Anti-Trump ‘No Kings’ protest returns to State College. Here are the groups behind it
Hundreds are expected to gather on Penn State’s Old Main lawn Saturday, Oct. 18 as part of the second anti-Trump “No Kings” protest this year. Behind the protest are Centre County neighbors, and behind them are national organizations hoping to shape headlines and build sustained opposition to President Donald Trump.
There are at least four groups involved in planning, creating chants or writing speeches for the State College demonstration, according to organizers: Keystone Indivisible, which is taking the lead; the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Centre County, the Justice Singers of Centre County and the Centre County Rapid Response Network. The groups are a crew of volunteers, both green and experienced.
Organizers universally said Saturday’s protest will peacefully demonstrate love of country and resistance to what they view as the harmful actions of the Trump administration. The Centre Daily Times spoke to organizers to understand their motivations and how their groups operate.
Keystone Indivisible
Keystone Indivisible is the local chapter of the national progressive group Indivisible, formed after Trump’s first election to “resist the GOP’s agenda, elect local champions, and fight for progressive policies,” according to its website. The national group organized the first “No Kings” protests in June as counterprogramming to Trump’s birthday and Washington, D.C., military parade and was involved with efforts to impeach the president in his first term, among many other displays of opposition.
As a major progressive organization, Indivisible’s political action committee collects big checks from the likes of wealthy investors, members of the Disney family and the Open Society Foundations, a group founded by investor George Soros. Many thousands of small-dollar contributions come from everyday people, too. The national group is a target of the Trump administration’s crackdown on left-wing dissent, alongside Soros and a slew of liberal groups.
The Centre County Indivisible chapter was founded in December with mostly silver-haired volunteers. Instead of one central leader, Keystone Indivisible is led by a team that includes Suzanne Weinstein, a retired Penn State administrator; Christine Warner, a recent Centre County transplant; and Ray Bilger, an Air Force veteran and retired foreign service officer, among others. Many are fairly new to activism.
“I have a young daughter, and I think a lot about what she would think about me in this moment in American history, if I didn’t rise to the occasion,” said Warner, who joined the activism world shortly after Trump’s second inauguration. She noted Thursday was the first time a reporter had interviewed her.
It was a similar deal for Bilger, who said he left the Republican Party after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in 2021.
“The majority of my adult life, I’ve stood by the same oath that I took back in 1986 when I first joined the Air Force, and it’s been to the Constitution,” he said. “I have obviously very strong feelings about it.”
Keystone Indivisible recently protested against the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility holding Kilmar Abrego Garcia and exoneree Subu Vedam. It was involved with local anti-Trump “Hands Off” and “No Kings” protests in the spring and summer.
The group has demonstrated outside the local offices of Rep. Glenn Thompson and Sen. David McCormick, both Trump-supporting Republicans. Keystone Indivisible has spoken out against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and the now-reversed closure of WPSU.
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Centre County
Unitarian Universalists believe in religious liberalism, diversity and inclusion, and though it has Christian roots, it often incorporates religious practices from around the world. The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Centre County is the local congregation.
The Centre County outfit was founded in 1950 by Penn State students, and over the years has supported racial justice initiatives, refugee resettlement and peace in Gaza. The congregation, whose members overlap with the other groups involved with the No Kings protest, has been led by the Rev. Dr. Tracy Sprowls since 2021.
“As a social activist minister, I feel like our faith community — either as a group, as a congregation or individually — we need to be out here pushing back against what’s happening in our country right now, and this seems like a really good way to do it,” Sprowls said.
Sprowls, who recently moved to the area from New Jersey, has been particularly active in supporting LGBTQ+ individuals as the mother of a transgender adult daughter. She said she was inspired to get involved with activism after seeing Nelson Mandela speak at a church she attended.
“That really solidified it for me,” she said.
Sprowls said her focus at Saturday’s No Kings protest will be crowd safety.
Justice Singers of Centre County
The Justice Singers of Centre County is a group that performs social justice-oriented music. Founded in April by a group of friends after seeing a protest at Sidney Friedman Park, it holds what it calls song circles at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Centre County and attends local demonstrations.
Co-founder Cate Fricke said the singers hail from different musical backgrounds and local choirs. Fricke, herself is a member of the chamber choir in State College, said the Justice Singers “kind of explore and find joy in the wonderful richness that is music in protest.”
“We really believe that when a community comes together to sing, it can be really powerful,” she said.
Fricke said she is also fairly new to activism. After volunteering for Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign, her involvement largely fell by the wayside.
“It really has been in this past year that I’ve become much more active,” she said, in part to demonstrate how “our shared values are under attack” by the president.
The Justice Singers sang at an August demonstration against Philipsburg’s ICE detention center and the June No Kings protest in Hollidaysburg. It also participates in May Day events and Pride, according to its minimalist WordPress blog.
Centre County Rapid Response Network
The Centre County Rapid Response Network is a local immigrant advocacy group. Founded in March, it is perhaps best known for breaking the news in August of an ICE raid near Bellefonte that saw two dozen people arrested, their identities, locations and reasons for detention withheld by the government.
The CDT sued the Pennsylvania State Police last week for footage from the raid.
The advocacy group operates a 24-hour volunteer hotline that receives and verifies reports of federal immigration enforcement in the area. It documents local migrant detentions and works with similar groups throughout the commonwealth to provide legal resources to migrants.
The organization is part of the regular cast at local anti-Trump protests. It was cofounded by a former Mennonite pastor, but Sprowls, the Unitarian Universalist minister, is now the main contact. She said the group drafted a speech about immigration and detainees to be read by a Keystone Indivisible member.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 12:59 p.m. Oct. 20, 2025, to amend a reference to a Centre County Rapid Response Network co-founder and was previously updated to reflect the group’s current contact.
This story was originally published October 17, 2025 at 2:28 PM.
