Cape Coral rally part of nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests Saturday
Joining efforts across the country, No Kings rallies took place throughout Lee County Saturday, including one in Cape Coral.
No Kings Cape Coral was a volunteer-organized event, with participants lining the 2500 block of Santa Barbara Boulevard, carrying homemade signs for a peaceful protest scheduled to run from 10-11 a.m.
Attendees began lining up before the official start time, waving at drivers along the busy intersection, garnering honks and flashed lights. Attendees continued to stream out of the nearby shopping center parking lot onto the sidewalks, even after the event’s scheduled 11 a.m. end time. Ultimately, the stretch on Santa Barbara Boulevard and Veterans Parkway, saw protesters lining the sidewalk three people deep.
Participant Barbara Hall was blunt as to her reason for taking part.
“American soldiers did not land on D-Day for us to have a fascist government,” she said.
Others were equally to the point.
When asked to explain why she chose to attend the Cape Coral No Kings rally, Bonnie Waldschmidt’s voice shook with emotion.
“Just listen to my voice,” she began.
Waldschmidt’s words, nearly silent at first, quickly gained volume.
“Our president needs to be impeached. He has created Alligator Alcatraz, concentration camps, tariffs and death because of his ICE thugs in Minnesota,” she said.
Waldschmidt, who had a photograph of 5-year-old detainee Liam Ramos pinned to her shirt, added that if ICE met three criteria, “no face coverings, bodycams on at all times and no homes entered without legal warrants,” the organization would appear, to her, less corrupt.
Frank DeCelie, a transplant from New York, said he attended Saturday’s protest, “Because I just can’t take this president anymore.”
He said he believes the interrogation actions being taken by ICE, sometimes directed at children, are unconstitutional and he could not continue to witness such things without protest.
Jim Rosinus, president of Lee County Democrats, said he was incredibly pleased with Saturday’s turnout.
“The first No Kings protest was held in Cape Coral in front of the tax office,” Rosinus said. “We had about 400 attendees at that event in June. I am told the event on Saturday, on Santa Barbara Boulevard, had a headcount of 700. So, we almost doubled our attendees.”
Rosinus said the rallies held throughout Southwest Florida received “a tremendous turnout.”
According to the website NoKings.org, the original No Kings rallies held on June 14, 2025 were designed to squelch the president’s then-planned military birthday parade; a parade protesters decried as “Trump’s attempt at a coronation.”
Four months later, according to the website, the second No Kings events held nationwide on Oct. 18, 2026, rallied more than seven million peaceful demonstrators.
According to various news accounts, Saturday’s turnout was estimated at more than 8 million participants, including protestors opposed to the conflict in Iran.
A virtual follow-up to Saturday’s rally is planned by mobilize.us on Tuesday, March 31, at 8 p.m.