Lawrence Hamm, chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress (POP), told a Newark crowd at the Lincoln Statue in Newark this afternoon the purpose of the No Kings Rally.

“To protest the racist, fascist, and unjust policies at home and abroad of President Trump, his administration, the Republican controlled Congress, and the ultra conservative U.S. Supreme Court,” said Hamm, who anchored a team of speakers that included Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Amol Sinha, American Civil Liberties Union, Deborah Smith-Gregory, Newark NAACP, and Charles Hall, Local 108 Retail Wholesale Department Store Union.

The Martin Luther King People’s Convention for Justice and Resistance Planning Committee co-sponsored the march and rally with POP.

At least 42 organizations endorsed the march. They include Local 108 Retail Wholesale Department Store Union RWDSU UFCW AFL-CIO, Painters Union IUPAT DC21, 32BJ SEIU, District 1199J/AFSCME, Union of Rutgers Administrators (URA-AFT), New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), Newark NAACP, Nu Family Foundation Inc, Teaneck Vigil for Peace And Justice, and Sophia Inclusive Community.

Also among the endorsers were New Jersey Black Issues Convention, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, New Jersey Communities for Accountable Policing, New Jersey Peace Action, Leonia Vigil for Peace & Justice, Justice & Unity Coalition, Refuse Fascism - NJ Chapter, New Brunswick Area Branch NAACP, Community of Friends In Action, MAL Civic Association, National United Youth Council, and African American Alliance USA, Food & Water Watch, New Jersey for Bernie, Muslim League of Voters of New Jersey, Operation Ceasefire Committee of Paterson, Our Revolution New Jersey, Veterans For Peace Chapter 021, Justice for All Party of New Jersey, Unapologetic Amateur Looking for Experts in Africanism, Make The Road New Jersey, Piscataway Progressive Democratic Organization, Women Who Never Give Up, Inc, The Association of Black Contractors, Mothers Against Forced Foster Adoption, South Jersey Progressive Democrats, Merchantville Democratic Committee, and Cherry Hill Democratic Committee, Bomba’s Barbershop, Public Service Governance, Estamos Unidos.

"We are marching against Trump’s attempts to become a dictator, his criminality, his administration’s flagrant violations of the law and the constitution, his blatant, breathtaking and boundless corruption, and his efforts to repress and crush dissent,” said Hamm. “We have a number of demands which include an immediate end to the illegal, unjust and immoral war in Iran, abolishing ICE, releasing all of the Epstein files, removal of all federal troops and national guard from our cities, impeaching Trump, members of his administration and Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

“We are marching for an end to Trump’s tariffs which are driving up the cost of living, an increase in the minimum wage to $20 an hour, restoration of federal budget cuts and DOGE cuts, rehiring of laid off and fired federal workers, the payment of the TSA workers,” he said.

“We also demand congressional support of pro-labor and union organizing legislation, free college, abolition of student debt, universal healthcare/Medicare for all, and for millionaires and billionaires to pay their fare share of taxes.

“We are marching to demand that the president and his administration cease all efforts aimed at interfering with, impeding, sabotaging or canceling the congressional midterm elections. We demand the return to Fulton County, Georgia the ballots illegally seized by the Trump administration.

“We demand Congress vote against Trump’s Save Act, an immediate halt to all efforts to end mail-in ballots, the passage of the John Lewis voting rights acts at the state and federal level, the passage of same day voter registration legislation, and overturning the Citizens United Supreme Court decision to get big money out of our elections.

“We are marching for the prosecution of ICE agents responsible for the deaths of Alex Pretti, Renee Good, Keith Porter, Jean Wilson Brutus and all victims of ICE, an end to illegal detentions and deportations, the removal of ICE from our airports and our communities, the elimination of all warehouse detention centers and a halt to the opening and construction of new ones , the closure of Delaney Hall in Newark, and dropping of charges against Congresswoman Monica McIver.

“We are marching against Trump’s racist, white supremacist and anti-black policies.  He has targeted the African American community in a particularly destructive way. Trump and his racist and fascist movement have accelerated a sixty year long attack on Black people the goal of which is to roll back the progress we made fighting against the racial inequality, injustice, segregation, discrimination and oppression in this country.