Protests in America are older than America itself. Three years before the U.S. declared independence, fed-up settlers in Massachusetts spent three hours dumping tea in the harbor — a rebellion Americans now fondly know as the Boston Tea Party.“Protest is the heartbeat of a functioning democracy. America was born not only from a rejection of monarchy, but from the vision of a democracy of, by, and for the people,” Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, an organization involved with No Kings demonstrations, told HuffPost. Those protests, most recently on March 28, have assembled millions of demonstrators across the country to denounce President Donald Trump’s second term.Protesters hold signs and flags near President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort during the "No Kings" national day of protest, in Palm Beach, Florida, on May 28, 2026. Giorgio Viera/Getty ImagesTrump signed an executive order in March 2025 aimed at removing information from national parks, monuments, museums and memorials that portrayed the U.S. as “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed” to remind the country of “our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.”But the order is just one component of a yearslong effort from conservatives to downplay and rewrite the country’s problematic and dark past by attacking and stifling “woke” policies and critical race theory. Trump’s two administrations have also actively targeted marginalized groups, including women, immigrants, people of color, the LGBTQIA+ community and more, actively rolling back hard-fought protections for these groups over time. Protesters attend the Women's March on Washington on Jan. 21, 2017, in Washington, D.C. Following the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, the Women's March has spread to be a global march calling on all concerned citizens to stand up for equality, diversity and inclusion and for women's rights to be recognized around the world as human rights.Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images(Left): Protesters hold up fists at a gathering in support of the Black Lives Matter movement on Woodhouse Moor in Leeds in northern England on June 21, 2020, in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in police custody. (Right): People paint "Black Lives Matter" mural in front of Trump Tower in New York on July 9, 2020. Oli Scarff/Getty; Xinhua/Wang Ying/GettyTrump has repeatedly derided people who demonstrate against him and his causes, at one point in 2016 saying he wanted to punch a protester at a Nevada rally in the face. The president, who is known for his tendency to call his opponents names, has also referred to protesters in Los Angeles who opposed his immigration enforcement raids as “animals,” “insurrectionists” and “a foreign enemy.” All of this is in direct opposition to Americans’ First Amendment right to free speech and protest, and effectively disregards the importance of protest in the country over the past 250 years. The irony in the country’s Freedom 250 celebrations is that not everyone in this country has been free for 250 years, and that conservatives and the Trump administration are continuing to work toward restricting freedoms that would not have been possible without protest.“Any moment where we have advanced as a country, where we’ve deepened democracy, where we have unwound white supremacy and advanced equality, there have been massive protest movements that were grassroots, coming from the public and pushing politicians forward to push America to live up to its full promises,” Nicole Carty, executive director of Get Free, told HuffPost. “It really is through fully reckoning with our history and undoing the legacies that made us unequal in the beginning of this country, and when we have done that — like an abolitionist movement, civil rights movement — we’ve seen democracy, equality, and economic prosperity grow for everyone. There is still work to be done.”More than 100 demonstrations across the nation are set to take place on Saturday with Get Free, an organization sponsoring the “All of US” protests. “There’s really a concerted effort coming from the federal government to make this anniversary tell a very specific story about American history that sets up a future where really only wealthy white men have civil rights,” Carty said.Anthony Vidal Torres, communications director of Get Free, called it “an opportunity for the public to channel their defiance and their desires for reckoning, repair, and equality over erasure.”Torres added: “We’re taking up the baton from our ancestors and really stepping into the legacy of the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement, with our effort here.”American civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, lead a black voting rights march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital in Montgomery in March 1965.William Lovelace/Getty ImagesOf course, protests are not strictly American. But American protests are absolutely inseparable from U.S. history. When taking a glimpse at American protests over the years, the divisions and contentions of the country become crystal clear. Here’s a HuffPost roundup of some of the significant protests in America’s 250-year history.The enslavement of Africans began in the British colonies, soon to be the United States, in 1619, more than 150 years before the Declaration of Independence was signed. From that came numerous rebellions and raids against slavery, including Nat Turner’s Rebellion in Virginia in 1831, the Harpers Ferry Raid in Virginia (now West Virginia) in 1859 and the raid at Combahee River in South Carolina that freed 700 enslaved people in 1863.American slave leader Nat Turner and his companions are shown in a wooded area, 1831. Turner led an uprising of slaves that resulted in the death of more than 50 white people. He was tried, convicted and hanged in the state of Virginia.Getty ImagesHarper's Ferry insurrection. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry was an effort by abolitionist John Brown, from October 16 to 18, 1859, to initiate a slave revolt in Southern states by taking over the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (since 1863, West Virginia). It has been called the dress rehearsal for, or tragic prelude to, the American Civil War.Universal History Archive/GettyA century later, the Civil Rights Movement in the ’50s and ’60s inspired countless demonstrations advocating for desegregation and the end to discrimination against Black people in the U.S.Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his renowned "I Have a Dream" speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the Freedom March on Washington in 1963.Bettmann via Getty ImagesIndigenous activism is also crucial to understanding the history of America, which sits upon land stolen from Indigenous peoples. In 1969, 89 members of the Indians of All Tribes (IOAT) began a 19-month occupation of Alcatraz Island in California in an effort to reclaim the land. “We, the native Americans, re-claim the land known as Alcatraz Island in the name of all American Indians by right of discovery,” their proclamation read. “This tiny island would be a symbol of the great lands once ruled by free and noble Indians.”Native Americans play ball at the main dock during their occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, California, on Nov. 26, 1969.Associated PressThe fight for LGBTQ+ rights is also ingrained in U.S. history. The famed dayslong Stonewall uprising in New York City began on June 28, 1969, in response to police violence against the LGBTQ+ community.Stonewall Inn nightclub raid. Crowd attempts to impede police arrests outside the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village.New York Daily News Archive/NY Daily News/Getty ImagesThe country has also historically restricted women’s freedoms, including women’s right to vote, which was not codified until 1920 with the 19th Amendment (though some women would have to wait longer). This followed decades of (notably exclusionary) feminist struggle in the country, including the historic 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession in Washington, D.C.A group of Women's Suffrage activists march in a parade carrying a banner reading 'I Wish Ma Could Vote' circa 1913. FPG/Getty ImagesYoung people at colleges and universities have been at the heart of many of these revolutionary moments, including students protesting the Vietnam War in 1970 at Kent State University in Ohio in May 1970. The National Guard killed four people and injured several others by firing their guns at the crowd. Days later, police killed two students and injured multiple other students at Jackson State University, an HBCU in Mississippi. There had been protests on the campus, but not the night that police fired at the dormitory. Bullet riddled Alexander Hall (a dormitory at Jackson State College) stands in the background as youths give Black Power hand sign following memorial services for Phillip Gribbs and James Greene, who were out down by a hail of police fire during a campus demonstration.Bettmann Archive/GettyOver America’s 250-year history, we’ve seen protests in various forms, not just rallies and marches. People have put their bodies on the line in more ways than one, including in extreme and harrowing ways. There have been hunger strikes — like this one by advocates fighting against climate change and this one by people in the Alabama prison system calling attention to poor conditions — and multiple instances of self-immolation — like when peace activist Alice Herz set herself on fire in Detroit in March 1965 to protest the U.S. war in Vietnam, or when Aaron Bushnell did the same in 2024 in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., to protest Israel’s war on Gaza.Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. Trump supporters gathered in the nation's capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election.Samuel Corum/Getty ImagesAmerica’s far right has also found power in protests, which Trump has treated with far more forbearance than other public demonstrations. Notable examples include the 2017 ”Unite the Right″ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which white supremacist demonstrators shouted racist and antisemitic slogans to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, which Trump later referred to as a “day of love,” when election deniers stormed the Capitol during the election certification process.The Charlottesville protest, which sparked counterprotests and turned deadly when a driver fatally struck a woman and injured 19 others, featured “fine people on both sides,” according to Trump, who has since doubled down on the sentiment.At a rally months after the Capitol riot, Trump called his insurrectionist supporters “peaceful” and “great” people. He even went so far as to pardon Jan. 6 rioters convicted of crimes when he returned to office last year.Neo Nazis, Alt-Right and White Supremacists march through the University of Virginia campus the night before the 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville.Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto/Getty ImagesTrump’s administration wants to make it harder to stage protests in Lafayette Square in front of the White House. The park, a historic landmark, has been the site of countless demonstrations, including the White House Peace Vigil on June 3, 1981.Anti-Nuke protest in Lafayette Park across from the White House. According to their signage, they've been there since 1981 with volunteers 'staffing' the protest around the clock.Francis Hobbins/GettyThe Trump administration’s heavy-handed anti-immigration agenda sparked a chorus of protest across the country — notably in Minneapolis, where immigration agents killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good earlier this year. Posters of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, both U.S. citizens fatally shot by immigration agents earlier this month, are seen during a candlelight vigil in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Jan. 28, 2026. Octavio Jones/Getty Images“Now, at a moment when basic constitutional rights are increasingly under attack, protecting and exercising those freedoms is as important as it was in 1776,” Levin from Indivisible told HuffPost. “The spirit behind the No Kings movement isn’t new. It’s woven into the DNA of this country. It lives in every generation of Americans who have refused to accept unchecked power and instead organized to make our democracy stronger.” “Democracy is a verb,” Levin continued, “and 250 years later, it still requires all of us to participate.”Christy Havranek and Kelly Caminero contributed to this piece.