Senior Naaman Duckworth recently attended one of the No Kings protests that took place on Oct. 18. He said he really enjoyed the experience and would do it again if he could. 

“It was truly awesome to talk with a bunch of people,” he said. “(These protests are) not about pointing fingers, but (they’re) just about getting a big group of people to exercise their right of free speech and freedom to gather, freedom to protest.”

Duckworth is one among many who attended the recent No Kings protest. According to No Kings, more than 7 million people protested at over 2,000 different events throughout the country on Oct. 18.

Duckworth said the increasing tension in the political atmosphere recently has contributed to the large turnout for the recent protests.

“People are starting to notice more and more, and I think these sort of gatherings and protests are really what makes a democracy strong, when you are questioning and putting checks on your government,” he said.

Social studies teacher James Ziegler said he thinks people are becoming more aware of different issues in the country as time goes on. 

“I think that people are waking up more to the problems that we’re facing right now as a nation, and I think that that makes more people want to act, as well as other political events going on, but I think it is mostly just that as time passes the movement will get bigger,” he said.

He said the biggest significance of No Kings was the fact that it increased awareness of the idea of rising authoritarianism in the United States.

“This is something for me as a teacher, who, in my IB history class, we spent the first part of the year talking about the rise of authoritarian states. And sadly here in the United States, there (are) a lot of authoritarian characteristics that we have been seeing making their way into our government and politics for the past decade, but especially over the last year,” he said. “And so when we start looking at this, just the idea of trying to provide basic checks and balances that kind of allow our democracy to survive is really important.”

Duckworth said participating in protests is a way to maintain the government’s checks and balances.

“The reason why democracy works is because there’s checks and balances, and when we’re out there and we gather as a community, it does create checks on our government. Our state legislators, members of Congress in Washington DC, they see (everything that) is happening, so I think it really promotes coming together as a community. Just flat out 7 million people across America gathering; that’s civic engagement,” he said.

Ziegler said it’s also important for students to be civically engaged and exercise their right to free speech through events like No Kings.

“Right now you do still have the ability to kind of protest and kind of vocalize your free speech rights and things of that nature, but I say don’t take that for granted because we’ve seen a lot of democracy in the past that had established free speech rights, rights to protest, and those were severely restricted as authoritarianism was allowed to take hold in a country,” he said. “It’s just influential to see that right now. You do still have these powers, and even if you cannot be a voting age yet, you could still have an influence on government and politics by showing up to events like (No Kings).”

Junior Harper Barrett attended a No Kings protest in June and she said she thought it was a good protest to attend because of the transition it can lend into more political involvement.

“I’d say it’s a good first one to go to. None of the protests are the same, but No Kings, I think just because of the amount of people that attend and the wide variety of people that attend, is a very calm (and) very peaceful protest,” she said.

Duckworth said his experience attending No Kings consisted of listening to speakers including both political and religious leaders, then marching around the Statehouse.

“I talked with Senator (Fady) Qaddoura, who’s one of our state senators in Indiana. So that was a great experience to talk with him and (learn) how I can get more involved with him, his campaign and his association. It’s really cool to kind of connect, network and meet lots of people with different perspectives and different values, so it’s absolutely something I would do again,” he said.

Barrett said going No Kings made her want to keep attending similar events.

“If you’ve never gone to a protest before, there can be a lot of fear about what can happen, because in the media there’s a lot of portrayals of protests that make them seem very violent and out of control, and that’s really not the reality of the situation for the most part,” she said. “They’re very peaceful, and I think that that’s the side of it that we never really get to see. So I think attending a protest definitely made me more likely to want to go to more in the future.”

Ziegler said besides protests, there are a lot of other ways students can get involved in their government and make an impact.

“One of the first things I would do and this is very easy is figure out who (your) representatives (are). One of the saddest things I think, and this kind of speaks to some of the apathy and ignorance of a lot of the American public, is a lot of the American public do not know who their governor is, who are their Indiana state senators, state reps, who are their U.S. congressional (representatives),” he said. “And so, the first thing that I would say is, look up who is your governor, who is your U.S. House (Representative), who is your US senator, and then also who is your state senator and state House Representative?”

He said he adds his representatives’ numbers into his phone to make it easy to contact them whenever the need arises.

“If there’s ever a political issue or a bill that’s being voted on that I care about, it’s easy for me,” he said. “The easier you can make activism work on yourself, the more likely you and other people are going to do it.”

Duckworth said he advises students to get involved within their communities and schools as well as on a state level.

“I definitely think (students can get) involved in Young Republicans or Democrats, whether that’s clubs at school or whether that’s Hamilton County Democrats or Hamilton Hamilton County Republicans. And on a lower level, just engaging in a productive commentary at school or in your community. Just raising some questions, not everything has to become a heated debate but just learning, reading the news, getting all sides and not getting all your news from one news source,” he said. “I think truly researching and understanding big topics and then having productive commentary about it (is important). Personally, I do a lot of that and then I go to the next step of getting involved in contacting my Congress members and getting involved in clubs or groups and protests.”

He said as protests like No Kings get larger over time, they display what democracy is all about. He said they are not aimed to create tension or divide, although they sometimes inherently do.

“Ultimately it is just to put checks and question our government, to push for a better society, because when you get ideas from both sides is when you’re the most cohesive and you’re learning the most, you’re innovating the most,” he said. “Protests are not to divide, getting involved in politics is not to divide yourselves from other people, but ultimately it’s to become a stronger community.”