Reflections from Broadview on ‘No Kings Day’
This past Saturday, following the No Kings Day march, I drove over to Broadview Detention Center. There, I had the privilege of standing shoulder to shoulder with one of the most powerful assemblies of everyday Americans I have ever witnessed. They came from all walks of life: students and seniors, immigrants and native-born, people of faith and secular community leaders. Black, Brown, White, Asian and more—it was a living mosaic of the diversity that makes our state strong. What bound us together was a deep, shared commitment to justice and the rule of law in the truest sense: the belief that no one, not even the president, stands above the law, and that law itself must be rooted in justice and basic human rights.
Yet amid this inspiring display of solidarity, I felt a gnawing frustration at how our state government has responded. We expect our state leaders to serve as a check on federal overreach, to protect Illinoisans from abuse. Instead, each night’s protest has been met with a line of Illinois State Police in riot gear, enforcing an out-of-touch “curfew” and even making arrests at the behest of federal authorities. At least 15 peaceful protesters, including a woman clergy member, were arrested by Illinois State Police outside the Broadview ICE facility during last week’s demonstrations. How can it be that in Illinois, a state that prides itself on progressive values, our own law enforcement is being used to silence dissent rather than to check the excesses of a heavy-handed federal operation?
Standing outside the gates of Broadview, I couldn’t help reflecting on a very different October day, 166 years ago, when a small band of Americans took a bold stand at a place called Harpers Ferry. October 16, 1859, the date of John Brown’s raid on a federal armory might seem remote from our present struggle. But the timing of our No Kings Day protest, whether by design or coincidence, carried a powerful historical resonance. Brown’s raid was an act of open defiance against a federal government that was at that time upholding the monstrosity of slavery. He and his followers risked everything to strike a blow against an unjust system. Brown’s rebellion was quickly suppressed, and he was captured and executed as a traitor. Yet his action sent shockwaves through the nation. It lit a spark that would soon grow into the flame of the Civil War and Emancipation.
No one understood the significance of that spark better than Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist who had been Brown’s friend and confidant. He understood that that moment of righteous rebellion changed the course of history. “If John Brown did not end the war that ended slavery,” Douglass declared, “he did at least begin the war that ended slavery.” Thus John Brown’s raid, imperfect and tragic as it was, amounted to the first shot in a war that would ultimately abolish American slavery. It was the catalyst that transformed abstract moral outrage into concrete action and, eventually, into systemic change. Douglass, a man of letters, had the humility to acknowledge that Brown’s deeds spoke louder than any words could: “He was as the burning sun to my taper light…I could live for the slave, but he could die for him.” In Douglass’s eyes, Brown’s willingness to sacrifice everything for justice outshone even the most eloquent of speeches. To the letter of the law, John Brown was a criminal, even Douglass conceded that. Yet Douglass also understood that “the spirit which made those deeds possible was worthy of highest honor.” Brown was vindicated by history because his cause was just.
That history carries an urgent lesson for us today. In the 1840s and 50s, northern states and communities were confronted with federal laws that trampled basic human rights. The Fugitive Slave Act demanded that escaped slaves be returned to bondage and sought to compel governments and citizens of free states to hand over escaped slaves. To their eternal credit, many state governments and ordinary citizens refused to go along with such an injustice. Instead, they passed a range of personal liberty laws to thwart the federal slave-catchers. Some states even flat-out nullified the Fugitive Slave Act or declined to enforce it. Even after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down those personal liberty laws in 1842, many Northern states still refused to comply. In cities like Boston and Milwaukee, crowds gathered to physically rescue escaped slaves from federal marshals, and juries often declined to convict those who harbored freedom-seekers. Simply put, Americans of conscience chose to defy what they knew to be a profoundly unjust federal law, even at personal risk. Their courageous resistance laid the groundwork for slavery’s demise. We hail those resisters now as heroes just as we honor John Brown for igniting the moral showdown that ended slavery.
Today we face a different kind of injustice, but the principle at stake is very much the same. Once again, we see a federal authority wielding power in ways that shock the conscience: conducting paramilitary-style raids in our communities, violating due process and humanitarian norms and treating vulnerable families as pawns in a political drama. And once again, we hear many lofty words of outrage from governors, mayors, media and yes, people like me. But far too few concrete actions are being taken to stop the injustice. Words alone will not protect a single child from being traumatized by a midnight raid. Words alone will not prevent that knock at the door for which so many of our neighbors now wait in fear.
As I stood among the protesters on Saturday, I realized that our actions—our physical presence, our voices, our refusal to yield—were the only things forcing a spotlight onto what is happening in places like Broadview. If we, the people, don’t continue to show up and put ourselves on the line, the abuses will continue unchecked. Moral outrage must be accompanied by moral action. The sky will not clear of its own accord, but only when the strong arm of bold action stretches forth to split the clouds.
So what does such action look like, here and now? First, it means sustained commitment. One day of protest, however inspiring, is not enough. We must keep coming back, week after week if we have to, and not just to Broadview. We need to maintain a presence at the state capitol in Springfield, in city halls, in courthouse plazas, making it impossible for those in power to tune us out.
At the same time, our leaders must translate their strong words into concrete deeds. Illinois should use every tool at its disposal to push back on federal overreach. That means pursuing legal challenges in court, yes, but it also means refusing to let our own law enforcement become an arm of federal oppression.
And finally, each of us as citizens must be willing to do more than talk. I say this as someone whose career has largely involved talking. Those things matter and are necessary, but they are not sufficient. We must be willing to show up and stand up in tangible ways: to march in the streets, to volunteer with organizations aiding affected families, to donate to legal defense funds, to vote and lobby and, when necessary, to practice civil disobedience in the proud tradition of the abolitionist, suffragist and civil rights movements. Principled, nonviolent resistance is embedded deep in the DNA of this nation. It’s what secured women the right to vote after long struggle, it’s what won labor reforms and civil rights against all odds, and it is what we need now to reclaim our democracy from the hands of those who would seek to subvert it.
The fight we face today is daunting, yes, but we draw strength from the knowledge that we are heirs to a proud legacy of resistance. On No Kings Day, we affirmed that Americans will suffer no king to reign over us, that We the People are the ultimate guardians of our democracy. Now we must live up to that promise.
Our words of outrage must lead to courageous deeds. This is our charge, and we must carry it forward, today, tomorrow and every day thereafter, until the work is done and the battle won.