Near the close of the No Kings rally in Lincolnwood on Saturday afternoon, the chants rang out from beneath the waving American flag with a defiant twist.
“We may be old, but we have hope,” went one chant. And they continued, “We may be old, but we can fight. We may be old, but we can vote.”
Like the thousands of demonstrations across the U.S. that day, the protesters had gathered to oppose the Trump administration’s actions. Unlike the others, they’d filed out of a senior living facility — The Carrington — and demonstrated near its entrance.
The seniors had organized their own No Kings rally, and not for the first time.
But ask Jayne Epperson, 86, and Ruby Warso, 92, about that first time, and you’ll get a taste of their zeal for organizing. In October, ahead of the second nationwide round of No Kings protests, the two residents decided they had to act.
“We both felt that we were missing the beat,” Warso said. “People here (at the senior home) were unhappy, because they couldn’t participate. They felt like they weren’t being heard. So we said, we’re going to do something.”
And so Epperson plastered 13 flyers around The Carrington, breaking a rule against posting flyers. But their impromptu rally in front of the building went forward nonetheless.
Come March, the seniors’ effort took on a more organized air. Warso got permission from the facility’s director for the demonstration, along with a reminder not to post flyers.
“And then, of course, our fearsome leader here got involved here, too,” said Warso, referring to Epperson. “It was a more professional rally now.”
Scores of seniors picked up small American flags on their way to their seats arranged around the entrance. As the half-hour wore on, younger people joined the crowd too. The rally appeared in the listing of No Kings events like any other.
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The seniors had gotten a hand from Epperson’s daughter, Julianne Arvizu, who happens to be The Carrington’s director of life enrichment. Arvizu helped shepherd the program and led the crowd in song, including “God Bless America” to wrap up a demonstration that also included the national anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance and the preamble to the Constitution.
But along with the patriotic ceremonies came criticism of the Trump administration’s actions. The demonstrators held up signs, with one reading, “We march for hope, not hate,” while another branded the president “Don the Con” and a “grifter.”
“We are here today because we refuse to let democracy slip away,” Epperson told the crowd, as cars passed by and honked in support. “We have done so much work in our generation, like the civil rights, labor rights and our demand for equality.”
For some of the seniors, it marked their second No Kings event of the day. In the morning, a small Carrington bus carried a group of seniors to the much larger rally on Evanston’s lakefront.
There, a few thousand people gathered in front of a makeshift stage, where a portrait of Alex Pretti served as a backdrop. Federal agents in Minneapolis fatally shot Pretti, a Veterans Affairs nurse, in January amid unrest over their immigration enforcement push.
“Since the last time we gathered, things have gotten worse,” Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss told the crowd. “There is a war, an unjust, illegal, deranged war. We endured a violent federal occupation in our streets here in Evanston and across the Chicago area throughout the fall. And then they went on to Minneapolis, where they just started shooting people in the street.”
Biss recently triumphed in the Democratic primary to succeed U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who also attended the Evanston No Kings rally. No stranger to confronting federal agents and castigating the Trump administration, the mayor exhorted the crowd to do “every single thing we possibly can to end the nightmare.”
Later, City Clerk Stephanie Mendoza spoke of an omnipresent fear: “If you are not upset that our kids just can’t hang out after school without fear, you should be. If you are not upset that our neighbors can’t go to work in peace, you should be.”
Among the thousands who marched around the lakefront once the speeches wrapped up walked a man in an inflatable chicken suit. Matt Moran, of Evanston, donned the suit in reference to a frequent anti-Trump slogan, “TACO,” standing for “Trump always chickens out.”
“Protest should be joyous,” he said. “We’re exercising our First Amendment rights. I’m tired of being angry all the time. So I wear this to protests, because it’s hard to be mad at somebody in a chicken suit.”
Susan Sidell and Shelley Sutherland, who help lead Indivisible Evanston, praised the size of the crowd that had assembled. Indivisible Evanston, which organized the rally, counted Indivisible Illinois, the Democratic Party of Evanston and other groups among its supporters.
Not long after noon, the crowd in Evanston began to dissipate.
Back in Lincolnwood, where the rally ended soon after 2:30 p.m., Arvizu and Epperson took stock of their efforts, sprinkled with a tad of mother-daughter banter.
“We were on the phone with my mom going over her speech, and we were just like, ‘This is so Grandma. We’re so proud of you, Mom. So proud of you,’ ” Arvizu said.
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“Oh,” Epperson responded.
“Don’t pooh-pooh it. It’s big. It’s big,” Arvizu said, chidingly.
“Well, that’s nice,” Epperson replied. “I like her too.”