Rural Missouri towns like Clinton joined in ‘No Kings’ protests. A huge shift is in motion.
Traffic was briefly stopped by the Clinton Police Department to allow protestors to safely cross the street on their way back to their meeting spot or respective vehicles.
The greatest of these is love.
That’s the sign that caught my eye when I pulled my Jeep up to the group that had formed in front of the Clinton city hall building on a muggy Saturday in June. I had made the trip down to cook a Father’s Day meal but could not resist showing up when I saw the clock hit four and knew that there was a demonstration set to happen in my parents hometown. Population: just over 9,000 people. The journalist in me couldn’t help but grab my camera and poke around the streets I used to walk with my grandma as a kid.
A group of demonstrators crosses the road after the protest begins to break up on Saturday in Clinton.
Christians, country folk, young people. Veterans, community elders, women in pride t-shirts. The crowd was a reflection of the rural Missouri I know to be truer than what is generally assumed. Black men carrying flags, white women with bullhorns and neon vests, cotton-headed men wearing Vietnam Vet ball caps. Overalls, tank tops, jean shorts. A man with a thin blue line American flag t-shirt.
The crowd of over 100 people in Clinton made up one of the over 2,000 No Kings protests that were held the same day as President Trump’s military parade in Washington. The parade that just so happened to coincide with his 79th birthday. Social action and political demonstration happens outside of major urban centers.
When I approached the woman holding the sign reading “The greatest of these is love!!” I was immediately put at ease by her friendly demeanor and way she was soaking in the moment. The woman sitting in a walker next to her held a bright yellow sign with thick black letters that read “Jesus is my King!!”
With beads of sweat dripping down her face in the hot afternoon sun, she explained that it was her love for people and the teachings of her Christian faith that motivated her to show up on the sidewalk in Clinton, Missouri. The town that most folks in Kansas City say, “Oh, I’ve been through there on the way to the lake,” when I tell them I’m from the area.
“God sees us all as His children,” she said while fanning herself with a small poster with a simple message, “I Care,” written on it.
She expressed concern about what she is seeing happening in the White House. This was the first time she had participated in anything like this, pointing around to the other folks with their “No Kings” signs. Earlier that morning she had attended a similar protest in Warrensburg, but before this muggy Saturday in west central Missouri, she had never done so before.
Nearly 100 folks gather in Clinton, Missouri along Ohio Street on Saturday as part of the No Kings protests that happened across the country. Music played, bubbles filled the air and folks carried signs and flags along one of the main roads in the town of less than 10,000 people.
“There are 87-year-old ladies out here,” she said, explaining that she had seen several women from her mother’s class.
While her mother had passed three years ago she told me, there was a certain swell of pride that I could see in her when she told me that.
“Our rural communities are in such jeopardy with our healthcare systems…SNAP benefits…”
She told me something I knew already from my rural upbringing. We help each other in rural communities.
“Everyone is our neighbor.”
Kat, one of the organizers with Henry County Concerned Citizens, center, moves through the crowd while watching one of the intersections in front of the City Hall building in Clinton.
As the crowd moved up along the sidewalk toward one of the main intersections in town, I was surprised by the number of positive honks. Waves and thumbs up to the people out exercising their First Amendment rights.
One older woman in a van drove by and gave a thumbs down as she slowly promenaded by. A young man with a bit of black face paint waved back and blew her a kiss as she drove away.
Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changing” filled the air over a speaker. Bubbles caught in the breeze and American flags flapped in the humid air.
Nearly 100 folks gather in Clinton, Missouri along Ohio Street on Saturday as part of the No Kings protests that happened across the country. Music played, bubbles filled the air and folks carried signs and flags along one of the main roads in the town of less than 10,000 people.
As the crowd began to turn around and head back towards the square, a man approached one of the police officers who was standing by. A thanks was exchanged along with a fist bump. The man explained he is a retired law enforcement officer.
Captions: “We the people” and “ No Kings No Felons” were some of the signs that lined the street in Clinton, which is around 60-miles away from Kansas City.
Through the streets, I have photographed my sister before her junior prom and have stood anxiously along during Fourth of July parades during Olde Glory Days as a child, the crowd meandered back to a building just off the square where a car show was going on. My dad’s cousins were serving barbecue less than a block away. I ran into my junior high basketball coach.
The meeting place for those in attendance was at the former Clinton Daily Democrat building where I had my first newspaper internship, where my great-grandmother Gertrude Keller wrote columns, where my grandpa Gene Swabby worked as a printer in the press room. Layers upon layers of personal and family history within the few blocks, where around 100 people showed up on the Saturday before Father’s Day.
“It’s important to hold space in the spaces we may not be welcomed in…and peacefully so,” Kat, one of the organizers with Henry County Concerned Citizens, told me.
“Peacefully so,” in light of Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe announcing the Thursday prior that he was activating the Missouri National Guard as a “precautionary measure in reaction to recent instances of civil unrest across the country.” On Monday, the ACLU of Missouri called on Kehoe to “rescind the order and apologize to Missourians.”
“Our goal is to make community here,” Kat explained. “There hasn’t been a protest of this size here,” she didn’t think.
My mom told me as I was leaving their house to go check out the protest that she couldn’t hardly believe that there was a protest happening right here, in Clinton.
I can’t say with certainty how my great-grandmother who worked as a writer would have perceived the protest in Clinton. I turn to her writings more and more to help me with my own projects. She compiled a book for her children and grandchildren with a selection of columns from her time at the Clinton Eye and as news editor at The Windsor Review.
“Grandmothers usually make quilts for each grandchild; however, this grandmother will probably never get around to doing that, so I dedicate this book to them,” it reads in the dedication.
I bring up this lengthy side tangent because of a column in her book that is titled, “All Bad News?…”
“But our news is SO bad, they say. It touches the leaders of government, even the presidency. It helps to read history,” she wrote. Some things that are written are timeless.
She offers a fairly optimistic perspective on finding the silver lining in the face of bad news in the headlines. I can’t help but to wonder if she would have disagreed with the overall nature of the protest. Surely, though, she would have resonated with the woman holding the sign that read, “The greatest of these is love!!”
While Rolling Stone called the parade in the nation’s capitol “hideously expensive” and a “gross failure,” Kat called the turnout great in Clinton. Another person I chatted with told me the only real opposition they had felt from the day was from “keyboard warriors” on Facebook.
While the local radio station didn’t appear to interview any of those demonstrating, the article they shared online reassured readers that the sheriff had “met with the leaders of this protest in advance and explained that his department will not tolerate any uprising.”
“We’ve surprised people,” Kat said.
It was 85 degrees according to the thermometer in my Jeep when I got in after spending about an hour with the folks demonstrating. I went back to my parents to finish whipping mashed potatoes, grilling steaks and cooking down a few sides.
The greatest of these is love, floated around in my memory for the rest of the evening as I shared a meal with my family on the outskirts of town.
“Everyone is our neighbor.”
The meeting spot for the demonstrators was the former Clinton Daily Democrat building just off of the square in Clinton.
No incidents were reported as a result of the demonstration of around 100 folks in Clinton on Saturday. The event was organized by Henry County Concerned Citizens.
