On a bright Santa Barbara afternoon, approximately 12,000 people gathered at Alameda Park before marching down Anacapa Street to De la Guerra Plaza as part of the latest “No Kings” protest.
The scale was unusual, the emotional intensity striking — and above all, the visual landscape was extraordinary: hundreds, perhaps thousands, of handmade protest signs rising above the crowd like a forest of cardboard and color.
Many participants appeared to be over 50. Many were white.
This was not primarily a youth-driven protest. It felt like a gathering of teachers, retirees, professionals and parents — people who had not marched in years, or perhaps ever — driven by something deeper than routine political disagreement…