Thousands of Durham residents filled CCB Plaza Saturday morning, marching down West Chapel Hill Street to Durham Central Park as part of the nationwide "No Kings" protests against the Trump administration and the U.S. war with Iran.
Speakers from the Party of Socialism and Liberation, the Union of Southern Service Workers, the Triangle Amazon union CAUSE, and Veterans for Peace Triangle addressed the crowd after the march. Protesters chanted "no more war" and "lock him up" as drummers and tambourine players kept time through the streets.
Dan Read, 72, a Durham resident and Army veteran who served from 1974 to 1976, drew a direct line from the Vietnam War protests he joined in the 1970s to Saturday's demonstration. "I'm sad that my grandchildren, especially, are gonna inherit this," he said.
Durham lawyer Alex Charns, 69, had been arrested the day before inside the Pentagon with a group of 27 North Carolinians protesting the Iran war. His mother survived Nazi-occupied Poland by helping Jewish neighbors escape and going into hiding after her father was convicted of treason for smuggling Jews into Lithuania.
The rally came as Trump's approval rating fell to 36% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll and more than 6 in 10 Americans told Pew Research they disapprove of Trump's handling of the war.