Joan Baez to join Bay Area 'No Kings' protests against Trump

Ethan Baron, The Mercury News on Jun 13, 2025

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SAN JOSE, Calif. — Iconic folk singer, political activist and long time Bay Area resident Joan Baez is coming full circle Saturday, set to speak and possibly sing at a “No Kings” protest against President Donald Trump in Palo Alto, the city where she engaged in her first act of civil disobedience at age 17.

Baez, 83, has come a long way since she refused to leave her classroom for an air raid drill at Palo Alto High School in the late ’50s, citing her belief in peace. And America, Baez said this week, has fallen a long way since she rose to fame as a singer, guitarist and crusader for civil rights and non-violence after graduating from Paly in 1958.

“In the ’60s and the ’70s we still had laws that somebody paid attention to,” Baez, of Woodside, said by phone. “We had a Constitution that people were really attentive to. That’s all crumbling now. It’ s a pretty big leap downhill for a country that really has been a country that people look up to, rightfully or wrongfully.”

Protests large and small are set for Saturday throughout the Bay Area, from banner-hangings on overpasses, to major gatherings in San Jose’s St. James Park and Oakland’s Wilma Chan Park. One event takes aim at Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who until a recent break with Trump led the controversial Department of Government Efficiency. Protest organizers hope to create a seven-mile human chain down El Camino Real between Tesla dealerships in Palo Alto and Sunnyvale.

Baez is to appear at Rinconada Park in Palo Alto, along with South Bay and Peninsula Democratic Congressman Sam Liccardo and others.

“The singing nowadays is either spontaneous or it doesn’t happen,” Baez said. “I will try to conjure up something with the seven notes I have in my vocal vocabulary.”

The protests are organized by Indivisible, an organization founded in 2016 after Trump was elected for his first term.

“The goal of No Kings is to demonstrate that citizens are not going to go quietly into the night while Trump is executing this authoritarian takeover of our entire country,” said Nancy Nagel, a leader of the group’s mid-Peninsula chapter, who is scheduled to speak at the Rinconada Park event.

The day of defiance across a nation deeply divided politically comes as the Trump administration is engaged in an aggressive campaign to deport migrants living in the U.S. without permission, sparking widespread protests, including in Los Angeles. The president’s deployment of California’s National Guard to Los Angeles without Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval, and his mobilization of U.S. Marines to that city, have ratcheted up tensions.

Videos taken Thursday showing California’s senior U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla being taken down and handcuffed by security Thursday at a news conference by U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are likely to boost interest in Saturday’s No Kings protests, political analysts said.

The Trump administration has infuriated Democrats by slashing federal staff and programs, as well as funding for scientific, medical and atmospheric research, as it seeks to combat efforts to address racial and gender inequality and climate change.

Trump in a February social media post likened himself to a king over his administration’s attack on fees for entering New York City by car. On Thursday, he spoke about the No Kings events.

“I don’t feel like a king,” Trump said at the White House. “I have to go through hell to get stuff approved.”

No Kings organizers scheduled the “nationwide day of defiance” for the same day as Trump’s $45 million military parade in Washington, D.C. celebrating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, which coincides with his birthday. Trump at the White House on Thursday said of the parade, “If there’s any protester wants to come out, they will be met with very big force.”

Indivisible has a stated policy of non-violence, and Saturday’s protests are intended to be “a very thoughtful, calm, non-violent expression of resistance,” Nagel said.

Baez said she remains committed to the non-violence that has guided her activism since high school. Raised Quaker, she offers an aphorism from that pacifist religion when asked about Trump supporters.

“There is an expression the Quakers have: ‘There is that of God in every man.’ And of course now it’s ‘man and woman.’ It’s hard to remember that now, but those people are sacred on this Earth,” Baez said.

Her goals for dissenting during the Trump administration are much narrower than her world-changing ambitions of the ’60s, she said. She is working with lawyers doing free work for families of people deported under Trump.

“Right now the vision is, ‘How do we help the people who are most affected by this?'” Baez said. “We may not be able to turn the tide, but we can sure as hell save a few fishes.”