I attended the No Kings protest in Augusta Georgia on October 18, 2025. Thousands around the CSRA joined the march to say that we in the United States do not have a King and do not want a King.
However, not everything was as it seemed. Despite the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) continued push to tell protest organizers that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has declared that permits are not required for protest, the Augusta Indivisible organization and the CSRA League of Women Voters along with several other organizations chose to get a permit. This permit gave the Augusta/Richmond County government the opportunity and right to decide when, where, and how we would be allowed to exercise our constitutional rights.
As a side effect of this bowing the knee to the Kings of the City/County government, they required that the organizations pay for and deploy private armed security guards to the event. I was given the pleasure of having one of the guards stand watch over me by standing behind me throughout the rally with his hand on his gun. This despite the training that they are supposedly given that teaches them not to take such a stance as it is provocative and not at all a sign of de-escalation.
I voiced my concerns to several people in charge of this event including Gayla Keesee of the CSRA League of Women Voters who dismissed my concerns only to ask for me to send her the video of her speech. My concerns did not matter, but my work was expected to benefit them.
Keesee stated on a Facebook post, “Some people falsely claim that requiring permits or having security at events means your rights are being taken away. That’s misinformation. Permits and police presence are there to protect protesters and prevent violence, not to silence them.”
It seems that Keesee privileged experiences have not been one of conflict with the police and armed security being weaponized against her. I have been on the receiving end of those abuses by police and security with them almost killing me because of false reports made by bigots called swatting. These people are taught to shoot first and ask questions later.
Furthermore, despite my continued work with and being part of the LGBTQIA+ community, working daily with the homeless in Augusta, and working to help the migrant and immigrant communities nationwide through programs developed by our national church, I and many other progressive clergy are ignored and omitted from these rallies. They want our help and support, but only to bring out bodies, not to share our stories or thoughts. Instead, they call on the same two ministers for just about all their work. While I appreciate those pastors and call them friends, it is very telling that they only choose pastors they have in their inner circle and not other progressive pastors in the CSRA.
They also tend to leave out members of the LGBTQIA+ community in favor of only gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals. They ignore transgender and non-binary individuals in their rallies.
Speaking with several individuals who attended, they voiced their displeasure at the lopsided panel of speakers. The lack of diversity was concerning. Furthermore, several people left the rally because they did not feel safe with the armed private security and because they expected people in wheelchairs to either sit in the blistering heat on the upper Riverwalk or try to traverse the stairs at the Eighth Street entrance. No thought was put into making the event accessible for all people.
Despite all this, several of the speakers ask for copies of the videos I took of their speeches. I found this most insulting. There was no water supplied to us standing in the heat on the upper Riverwalk. There was no concern for those of us with accessibility issues. There was no concern about excluding those in the LGBTQIA+ community.
Overall, Indivisible did a poor job of putting this event together and executing it. I have spoken with several people who did not come to the rally because they either did not feel safe with all the armed people at the event or felt excluded by the event organizers. By continuing to circle the wagons rather than listen to legitimate concerns, they prove all the hype about these organizations: they are clicks of privileged people who only want their chosen friends to be included, and they have no concern about making the events safe and accessible for all people.