By Jamie Lucke and Liam Niemeyer
Kentucky Lantern
Kentuckians organizing “No Kings” rallies say the derogatory labels Republicans in D.C. are attaching to the protesters ahead of Saturday’s gatherings are a sign the anti-Trump movement is gaining momentum.
They also call the claims absurd and untrue.
“I think Mike Johnson and others are using fear to try to divide people who have common interests. And they have no respect for facts,” said Dr. Nancy Henly, a pediatrician and protest organizer in Morehead.
In Northern Kentucky, organizer Ann Dickerson said Trump allies are “threatened by more and more pushback from the general population. And the more people we get out to these events, it can’t just be — and they know this — it can’t just be all radical, left-wing, blah, blah, blah. Everyday people, former Trump supporters, are coming out and joining us because they’re starting to feel the pain of what’s been happening. And they’re starting to see the injustice.”
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson last week dubbed a “No Kings” event set for Washington, D.C., a “hate America rally” and claimed Democrats in Congress don’t want to end the government shutdown until after the protest because “they can’t face their rabid base.” Johnson also said the protesters support Hamas.
One of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet members, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Fox that participants across the country are “part of antifa, paid protesters. It begs the question (of) who’s funding it.”
The Lantern interviewed organizers in five Kentucky towns, all of whom said they are unpaid volunteers; several laughed at the idea of being paid.
In Boyle County, Indivisible Danville has no bank account and no designated leader, said Kevin Maples, a spokesperson for the group, which has been holding regular protests, including at the offices of Republicans U.S. Rep. James Comer and Sen. Mitch McConnell.
“If funds are needed we get out our wallets and purses and throw cash in.” Maples said local Indivisible chapters are independent and can apply to the national organization for grants. “We have not done that. We’re not raising money. We’re not asking for money. When money is needed it’s literally mamaws opening up their purses and getting out cash.”
“We’re not afraid because we know our neighbors.”
— Kevin Maples
Dozens of groups are partnering with protest organizers nationwide. A Wednesday release from nokings.org says 2,500 protests are planned across the country. Almost 30 are scheduled in Kentucky, a Republican stronghold that President Donald Trump always has carried overwhelmingly.
Organizers acknowledged that inflamed rhetoric aimed at the protesters increases concerns about safety. Some said they’re taking steps in response, including posting more safety marshals, while also discounting the risks in their own towns.
“We’re not afraid because we know our neighbors,” said Maples. “There’s no reason to believe this will be anything other than a peaceful protest. Nonviolence is what Indivisible is about. … We will be joyfully and loudly inviting our neighbors to join us.”
Here are what some Kentucky organizers say about who they are, why they are publicly opposing the Trump administration and the claims by Trump allies that they are anti-American and friendly to terrorists.
Morehead: ‘Don’t give up your rights because you’re afraid’
“It’s important to me that this be a world that’s good for children. I’m also a grandmother. It’s important to do what I can to keep the world a safe and healthy place,” says Dr. Nancy Henly, a pediatrician who has lived and practiced in Morehead for 40 years.
She grew up and went to medical school in Minnesota where her parents were activists; her father, wounded on Okinawa in World War II, protested the Vietnam War.
They taught her that “sometimes you have to stand up in the street and say that what’s going on is wrong.”
“We’re Americans who want to protect our country from authoritarianism. We want to return to democracy. We’re the real patriots. We’re not scary people.”
Saturday’s protest will be the sixth since April by Morehead’s Indivisible chapter. “We’re not real organized,” Henley says.
“We’re trying to educate people about what’s happening. Because it’s happening to us. We are all affected by cuts in health care, threats to free speech, due process.”
About 75% of her pediatric practice is covered by Medicaid, which President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will cut. Medicaid dollars also are critical to the hospital in Morehead, she said.
She labeled as a “complete fallacy” Republican Rep. Hal Rogers’ claim that Democrats shut down the government to provide free health care to what he called “illegal aliens.”
“We are all affected by cuts in health care, threats to free speech, due process.”
— Dr. Nancy Henly
Henly said the inflamed Republican rhetoric is “a little bit scary. I feel like I’m very safe here.”
At an earlier rally she said a man stood at the opposite end of the park with a sign and “some kind of automatic weapon strapped across his chest.”
In an admittedly intimidating atmosphere, she’s been relying on Timothy Snyder’s book “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons for the Twentieth Century.”
“One of the lessons: Don’t obey in advance. Don’t give up your rights because you’re afraid. I try to keep that in mind.”
Madisonville: Longtime Republican ‘took an oath to support and defend the Constitution’
Hopkins County native Michael Howard’s history as a registered Republican stretches back decades. As a teenager he thought Democratic President Jimmy Carter mishandled the Iran hostage crisis. He enlisted in the Army at 17 and supported the robust national defense espoused by Republican President Ronald Reagan.
After being a Republican election observer in St. Louis, he was asked to be, and ultimately served, as a delegate to the Missouri Republican State Convention in 2008.
But he told the Lantern that he doesn’t have much in common with his party anymore.
“I’ve never been a party voter. I vote for people, and I try to vote for people of good character, because whether they’re Democrats or Republicans, they’re going to try to do the right thing.”
“I haven’t changed any. It’s just the world has sort of changed around me, particularly the Republican Party.”
He remembers feeling baffled that Republicans were supporting Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential primary, despite what he saw as problems with Trump’s character and “incredibly awful” personality.
Howard — formerly a biology professor and hospital vice president who now leads a nonprofit health coalition in Western Kentucky — has maintained his Republican registration to have a voice in Republican primaries and “keep the worst of the worst” from the general elections in a state that allows only registered party voters to vote in party primaries.
He’s taken part in local “pro-democracy” rallies led by former Madisonville city council member Mark Lee, in response to Trump’s second term in office.
He’s one of multiple organizers for the “No Kings” protest in Madisonville on Saturday, pointing to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot in the U.S. Capitol as a part of “continuous assaults” on the Constitution.
“I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I took that seriously and still do,” Howard said. “He’s just blatantly and obviously going down a fascist, authoritarian pathway, and he’s making no bones about it. That is not American to me.”
Howard said he’s convinced there is still a “very large group of center-right” people who are “hunkered down and keeping out of the way.”
“It’’s a tough sell, particularly in a small town like this,” Howard said. “Nobody wants to risk the social and economic ramifications of speaking out. They don’t want to lose potential customers or clients, and they don’t want to offend the person in the pew next to them on Sunday, which is understandable.”
“We’ve got a lot of good people doing nothing, and the time has long passed for people — decent people of good will — to stand up and be heard,” he said.
Central City: ‘I have no idea if anybody will show up. It doesn’t matter’
After retiring as an organist for her Baptist church in Muhlenberg County’s Central City, Karen Willis has been unable to get out as much as she once did because of chronic back issues. The 83-year-old still finds a way to keep in touch: the mail.
“I’ve just taken to writing. I’ve always liked writing anyhow,” Willis told the Lantern by phone. “I send out note cards all the time to friends and acquaintances, for any reason or no reason.”
Her mother, who lived to be 96, saved cards she received and also wrote them. Willis sends upwards of a dozen cards a day, sometimes as far as England and Scotland, to her friends.
“People appreciate them, and they’ll let you know somehow.”
Last month, as MSNBC host Rachel Maddow talked about “No Kings” protests, she was inspired to write again.
One of the recipients was Rhonda Wood, a retired math teacher at Muhlenberg County High School. The card
from Willis was a declaration of what she was going to do on Oct. 18 — that she “MUST do something” — regardless of her physical limitations.
“Oct. 18 will be a national ‘No KING’ event and it’s time we did something LOCAL,” Willis wrote in cursive. “I can stand on Broad Street and carry a sign — and I WILL.”
For Wood, that was the spark that inspired her and others to start organizing the first “No Kings” protest in Central City, planned for the downtown square along Broad Street where statues of John Prine and The Everly Brothers stand as monuments to the region’s rich musical heritage.
“Knowing the condition and her pain she’s been in with her back, I said, ‘No, I’m going with you. I’m going to be there if you’re coming,’” Wood said. “She’s an encourager. She’s one who does that. She stays in touch with people that she knows are upset with the status quo.”
Wood said news of layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education amid the federal government shutdown hit her hard because of her decades as a public school educator; she especially worries about the future of special education.
She said the organizers in Central City all have their individual reasons for taking part in the upcoming protest.
“I have an investment in Muhlenberg County, and I have a love for this county and the children. That’s why I can get so upset with what Trump’s done at the Department of Education,” Wood said.
Wood said even though she serves on a local committee for the county Democratic party, the protest is designed to be nonpartisan and to “draw people together and lift people up.”
“Donald Trump may not see this personally, we want to be a drop in that bucket that he’s going to know is the crowd in the United States that’s come out in protest against his policies and what he’s doing to the American people,” Wood said.
For Willis, the protest is just the latest in a long record of community involvement. She’s been a professional organist and pianist for churches and an actor, playwright and theater educator. The Kentucky Theatre Association named an award in her honor.
She said she has to answer to her conscience when she puts her head down at night, and her conscience urged her to join the protest.
“Start where you are. Wherever you are, that’s your realm of influence. That’s your first step,” Willis said. “I have no idea what the reaction will be. I have no idea if anybody will show up. It doesn’t matter.”
“Whether I’m in small, little Central City or if I live in New York City, I would be doing the same things,” she said.
Northern Kentucky: ‘They’re grasping at straws’
Ann Dickerson was convalescing from pancreatic cancer surgery during the runup to the 2016 election, leaving her lots of time to study the candidates. The first time she drove herself anywhere was to vote for Hillary Clinton.
“When the results were announced, I went to bed, I cried for three days, and then I got up, got up and said, ‘okay, I gotta do something now.’ That was my foray into politics.”
After the Trump victory, a group of former congressional staffers put out a guidebook for Democrats advising how to adapt conservative Tea Party tactics to organize local protests and pressure elected officials.
Not long after, Dickerson took the advice and helped found Indivisible Northern Kentucky, which will be rallying Saturday along the Florence Mall Road in Boone County.
“So everything that has happened since then originated with the Tea Party. Now nobody went around screaming that, oh, the Tea Party is getting paid. But now all of a sudden, because it doesn’t fit your agenda, because it’s happening by people who are capitalizing on the method that you used, now all of a sudden they’re getting paid to do it. Please.”
She also scoffs at Republican claims that anti-Trump protesters are anti-American or aligned with terrorists.
“They’re grasping at straws. The fact of the matter is, we are everyday average American citizens who are fed up with what we’re seeing and what we’re feeling.”
She said the cost of living, especially the continued rise in grocery prices, is causing even some former Trump supporters to change camps — even in “deep red Kentucky.”
“We’re not losing anyone. We’re gaining people every single time we’re out on the streets.”
On Saturday, there will be extra marshals who can communicate via walkie talkie with her at all times. After organizing protests across Northern Kentucky, she says the group has good relations with local police.
“I take the safety of every single person that shows up at one of these events very personally. It’s my number one issue in anything that we do.”
Danville: ‘We want to preserve what our ancestors built together’
Kevin Maples calls it “preposterous and absurd” that “people in the highest levels of government are trying to paint as un-American people who are standing up for the rights of Americans, and I believe they know it’s absurd.”
Maples, who grew up in Lincoln County and worked in other states before settling in Danville almost 19 years ago, is part of Indivisible Danville, founded in 2017 by “predominantly women in their 50s and up.”
Their goal, he says, is to “shine a spotlight on the rising authoritarian bent of the Trump administration” and also to push Congress — especially Danville’s representative Republican James Comer — to step up.
“Congress has relinquished its power to Trump,” Maples said, enabling the president to misuse his emergency powers to enact questionable policies.
Turnout Saturday is expected to exceed “No Kings” protests in June, Maples said, because “people are upset.” They see their health care at risk because of Republican policies as tariffs “destroy” Kentucky’s soybean farmers, he said.
After getting no response from Comer to requests for a town hall, Maples said, the group organized one in August. Hundreds of people showed up to question a cardboard cutout of the congressman.
Maples said he’s seen anti-Trump momentum build in 2025. “We believe deep down we are really in the majority. We want to preserve the democracy our ancestors built slowly and painfully. We’re not doing something radical. We’re trying to preserve something good.
“We’re not lunatics. We’re retired teachers, retired social workers, librarians, small business owners. We have deep roots in Kentucky and our community. We want to preserve what our ancestors built together.”
Saturday will be a big day in Danville, he said. After the morning “No Kings” rally downtown, the community will celebrate its second Pride Festival which will be held at Pioneer Playhouse.
Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com.