people who came to Saturday’s Youngstown protest more than doubled the estimated 1,200 at the June event, Helana Komsa, a Mahoning Valley Freedom Fighters member, said, adding that she fears the damage the Trump administration is inflicting on the country may carry over for generations.

The nonprofit organization hosted Saturday’s demonstration in Youngstown.

Also, the massive demonstrations came nearly three weeks into the ongoing government shutdown, for which no end is in sight.

“President Trump has doubled down. His administration is sending masked (ICE) agents into our streets, terrorizing our communities. They are targeting immigrant families; profiling, arresting and detaining people without warrants; threatening to overtake elections; gutting health care, environmental protections and education when families need them most; rigging maps to silence voters; ignoring mass shootings in our schools and in our communities; and driving up the cost of living while handing out massive giveaways to billionaire allies as families struggle.

“The president thinks his rule is absolute, but in America, we don’t have kings, and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption and cruelty,” a statement on the website www.nokings.org, reads.

‘HATE AMERICA RALLY’

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and a few other House Republicans have referred to “No Kings” as a “Hate America rally.”

“They’re all coming out. Some of the House Democrats are selling T-shirts for the event. And it’s being told to us that they won’t be able to reopen the government until after that rally because they can’t face their rabid base,” Johnson said in an interview Friday on Fox News, referring to a planned protest Saturday at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

His comment drew swift and harsh local and national condemnation.

“This is not a ‘hate America’ rally. I don’t care what the GOP says; we want our democracy back,” Dirk Hermance, the Mahoning Valley Freedom Fighters’ vice president, said, adding, “Nobody pays us to protest,” a rebuttal to some Republican claims that paid protesters and agitators would infiltrate the rallies and necessitate calling in the National Guard.

Despite the seriousness of the demonstration, Hermance encouraged those in the massive and diverse crowd to lift their voices with positivity, be mindful of their words and tone of voice, speak with respect and kindness, model the philosophy of nonviolence, lead with love and not anger and avoid confrontations with those who might seek to intentionally disrupt the demonstration.

Nevertheless, several protesters complained that a young man who wore a “Trump 2028” T-shirt was continually harassing them. At one point, a woman who was concerned about a protester behind her grabbed a pro-Trump sign the man was carrying, which led to a brief chase before security personnel escorted him out. No violence occurred.

During his presentation, Hermance provided a laundry list of actions he said need to be taken to repair the damage he and millions of others across the country feel has been wrought nine months into the second Trump presidency.

The steps he outlined included rejecting all forms of prejudice and bigotry, eliminating the Electoral College system that is “antiquated and manipulates elections,” declaring gerrymandering congressional districts illegal, disallowing the government to deny anyone’s self-determination, pushing for universal health care coverage for all that includes reproductive choices that the majority of Americans already support, not permitting funding grants that favor one religion or organization over any other, forbidding corporations from making campaign contributions to any candidate for any office, abolishing corporations’ ability to lobby Congress, removing Social Security taxes on income, taxing all stock transactions per share, developing a more equitable tax system to lessen the burden on the lower and middle classes, enacting tougher laws to regulate firearm sales with yearly background checks and providing permanent environmental protections that include a decreased use of fossil fuels and a greater reliance on green and related technologies.

About 86% of those polled agree with the need for annual background checks regarding firearms, Hermance said.

WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA PERSPECTIVE

“The whole Republican Party has to go,” said Timothy P. Buck, the Lawrence County Democratic Party chairman, who added that those who continue to allow attacks against democracy must be held accountable.

In addition, Buck is the retired director of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 98, which serves 44 Pennsylvania counties. He also had a clear statement for those he feels are leading the nation in the wrong direction.

“The message is clear: We’re not backing down,” said Buck, whose wife, Donna Buck, accompanied him Saturday.

America is a melting pot for all people, not a place for ICE agents to indiscriminately “kidnap” men, women and children with no accountability, Donna Buck said.

Samantha Henson, 42, of New Middletown, said she’s unhappy with much of today’s political climate, but added she was grateful to be united with many like-minded people, to have her voice heard and to let some elected officials know how she and many others feel.

Echoing Henson’s view was Kim Crawford of Boardman, who held a red, white and blue sign that read, “Law is king, Trump is not. Resist.”

“It’s comforting to be around other people who feel as I do,” Crawford, who is a home health nurse, said. “I feel that there is hope.”

Part of her hope lies in a wish to see Trump out of office, in part because he continues to divide the nation instead of unite it, Crawford said. She added that it’s appalling to see people lose their health care benefits and to watch news reports of ICE agents “zip tying children in the night and wearing masks.”

HUMOR IN THE MIX

Saturday’s nearly three-hour protest may have been built largely on addressing and tackling major issues and protecting democracy, but that doesn’t mean it was devoid of a bit of humor and levity. Both came in the form of a skit in which Brandon Carrion, an activist from Pennsylvania, played the role of Trump. Malcolm S. Ritchie, who is running in the May 2026 Democratic Party primary for the 6th Congressional District and who served 32 years in the Army Reserves, played the part of a general who confronts “Trump” during a simulated news conference.

Carrion humorously used some of the president’s well-known talking points at the “briefing” before Ritchie, dressed in a dark-blue military uniform, confronted “Trump” by pointing out how he took an oath to defend the Constitution as part of serving in the Armed Forces. By contrast, “Trump” was most interested in serving himself and those who please him, Ritchie said in the performance.

During the skit, two protesters who played the role of guards “handcuffed” Ritchie and took him away. The performance ended with loud applause when the same “guards” arrested “Trump.”

Several others who spoke urged those in the crowd to contact their elected officials, realize that exercising their right to peacefully protest is a sign of courage, defend their rights and those of their neighbors and understand that democracy belongs to all Americans.

Afterward, many engaged in a call-and-response chant of “We will not be silenced; we will not back down!”

In her remarks, Janet Cobb, a MVFF member, drew a parallel between the Nazi regime’s ability in 1938 to completely suppress media coverage in Germany to control the flow of information regarding the public’s perceptions of growing anti-Jewish violence and expansionism, and today’s censorship efforts. Also in the leadup to World War II, millions of books were banned or burned in a wide-reaching effort to control the narrative, Cobb explained.

She also denounced the Federal Aviation Administration for implementing a 12-day ban on nongovernmental unmanned drone flights over about 935 square miles of Chicago, as well as such a restriction in Portland, Oregon, earlier this month. Both were designed to limit the media’s ability to accurately report on federal law enforcement’s increase in immigration arrests in and around those cities, Cobb said.

Ongoing efforts to nonviolently fight to preserve democracy will not be easy, but it is imperative that those of good will continue forward while keeping their eyes on the prize, but also avoiding a few things, Hermance said.

“We have to not hate,” he added.