GREENFIELD — As a massive military parade comprising 128 U.S. Army tanks and more than 6,000 soldiers rolled through Washington, D.C. on Saturday, thousands from across Franklin County took to the streets to protest President Donald Trump in a “No Kings Day” demonstration.

Greenfield Police closed off a portion of Main Street surrounding the City Common Saturday morning as protesters, holding signs to decry Trump and what they call a lean toward authoritarianism under his administration, chanted lines such as “No Nazis, no KKK, no fascist USA.”

The peaceful demonstration, held on Trump’s 79th birthday, coincided with more than 1,400 similar standouts and protests across the country. Human Rights Commission member Paul Jablon, who said he was the rally’s official counter, counted 2,386 demonstrators at 1:14 p.m.

One of the rally’s lead organizers, David Greenberg, a Coordinating Committee member for Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution, said he believed the protest was well-attended because of a growing frustration with the federal government and its impact on many aspects of American life, such as ongoing threats to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicare benefits in Congress.

Greenberg also referenced Trump’s military parade commemorating the 250th birthday of the Army, which was held on Trump’s birthday, calling it a “waste of money” and a nod to monarchy or dictatorship.

“There’s a whole lot of people who are coming out with events like this, who haven’t done this kind of thing before, because people are just really freaked out at what’s happening to our government. It’s crumbling in front of our eyes,” Greenberg said. “I’ve never seen this before in my lifetime, where a president completely ignored the Constitution and decided he was a king. We say, ‘no kings.’ We don’t have kings in this country.”

Greenberg stood in front of a large American flag, leading a parade of demonstrators from Energy Park onto Main Street and to the Common. There, cars honked, either in support or annoyance, of the protesters as they filled The Common, Main Street, and the sidewalks lining Bank Row and Main Street.

While a small group of Trump supporters gathered outside a pickup truck parked on Main Street waving Trump flags, No Kings Day protesters, some sporting royal garbs to parody Trump, gathered around them.

At the Common, a variety of speakers, including Continuing the Political Revolution Coordinator David Cohen, vocalized their concerns with the Trump administration and advocated for a federal government that creates economic policies to support the middle and working classes and respects freedom of speech.

“We are opposed to the transfer of wealth from the working class of this country to the pockets of corporate America and billionaires. We stand opposed to the attacks on democracy, the arresting of elected officials who oppose ICE raids, or who even show up to ask questions of Trump officials at press conferences,” Cohen said. “We need a movement that impeaches those Supreme Court justices that take money from billionaires and corporations. We need a movement to add judges to the Supreme Court to restore the rule of law.”

Local actor and writer Court Dorsey also appeared at the rally in character as the fictitious Will Newcomb, of the “Nuclear Corporations Political Action Committee” in a satire performance.

“If you protest, if you resist, we’re going to use heavy force, heavy heavy force, force like you’ve never seen before. In fact, I was expecting the Marines to be here now,” Newcomb said. “A king is someone who can cut 83,000 jobs in a day serving the needs of military veterans, because we just can’t afford to help them, and then spend the millions he’s saved throwing himself a birthday party with a long line of tanks and 6,600 soldiers marching past his house while he’s throwing those very soldiers’ health care rights out the window.”

Former University of Massachusetts Amherst communications professor Jarice Hanson, speaking at the rally, emphasized the activism and determination of Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve as a U.S. cabinet secretary under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Highlighting Perkins as a driving force behind the New Deal and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938, Hanson urged the crowd to follow the former secretary of labor’s charge to “be not afraid.”

“‘You would work and work and work and be not afraid, no matter how much you are abused, until the right ideas have taken hold,’” Hanson said, quoting Perkins. “It is up to all of us to look into our hearts and find whatever we can give to humanity, and as we do that, be not afraid.”

Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at acammalleri@recorder.com or 413-930-4429.