‘No Kings’ movement sweeps through Appalachia
A large crowd showed up for Waynesville’s “No Kings” rally, and many brought signs.
Cory Vaillancourt photo
Since 1932, the ashlar veneer of the Haywood County Courthouse in Waynesville has borne silent witness to memorable events in local and national history — the Great Depression, World War II, Korea, the Civil Rights era, Vietnam, 9/11, Afghanistan, the Gulf Wars and most recently the county’s first LGBTQ+ Pride celebration — but a gathering on Flag Day, the same day President Donald Trump celebrated his birthday with a military parade in Washington, D.C., may prove to be just as enduring.
A diverse crowd of perhaps 1,500 showed up under sunny skies with temperatures in the 80s to protest what they see as an accelerating slide into authoritarianism. They came not just to protest a man, but a mindset.
They came to say, “No Kings.”
The mountains of Western North Carolina have always bred a certain kind of independence, a wary relationship with power that long predates the United States itself. From Scotch-Irish settlers who bristled at British — and American — rule to backwoods moonshiners who evaded and resisted federal authority, the people of Southern Appalachia have never been especially welcoming to authority.
“From the Magna Carta signing in 1215 to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, we have fought as human beings to reject that divine right of kings that was forced upon us to subjugate us,” said Andrew Aydin, the event’s keynote speaker and former congressional staffer to the late Civil Rights icon John Lewis. “And the United States of America represents the greatest leap forward in giving each and every person a voice and a say in how they are governed.”
Waynesville’s event was one of more than 1,400 protests held nationwide under the banner of the “No Kings” movement, which drew several million people — far outshining the empty bleachers at Trump’s $40 million extravaganza in Washington, D.C.
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According to reporting by Tricia Shapiro in NC News Digest, rallies across Western North Carolina likely drew more than 16,000 people, including to larger municipalities like Hendersonville and Asheville, where there were two separate events.
The real story, however, is about the rallies in the smaller, strongly pro-Trump counties west of Asheville, in towns like Brevard, Bryson City, Burnsville, Columbus, Hayesville, Highlands, Marion, Spindale, Sylva and Waynesville — only Asheville has anything resembling a Democrat-majority base.
The decentralized campaign grew in response to what organizers called a dangerous escalation of authoritarian rhetoric and symbolism from Trump and his allies.
Most of the signs alluded to President Donald Trump’s perceived abuses of power. Jack Snyder photo
But this protest, rooted in the hills of Western North Carolina, carried an added layer of resonance. As some speakers pointed out, resistance to centralized authority isn’t new here. That defiant streak, long a part of Appalachian identity, took on fresh urgency following the shocking news earlier that day — two Democratic legislators, four people in total, had been shot in Minnesota by a far-right MAGA extremist, allegedly for their political positions. Two were killed.
In addition to reports of isolated incidents in San Francisco, Utah and Virginia, the Burnsville Police Department is currently investigating an altercation that occurred Saturday on the Town Square between Norman Rabek, 73, of Burnsville and Randy Horton Jr., 53, of Spruce Pine.
“Violence has escalated,” Aydin said.
Andrew Aydin. Cory Vaillancourt photo
The tone of the protest was somber but steady. It was not a march, but a stand. Attendees held handmade signs that read “Rejecting kings since 1776,” “Democracy dies in silence” and “Honk if you never drunk-texted war plans.”
At past rallies, occasional polite honks in support of demonstrators were the norm. This time, they blared nearly nonstop.
Waynesville’s civilian police corps, all volunteers, kept order on the sidewalks, although there were no counter-protesters and few disruptions. Instead, the courthouse became a kind of secular chapel, where speakers invoked not only constitutional rights but also mountain traditions of mutual aid and community defense.
Aydin, a farmer who lives in Henderson County, recounted Hurricane Helene and the solidarity it sparked.
“I remember those early days after Helene, everybody helped everybody,” he said. “Nobody asked what party you were. Nobody asked who you voted for. They said, ‘Do you need help? Okay, I will help you.’”
That ethic, Aydin argued, stands in contrast to what he called the weaponization of language and religion by those in power; he spoke passionately about the erosion of shared truth and the deliberate manipulation of meaning.
“When words lose their meaning, they become tools of dictators and oligarchs, and that is what we face today,” he said.
The other featured speaker, veteran journalist and press freedom advocate Carolyn S. Carlson, focused on the First Amendment.
“There is freedom of speech, freedom of the press and of the right to assemble and the right to express grievances against the government. So we are here today to peaceably assemble and to petition for a redress of our grievances,” Carlson said. “Some of our grievances include the government’s attempt to abridge free speech and free press, and that’s what I want to talk about.”
She highlighted a lawsuit filed by the Associated Press against Trump, accusing him of retaliatory press bans and attempts to dictate editorial content. In the case of the AP, it was because the news agency refused to recognize his unilateral renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.
Carolyn Carlson. Cory Vaillancourt photo
“Trump had a hissy fit and retaliated against the AP by kicking them out of covering him in the Oval Office and on Air Force One,” she said. “They sued, and the courts have ruled in their favor, but he’s appealing.”
She also warned of widespread gag orders across the federal government.
“They’re threatening to arrest and prosecute anybody [in federal service] who says ‘hello’ to a reporter. Now they’re calling them leakers,” she said. “The main purpose of these gag orders is to keep you from finding out the truth.”
That message resonated deeply with the crowd, many of whom, Carlson said, look to independent local news sources for information.
“We have a robust free press now, if we can afford to keep them,” Carlson said, urging listeners to support independent journalism through subscriptions and donations. “Go to their websites. Please subscribe. It’s vitally important to all of us that they keep going.”
Aydin also used his speech to announce the launch of the Appalachia Comics Project, a new initiative pairing Hurricane Helene survivors with professional comic book artists to tell their stories.
“Every law is a story, every piece of legislation is a story, and we have to take back our power by telling our own stories,” he said. “Right now, the rest of the country has forgotten about us. They’ve forgotten about how the federal government is not sending us the money they promised.”
The project will debut at the Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center in Waynesville on June 17 and will include nationally recognized artists such as Brian Michael Bendis, who co-created Miles Morales and wrote for Marvel’s Daredevil series.
That sense of abandonment by distant powers has long been felt in Appalachia. Whether under kings or presidents, Appalachian communities have often borne the costs of policy without reaping the benefits. From coal wars to Helene, from the lumber barons to lawmakers in Raleigh, the region has always nurtured suspicion of top-down control.
Jack Snyder photo
The final words belonged again to Aydin, echoing both John Lewis’ “good trouble” mantra and the spirit of the mountains.
“We all have to be prepared to organize. Not just one day, not just one week or one month. We’ve got to be in this for years,” Aydin said. “We have to reaffirm our commitment to the fact that we are America ns and we believe in democracy.”
{gallery}No Kings rally, Waynesville, June 14, 2025{/gallery}
