Thousands turned out for ‘No Kings’ protests across Atlanta – including one luxury retirement community

Thousands of demonstrators took part in “No Kings” rallies across metro Atlanta on Saturday, joining millions of Americans nationally who took to the streets to protest against President Donald Trump’s administration, the war on Iran, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 

Chants of “Abolish ICE!” and “No war, no kings!” rung out in what was easily Atlanta’s biggest day of protests so far this year. 

The largest protest locally at the State Capitol drew an estimated 6,000 demonstrators on March 28. It was organized by a coalition that included the Georgia chapters of 50501, Indivisible, the ACLU, and the Democratic Socialists of America’s Atlanta chapter. 

US Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) warned the crowd of the threat of Christian nationalism. “Part of what pains me in this moment is that, too often, it is religious voices that are among the meanest voices in our country – and they use religion as yet another tool in the autocratic project,” he said. 

“I’ve read the gospels my whole life. I do not recognize this racist, sexist, homophobic Jesus who hates the poor,” said Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Warnock vowed not to vote for “a single dime” of additional ICE funding without major reforms to the agency, which now has a budget larger than the US Marine Corps. Trump, Warnock warned, “intends to use ICE as his own private army to do his bidding, to make him king.” 

US Senate Democrats have refused to fund ICE’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, until it reforms how ICE conducts immigrant arrests and deportations — after its agents killed two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis in January.

A few miles north, a smaller, more unlikely “No Kings” protest sprang up in Buckhead. About 115 senior citizens from the Lenbrook luxury retirement community and their neighbors waved signs and voiced their anger about the direction Trump has taken the country, drawing supportive honks from cars driving along Peachtree Road past the Kingsboro Road intersection. “Get a job!” yelled one heckler at the retirees.

“We don’t like what is happening, and we want it to stop. We want to go back to our democracy, to rule of law, [and to] respect and decency,” said 86-year-old Jennie Helderman, a retired magazine journalist. Helderman said she wants Democrats “to have more backbone,” in opposing Trump.

Ethan Staats, a 91-year-old retired physician, said he was “sick of Trump’s lawlessness.” Staats thinks Democrats should run on a platform of universal healthcare, known as Medicare for all. 

Dottie Byrd, an 86-year-old former insurance saleswoman, said she hoped young people will get more involved in activism and voting. “Make sure you have the future that you want – and that means voting for the right people to speak up,” she said. 

Byrd said it’s important to protest, even if sitting in her mobility scooter and holding a sign on the corner of Peachtree and Kingsboro was “the most” she could do. 

The White House responded to the national “No Kings” protests, which drew eight million demonstrators, with a statement that said: “The only people who care about these Trump derangement therapy sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them,” according to news reports.