No Kings protests were held across the country this weekend to protest the policies of President Donald Trump.
There were four planned in Hampton Roads: Williamsburg, Newport News, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach.
Virginia Beach Police dispersed that city’s event early, spreading protestors from Town Center to Virginia Beach Boulevard. The crowd was larger than expected.
Andre Jones, an Iraq War veteran, attended the Virginia Beach event and said he thought other protestors were people “who actually love America and stand for what America stands for, tolerance, love, acceptance and growth.”
“All the hatred and ideology that's being displayed by those who are not like-minded as everyone out here is what's destroying America,” he said. “It's not going to make America great again. It's going to tear it apart at the seams.”
In Williamsburg, people in inflatables, tricorne hats and clothes with political statements overflowed the Williamsburg-James City County Courthouse plaza and lawn.
They mixed angst, anger and humor on signs decrying policies and actions by the Trump Administration.
Several protestors there harkened to the city’s Revolutionary War history, when it was a hotbed of anti-monarch sentiment.
Protesters overflowed the lawn of the Williamsburg-James City County Courthouse, with many waving signs and flags to the approval and occasional jeer of passing traffic.
Jessica Anderson, the Democratic candidate for the 71st House of Delegates district, spoke at the event.
“We are not looking for authoritarianism, we are living it,” she told the lawn full of protestors. “We have a president who does not care about the Constitution. He does not care about the freedoms that this country was built upon.”
Anderson reminded the crowd of Virginia’s upcoming elections: The results could “set the tone for the rest of the nation and send a message to Donald Trump that we are not going anywhere,” she said.
Plus, Anderson said, if Democrats can expand their majority in the House of Delegates and Democrat Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic Party would hold a “trifecta” of power between both chambers of the General Assembly and the state's executive branch.
“We are going to be a stalemate against every federal overreach that is coming down the pipeline because right now we don't have that protection and we deserve it,” Anderson said.
Freelance reporter Zach D. Roberts contributed to this report.
