No Kings protest crowd at RI State House estimated as high as 20,000

PROVIDENCE — The unofficial estimate from Providence police put the size of the crowd of No Kings demonstrators who turned out Saturday afternoon to march from the State House to downtown at 20,000.

Organizers had hoped to see upward of 50,000 people arrive for what was the third iteration of the protest against the policies of the Trump administration. But the lower than expected total was not disheartening to Marrianna Richardson, 76, an organizer for South County Resistance. 

An activist since the Vietnam War, she said she remembers joining a demonstration of hundreds of thousands in Washington, D.C., ahead of the first Persian Gulf War in 1990.

“It renews my faith in humanity that enough people are coming out to do this,” she said. “We have to fight this evil regime, and more and more people are waking up.

Another point of pride for Richardson was the diversity of demonstrators for Rhode Island’s third iteration of No Kings Day.

“It was just us old gray hairs back at the beginning,” Richardson said. “Everybody’s involved now.”

Providence’s first No Kings rally on June 14, 2025, drew a crowd of around 3,000 to protest against the Trump administration. Tens of thousands participated in the second one on Oct. 25, 2025, with organizers suggesting attendance was 30,000, although that count was not verified independently.

Since then, federal immigration officers shot and killed two Americans during enforcement operations in Minneapolis. The United States and Israel have entered a war with Iran.

Saturday’s demonstration was the first No Kings event for Forrester Merripan, 34, of Providence. He carried a sign stating, “We burned the Gaspee over less than this” — a reference to the British revenue schooner that was plundered and burned in 1772 by a group of colonists after it ran aground in Warwick. 

“I felt like I’ve been on the sidelines for some time watching how things have accelerated in this country,’ Merripan said in an interview.

It was also the first time for 35-year-old K. Johnson of Cranston, who said they joined the movement in order to protect the rights of transgender people.

“It’s not cool,” Johnson said.

Following the march through downtown Providence, demonstrators returned to the State House lawn where they heard from guest speakers including Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore, who is being sued by the Trump administration for refusing to turn over the state’s voter rolls — a move he defended before the crowd.

“When the president’s Justice Department demands that a secretary of state unlawfully turn over your private information in order to create a nationalized voter database to nationalize elections under the guise of voter integrity, I said no,” Amore told the crowd. “In other words: no kings.”

Amore, a former high school history and civics teacher from East Providence, cited Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist 59 essay, which noted that states maintain the power to hold elections.

“Only on the rarest of occasions may the federal government step in by the way of Congress,” he told the crowd. “The president is not mentioned in the Constitution or in the Federalist Papers around elections.”

Christopher Belleau and Rebecca Brown of Providence held up a sign opposing the U.S Treasury Department’s plan to put President Donald Trump’s signature on newly printed U.S. paper currency, a first for a sitting president. 

“I’m furious about a lot of things but this really makes me sick,” Belleau said, pointing at the sign. “To think that his name’s going to be on our currency, that really makes me sick.”