Ormond Beach holds first 'No Kings' protest while thousands rally in Daytona Beach

Local 'No Kings' protests join the nationwide movement in response to President Donald Trump's policies and executive orders.

  • By Michele Meyers
  • | 9:00 a.m. October 19, 2025
  • Ormond Beach Observer
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"No Kings" protesters gathered on the steps and sidewalks in front of the Daytona Beach City Hall on Saturday, Oct. 18. Close to 4,000 attendees carried signs and chanted epithets promoting democracy and rallying against President Donald Trump’s executive orders and policies issued by his administration. 

Daytona Beach organizer Kelly Czajkowski said that, prior to event, they installed a safety team and implemented a safety plan in order to ensure that the protest remained peaceful. She said it worked well when 12 members of the Proud Boys,  a far-right organization, arrived across the street from City Hall. Five of them moved to the median to heckle the protesters.

“We are a peaceful group and we keep each other safe,” Czajkowski  said. “We don’t engage and seek to deescalate tense situations.”

The person who is in office right now is doing a lot of things to supersede everything that we hold dear in this country, like the democratic process and the rights and protections and freedoms that we enjoy as Americans and just as humans in general. I will not sit idly by while they usurp everything we hold dear in this country." — JERRY SMITH, protestor

Seabreeze High School senior Jerry Smith said he went to the protest because he does not agree with everything that is happening with the government. He said he cannot agree with the administration’s support of genocide in Gaza and "Alligator Alcatraz," the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades.

“I understand, first and foremost, that we’re a nation of laws and not men,” he said. “The person who is in office right now is doing a lot of things to supersede everything that we hold dear in this country, like the democratic process and the rights and protections and freedoms that we enjoy as Americans and just as humans in general. I will not sit idly by while they usurp everything we hold dear in this country.”

Ormond Beach did not have a "No Kings" protest in June this year, so Suzanne McCarthy opted to attend one in Daytona Beach. In September, she learned the No Kings organization was orchestrating another nationwide protest. She jumped at the opportunity and organized one in Ormond, recruiting her friend Melissa Guinta to help.

Approximately 500 protesters congregated at the corners of the West Granada Boulevard and Beach Street intersection in Ormond Beach. McCarthy was pleased with the turnout.

“The main reason is to come out with our friends and neighbors and non-violently protest,” she said. “There are no kings, there are no crowns, and there are no thrones, and that’s what we’re out here for today.”

Czajkowski encouraged everyone to use the protest as momentum to do more — call your elected representatives, write opinion pieces, get involved, help your community and check on your neighbors, she said.

“Make sure your voter’s registration is accurate and vote in every election,” she said. “Your vote is private. Use your voice — it matters.”

 

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