Leading Ladies Bow to No King
Dear Leading Ladies,
In America, we don’t do kings. This is the rallying cry for protests taking place across the country on Saturday, June 14. Leading Ladies will stand with many others that day to show our anger and frustration with how the Trump administration has “defied our courts, deported Americans, disappeared people off the streets, attacked our civil rights, and slashed our services.” (Nokings.org)
Join us at Odell Park in Beverly from 11am to 12:30pm. You will find us with purple hats and posters that read “Leading Ladies Bow to No Kings.” We will have plenty of posters for all who choose to join us!
If you come from other towns, cities, or states, consult this map to find a protest near you.
Wondering if marches and protests make a difference? Our research says yes, they do!
Not surprisingly, but nonetheless reassuring, research finds that nonviolent efforts are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns. (Erica Chenoweth, Harvard political scientist, quoted on BBC 2019)
It takes “around 3.5% of the population actively participating in protests to ensure serious political change.” In other words, numbers matter. (Chenoweth, BBC 2019)
The Social Change Lab’s research substantiated that the size of a protest movement seems to be extremely important. They quoted Wouters and Walgrave (2017) who found that “elected officials are much more likely to hold a position closer to the protestors if a protest is larger, and that they are more likely to take action (e.g. propose a bill or ask a question).”
Chenoweth’s work builds on the successes and experiences of nonviolent leaders such as abolitionist Sojourner Truth, suffrage campaigner Susan B. Anthony, Indian independence activist Mahatma Gandhi and US civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King.
In 1968, Professor Michael Lipsky, then at the University of Wisconsin, compared effective and ineffective movements, arguing that “successful movements have clear strategic goals, use protest to broaden coalitions, seek to enlist more powerful individuals in their cause, and connect expressions of discontent to broader political and electoral mobilization.” (Darrell M. West, Brookings, April 2025)
“Lipsky cited the civil rights movement as a classic example of political activism that met all of those conditions and achieved landmark political and policy successes.” (Brookings)
Since then, we’ve seen many other movements and accompanying rallies and protests that have followed Lipsky’s framework, notably the environmental movement, the women’s rights movement, the right-to-life movement, and the Tea Party, among others. “Each had clear objectives, mobilized political support, and passed specific pieces of legislation that codified their policy goals.” (Brookings)
The April 5, 2025, Hands Off rallies seemed to meet the Lipsky criteria as well, with large numbers, broad demographics, clear goals and concern.
The idea of “elite allies,” which the Social Change Lab defines as legislators, are “immensely important, because legislators are ultimately the people who drive the changes. The reception that protest receives from elites may account for 80% of the variance in outcomes.” (Social Research Lab)
So, yeah, we are convinced that protests matter, even when an irrational, vindictive bully is the target. But the goals need to be clear, legislators need to be urged to attend, and masses of people need to turn out. A protest, with legislative support, and lots and lots of people expressing clear and constant truths about what we want, will surely have an effect, both on our fellow Americans and our elected officials who want to keep their jobs. These protests will also show the rest of the world that the majority of Americans do not support what is happening in our country. We hope these points will convince you, as they did us, to join the protest on June 14 and those that follow. We encourage you to use these facts to convince others to join, too. We have to keep up the fight and build the momentum.
After and before the protest, please stop by our booth at Beverly Arts Fest, where we will be displaying the top entries of this year’s Art as Activism contest for high school students. As you know, the topic this year was book banning and censorship. We will be giving out postcards created from the poster images. They can be used to spread the word about this important issue. We will also have a display from the Bookshop of Beverly Farms highlighting commonly banned books. If you can take a two-hour shift at the Leading Ladies booth, let us know.
So mark your calendars for Saturday, June 14. Take to the streets. First at Odell Park on Rantoul Street across from the Post Office. Then at the Leading Ladies booth at Arts Fest on Cabot Street. It will be a day to be seen and heard.
All the best,
Therese (she/her/hers)
Judy (she/her/hers)
Didi (she/her/hers)
Leading Ladies Executive Team
Leadingladiesvote.org
ladies@leadingladiesvote.org