As Sarah Baer riled up the crowd between the state capitol building and Bicentennial Plaza, she shouted into the mic that there’s was one essential for joyful resistance.
“There has never been a civil rights movement that wasn’t fueled by music,” she said.
Thousands of people — most carrying signs, some wearing elaborate costumes or carrying giant flags — cheered.
Baer was welcoming Allison Russell, Emmylou Harris, Devon Gilfillian, Denitia and Julie Williams to the second ‘No Kings’ protest in Nashville. It was part of a nationwide day of demonstrations criticizing the Trump Administration.
They sang “Tennessee Rise,” a song Russell wrote with her collaborator and husband JT Nero. They live with their daughter in East Nashville.
“Oh, The Trail of Tears is still rolling, Tennessee’s waltzing in blood,” one stanza goes. “Now my daughter can’t sleep for the nightmares; every night she’s gunned down at school.” Russell worked with more than 30 artists to record a rendition of the song last year.
“Thank you for taking peaceful, nonviolent, joyful action with us today,” she said before kicking off the song. “We love y’all.”
The first ‘No Kings’ protests started as a response to a military parade held on Trump’s birthday in Washington D.C. The June event drew a huge crowd in Nashville.
Ahead of this event, Nashville Indivisible focused largely on abuses of executive power.
“We are calling on Congress and the U.S. Court system to fulfill the words of the Founding Fathers who sought to create a system of checks and balances to prevent any one person from claiming the powers of a king,” Jennifer Brinkman of Nashville Indivisible said in a release.
Protesters during this event focused on several other issues: disavowing the administration’s crackdown on immigrants, its opposition to trans rights and its efforts to cut back social on services like food assistance and public health care programs.
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