Salsa dancing, Bad Bunny songs, billowing flags and chanting protesters took over the streets around the Torch of Friendship monument during Saturday's "No Kings" protest in downtown Miami.
Protesting the direction of the country under President Donald Trump, and what organizers call his authoritarian policies, millions of people gathered in communities across the U.S. for “No Kings” demonstrations.
More than 2,600 rallies were planned in cities large and small, including the nation's capital, organized by hundreds of coalition partners — an increase from the roughly 2,000 nationwide demonstrations on June 14.
In South Florida, more than a dozen protests were planned from Key West to Palm Beach Gardens.
At Miami's Bayfront park, organizers led hundreds of protesters with chants in English and Spanish and played local classics, like Conga by Miami Sound Machine. In the crowd, there were numerous Trump impersonators, protesters in full body inflatable costumes and a dancing Captain America.
After local protest leaders criticized the Trump administration's immigration policies, the protesters marched toward the Miami Freedom Tower in protest of the planned Trump Presidential Library and hotel.
"How dare the state of Florida leaders try to desecrate our land [by] building a monument to a wannabe king," said Phil Ehr, a former Navy commander. "He calls it the library, but it's not. It's a shrine. It's betrayal. It's a desecration of Miami's immigrant history."
READ MORE: Activists protest, threaten legal action to halt land transfer for Trump Presidential Library
The downtown protest was coordinated by the advocacy group 50501 Miami and spotlighted other advocacy groups like Florida Immigrant Coalition and Florida Student Power Network. Vanessa Brito, a 50501 Miami organizer, said she expected this protest to be the largest one yet.
" I never imagined that we would be in a space where [...] there would be somebody in the Oval Office that could threaten everything that my parents sacrificed everything to be here for and to bring me here," Brito said.
Flailing above the dense crowd, flags from the anime One Piece flew high. Emblazoned with a straw hat-wearing skull, the flags have popped up across the world in Nepal, Morocco and Indonesia — where youth movements often dubbed "Gen Z protests" have sprouted.
" In many places around the world, both governments and people have taken this flag to be a symbol of liberation and anti-government and authoritarian sentiment," said protester Garrett Colon.
Colon chose the flag, which he said was a childhood symbol for many, to represent freedom and kindness.
" Here in the United States there is an attitude of comfort," Colon said. "That attitude of comfort is slowly being eroded. Are we going to be pushed out of comfort before we act, or do we act by getting out ourselves?"
A growing opposition movement
It was the third mass mobilization since Trump's return to the White House and comes against the backdrop of a government shutdown that has closed federal programs and services.
One gathering was set to take place just streets away from the president's home at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, where he was spending the weekend for a $1 million-per-plate MAGA Inc. super PAC fundraiser.
“They say they’re referring to me as a king. I’m not a king,” Trump said in a Fox News interview airing early Friday.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, has described Saturday’s protests as a “hate America rally.”
"I'm not a a terrorist. Are you a terrorist," asked Marisol Zenteno, the president of the League of Women Voters of Miami-Dade County, to the audience. "We are the defenders of democracy."
While the earlier protests this year — against Elon Musk's cuts in spring, then to counter Trump's military parade in June — drew crowds, organizers say this weekend's demonstrations came as part of building a more unified opposition movement.
Top Democrats such as Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders were due to join in what organizers view as an antidote to Trump's actions, from the administration's clampdown on free speech to its military-style immigration raids.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
