{"id":215184,"date":"2026-06-28T06:52:43","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T06:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/this-isnt-about-any-one-administration-protests-kick-off-in-dc-to-reimagine-the-next-250-years-in-the-us-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T06:52:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T06:52:43","slug":"this-isnt-about-any-one-administration-protests-kick-off-in-dc-to-reimagine-the-next-250-years-in-the-us-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/this-isnt-about-any-one-administration-protests-kick-off-in-dc-to-reimagine-the-next-250-years-in-the-us-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018This isn\u2019t about any one administration\u2019: protests kick off in DC to reimagine the next 250 years in the US – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Next250\u2019s Declaration of Interdependence, a new art gallery featuring Americans\u2019 collective values and hopes for the future, opens in McPherson Square
M<\/span>ore than a thousand people gathered on a block away from the White House on Saturday to unveil their vision for the US\u2019s future, organizers said, with thousands more attending other events around the country.
At the Next250<\/a> All of US rally, held a week before the 250th anniversary of the country\u2019s founding, organizers launched their Declaration of Interdependence<\/a>, an art installation featuring the collective values they believe should define the next 250 years of America\u2019s story. The pledge \u2013 a take on the declaration of independence, the country\u2019s founding text \u2013 aims to build a country where everyone can earn a living wage, have access to green spaces and feel safe in their communities, activists said.
\u201cThis event isn\u2019t about any one administration or president,\u201d said Linda Sarsour, an organizer with the Next250, one of the grassroots groups that organized the event. \u201cThis is about staking our place in the historic archive. So when people look back at the 250th commemoration and ask \u2018Where were the movements?\u2019 they will see this commitment from all of us.\u201d
To create the Declaration of Interdependence, activists held listening sessions in 36 states, Puerto Rico and even El Salvador, where they collected ideas from people recently deported from the US.
What came back, Sarsour said, is that most Americans, from workers in Iowa to undocumented residents in Detroit to Black Americans in Mississippi, agree on a set of basic universal values: economic security, healthcare, safe schools and a livable planet. \u201cNeighbor to neighbor, we\u2019re actually not as polarized as people want us to believe,\u201d she said.
At McPherson Square on Saturday attenders participated in a variety of activities meant to foster community. At one end, the DC non-profit Distant Relatives distributed food and clothing and offered medical services to hundreds of people experiencing homelessness. Nearby, others signed their names at the bottom of the large Declaration of Interdependence to signal their support for a more culturally inclusive country.
On the large outdoor stage, rallygoers watched an Indigenous opening ceremony, featuring drumming and dance by members of the Piscataway Nation, listened to keynote speeches by activists, sang along as the Morgan State University choir performed, and cheered for spoken-word artists and musicians.
\u201cWe want to show our children that this is what community is,\u201d said Saileni Urena, the director of education and employment at Guns Down, Life Up, a community organization based in the Bronx that seeks to end gun violence. Urena traveled with a group of 20 students to attend the event. \u201cThis is a very vulnerable time for our kids who are at risk, and we\u2019re here to join with others in the nation\u2019s capital to find solutions to ending violence everywhere.\u201d
Organizers used the event as a moment to convene with others across various movements. \u201cWe are the representation of what this country is, and we are what has made America great,\u201d said Suehaila Amen, a longtime organizer who traveled from Dearborn, Michigan. \u201cI\u2019m supporting my brothers and sisters as we stand to ensure that our rights are preserved and protected.\u201d
Communities are being marginalized and isolated as people live in fear of immigration enforcement, Amen said, adding: \u201cThe US is bringing ruin and destruction to our ancestral homelands, too, from Lebanon to Palestine and Iran. We have to stand together against this, and we can\u2019t build if we aren\u2019t united.\u201d
Aside from the DC flagship event, more than 100 Next250 events are taking place across the country on Saturday, from rallies to teach-ins. In Los Angeles, an event titled Learn the History They Want You to Forget includes a walking tour recognizing sites significant to Black, Latino, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ communities.<\/p>\n

The event comes as the Trump administration kicked off its Fourth of July celebration, Freedom 250, on Thursday, with a Trump campaign-style rally and a 16-day \u201cAmerican state fair\u201d. Next250 organizers see Donald Trump\u2019s celebration as a partisan spectacle rather than a genuine reckoning with the country\u2019s history, arriving at a moment when they say the most basic constitutional protections are under attack.
Freedom 250 amounts to an \u201ceffort to write Black and Indigenous history out of the national story\u201d, a charge that lands with particular force a week after Juneteenth and against the backdrop of the recent gutting of the Voting Rights Act, said Hunter Dunn, a spokesperson for the grassroots organization 50501, a partner organizer for Saturday\u2019s event. The counter-message of Next250, Sarsour said, is that the last 250 years belong to ordinary people as much as to any president, and that the country\u2019s promises of free speech and the right to organize are worth defending precisely because they have often gone unmet.
\u201cWe\u2019re the first generation in American history that has to tell a younger generation they have less rights than us,\u201d Sarsour said, pointing particularly to the loss of reproductive and voting rights in recent years.
At Saturday\u2019s event in DC, the Virginia-based Vietnam veteran Doyle Cook said the nation\u2019s 250th anniversary is an opportunity to reckon with American imperialism.
\u201cAfter I got out, I was not happy at all with what I did. I was used as a tool, the same way today\u2019s military is being used in Iran,\u201d said Cook, who was deployed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1969. \u201cWe\u2019re making the same mistakes, and our leaders have not learned anything from history. It\u2019s a very happy occasion that we survived the first 250 years, but we need to continue to raise our voices for justice, equality and democracy.\u201d
Others emphasized the significance of nonviolent protest. \u201cI believe that grassroots mobilization is an important way to bring change,\u201d said Michael Beer, a DC-area resident. \u201cWe also have to get people educated, motivated, disrupting and drawing attention to important issues. With 250, we have to also talk about how nonviolent resistance movements here in this country have changed the world.\u201d
International attenders watched the rally with cautious optimism. \u201cWe\u2019ve always looked up to the US in terms of what we want to be as a society,\u201d said Bianna Peracchi, a Brazilian citizen living in Spain. \u201cBut our authoritarian leaders are looking at Trump for inspiration. So let\u2019s hope upcoming elections across Latin America, and the US, show us that democracy still matters.\u201d
Saturday is one entry in a crowded summer calendar for activists: Seven Days in DC<\/a>, a week of activists lobbying Congress, registering voters and holding public demonstrations; World Cup efforts such as Our Copa<\/a>, which aims to protect fans from ICE raids; and a boycott of United Airlines called Fascism Doesn\u2019t Fly<\/a>, set to begin in early July over the airline\u2019s support for the US president\u2019s Freedom 250 initiative. In mid-July, the Good Trouble Lives On<\/a> action, in honor of the late congressman John Lewis, will draw attention to voting rights. Organizers expect the next nationwide No Kings rally to take place in late summer or early fall, Dunn said.<\/p>\n

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Next250\u2019s Declaration of Interdependence, a new art gallery featuring Americans\u2019 collective values and hopes for the future, opens in McPherson SquareMore than a thousand people gathered on a block away from the White House on Saturday to unveil their vision for the US\u2019s future, organizers said, with thousands more attending other events around the country.At […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-215184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}