Becca Good's letter was three pages long. Jane Fonda read it to 200,000 people standing on the lawn of the Minnesota State Capitol, and by the second paragraph the crowd had gone quiet. "My wife sparkled with sunshine and shone with kindness that is unmatched," Fonda read. "We were robbed of an incredible human." Renée Good, 37, was killed on January 7 by ICE agent Jonathan Ross during Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis. She was driving her car. Video contradicted federal claims that she used her vehicle as a weapon. Her death became the spark for what happened on March 28.
Who's Who?
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Ezra Levin — Former congressional staffer who turned a Google Doc into the largest protest in U.S. history. -
Bruce Springsteen — Wrote 'Streets of Minneapolis' in response to the ICE killings. It hit #1 on YouTube the day it dropped. -
BGBecca Good — Her three-page letter, read by Jane Fonda, became the emotional center of the largest rally in Minnesota history.
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Bernie Sanders — Drew a single line from bombs overseas to hungry children at home — and dared the crowd to follow it. -
Ilhan Omar — Came to the U.S. as a Somali refugee at 12. Now represents the streets where ICE killed two Americans. -
Joan Baez — Sang with Martin Luther King Jr. in 1966. Sixty years later, she's still showing up. -
Tim Walz — Introduced Springsteen with four words: 'We need no damn kings.' -
RGRenée Good — Shot three times while driving her car. Video contradicted every federal claim about what happened.
Eight million people walked out. All fifty states. 3,300 events. The third No Kings protest was the largest single day of demonstrations in U.S. history, and it was organized by two people who met at Carleton College. Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg co-founded Indivisible after Trump's first election. Levin was a congressional staffer who understood how constituent pressure actually works. They were named to the TIME 100 in 2019. By March 2026, their operation had scaled from a Google Doc to a movement that put more Americans in the streets than any protest before it.
The first No Kings Day, June 14, 2025, drew roughly five million people across 2,100 cities. The second, October 18, pulled seven million to 2,700 locations. Independent estimates put those numbers at 70 to 90 percent of what organizers claimed. Even at the low end, the math is staggering. "Each day Trump crosses a new red line," Levin told CNN, "and more people are deciding they've had enough."
The fuel kept coming. On January 24, Alex Pretti, 37, a VA nurse and protester, was killed by two CBP agents while filming and trying to protect another person. Four days later, Bruce Springsteen released "Streets of Minneapolis." It hit number one on YouTube with 2.5 million views on release day. "Federal troops brought death and terror to the streets of Minneapolis," Springsteen sang. On January 30, he debuted it live at First Avenue with Tom Morello at a benefit for the Good and Pretti families. "Being in Minneapolis goes way up to the top of the list as far as meaningful shows I've played," he told the Star Tribune. Then, on February 28, U.S.-Israeli strikes hit Iran, including the assassination of Ali Khamenei, and the anti-war energy fused with everything else.
The St. Paul rally was the largest protest in Minnesota history. Governor Tim Walz introduced Springsteen. "We need no damn kings," he said. Senator Bernie Sanders connected the Iran war, oligarchy, and domestic authoritarianism into a single argument. "We have unlimited amounts of money for bombs and guns and killing," Sanders told the crowd, "but never enough money to feed our children, provide affordable housing or enable our parents to retire with dignity." Rep. Ilhan Omar, whose district includes the Minneapolis neighborhoods where Good and Pretti were killed, was direct: "Donald Trump has not chipped away at our democracy; he has taken a wrecking ball to the very foundation of what makes America great." Omar came to the U.S. as a Somali refugee at age 12.
Joan Baez sang Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" with Maggie Rogers and Tom Morello. She is 85 years old. She connected the moment to singing with Martin Luther King Jr. in Grenada, Mississippi in 1966. "I'm honored to be standing in resistance with all of you today on this stage in this city at this moment," she said. There is a through-line from Grenada to St. Paul, and Baez is one of the few people alive who can draw it.
But the moment that mattered most was Becca Good's letter. Fonda read the last lines slowly. "Everyone who was there when my wife was taken from me has had their lives destroyed that day, including those agents. What we need is to stop destroying life." That is not the language of rage. It is the language of someone who has been living inside a nightmare for 80 days and found something on the other side of it.
Indivisible announced the next step before the crowds had dispersed: a May 1 nationwide general strike. No work, no school, no shopping. "We're going to show up and say we're putting workers over billionaires and kings," Levin said. The eight million who walked out on March 28 were not the ceiling. They were the floor.