Riverhead Rally
Presentations at the March 28, 2026 No Kings Rally in Riverhead, NY
Riverhead Local https://riverheadlocal.com/2026/03/29/a-few-hundred-gather-in-riverhead-for-no-kings-rally/
Tu Prensa Local in Spanish https://tuprensalocal.com/no-kings-en-riverhead-la-culminacion-de-un-dia-de-protestas-historicas-en-el-east-end/
Riverhead News Review https://riverheadnewsreview.timesreview.com/2026/03/132783/hundreds-march-through-riverhead-during-no-kings-protest/
East End Beacon https://www.eastendbeacon.com/watch-no-kings-greenport-march/
Brienne Ahearn
Delivered at Town Hall
We are here today for many reasons, but primarily to protest the overreach of this tyrannical administration that is encroaching on our rights and violating our constitution.
The weaponization of ICE agents against immigrants and citizens alike cannot stand. The violence, trauma, and chaos caused by random raids of a masked paramilitary are destroying the fabric of our communities and our country.
While we continue to do all that is in our power to raise our voices and demand the defunding of ICE, we can take local action to rein in this rogue agency and hold them accontable.
OLA of Eastern Long Island has developed a law with retired State Assemblyman Fred Thiele that focuses on what towns, villages and local police CAN do to create effective emergency responses that better support our public institutions and protect community members during ICE raids.
We rely on local police protection and response during all threats to public safety. But due to the nature of these raids and their unprecedented actions, our own local police agencies should not have to shoulder the burden of response alone. We need a local law that will offer guidance in navigating these heightened public safety needs.
We need to step beyond statements of condemnation to establish a local law that will build back confidence in our emergency response systems. That will better prepare us all to respond to these dangerous and chaotic ICE actions in our communities.
Riverhead has seen more raids than any other east end town, and yet we are the ONLY town that has not taken action yet in regard to this law. We need our town board to STAND UP and protect us, and to show they care about the safety of ALL residents.
Scan the QR code on my or any of the safety monitors’ backs to read and sign onto the law.
DEMAND SAFETY AND PROTECTION FOR ALL.
SHOW UP AT RIVERHEAD TOWN HALL MEETINGS, CALL & EMAIL OUR TOWN BOARD. Demand accountability.
Repeat after me: Riverhead Town Board - PASS THE OLA LAW!
Take Action - PROTECT US!
ICE OUT NOW!
NO ICE, NO KKK, NO FASCIST USA
NO HATE, NO FEAR, IMMIGRANTS ARE WELCOME HERE
A People United Will Never Be Defeated, All power to the people
Power to the people, People are the power
/////
When I say “we want” you say “justice”
We want JUSTICE
When I say people you say power
People, power
People, power
LOVE, Not HATE, Makes America GREAT
Prepared for rally but not delivered
My name is Brienne Ahearn, and I’m a proud Riverhead resident, mother, and community member. I’m honored to be a part of the Riverhead No Kings Planning Committee, and cannot thank you all enough for being here to stand up for our neighbors, our community, our democracy, and our country. Thank you for being VOCAL and LOUD about your opposition to this cruel, authoritarian regime. It is one of the most important things you can do right now. Let’s show them THEIR OPPOSITION, and STAND steadfast in our values.
Thank you to our incredible speakers, who have inspired us with their wise words, visions of hope, and concrete action steps.
And thank you to our cosponsors— organizations that have been leading the way, advocating for the betterment of our communities and equal treatment of, and opportunity for ALL our neighbors for decades.
High fives to all the committee members and safety monitors who have done a wonderful job making this event happen (almost) flawlessly!
And, I’d like to give a special shout out to these AMAZING young people. Not only to Faith and Ollie who have been on the ground organizing in their schools, led the charge with Anti-ICE walkouts, and spearheaded this march today, but to each and every student who has participated, and spoken out about the injustice they’re witnessing. You have the MORAL CLARITY and COURAGE to change the course of our country’s future. You have MOVED us deeply and given us all hope.
This moment in history is all hands on deck. And today is a launching pad to wield our collective power. We MUST keep up the pressure. And there are so many ways to resist.
Please if you are a local resident, review and sign on to the OLA legislation, show up at your local town halls, write emails and call to advocate for its passing. That is why we marched from Town hall today- to demonstrate our support for the law and demand its consideration by the Riverhead Town Board.
Call and email your representatives at all levels of government to air your grievances and to applaud resistance efforts. Make sure they know where you stand. And BE RELENTLESS.
Register to vote, get someone else to register to vote, and VOTE in every election.
Educate yourself about the candidates up and down the ballot, and sign up to canvas for those you believe in.
Join one of the groups here, there are so many lovely people involved in each of them, I can attest to that. The sign up tables are over there.
Join a boycott, join a union, join a strike or picketline, help with mutual aid, and maybe most importantly, connect with your neighbors, community members, and someone new in the crowd. Because, look around…
THESE are your people, and we are only growing in number. But we have to find each other, work together, and remain united.
In fact, after the rally today you are all invited to meet and mingle at Mugs on Main, just around the corner. And you’ll be supporting a local business too, which is another way to resist corporate tyranny.
We MUST build these networks of love, care, and community. We MUST protect one another.
Let the spirit and beauty of this day carry you forward and motivate you to take action. As one of my beloved professors, who aptly teaches peace studies, once said to me: “Be brave and dare to give more of yourself.”
************************
Ollie Earl
Michael A. Iasilli, PhD
Talking Points for No Kings (not delivered because of family emergency)
Friends, colleagues, fellow neighbors—we stand at a precipice. The war in Iran, which we are told is necessary, is in reality a travesty that promises only to plunge us into another decades-long, or even longer, conflict, like the ones we have seen before.
The attack on Venezuela, Lebanon, and the threats to other countries like Cuba, is not how you garner peace in the world,
We have been here before: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya , etc… the list goes on. This is not a path to peace; it is a guaranteed expansion of global harm.
Empire building isn't cool. It never was, and it certainly isn't America First.
We have to recognize the devastating cost of war: the death of innocent people, the destruction of the planet, the wholesale destruction of communities especially of innocent children, hospitals, and schools. What we are witnessing is completely anathema to international standards.
Right now Lebanon is being bombed, over a thousand innocent people have been killed. Including children.
The International Red Cross has reported the horrors of what is happening in Gaza. The Red Cross, which doesn't usually weigh in on either side of conflict or politics, is warning us plainly. Historically, they simply aid those affected by conflict, help the injured, provide aid.
Yet even Aid is being blocked in Gaza. I call on all of our mainstream media organizations, corporations, local and national officials to reexamine this. Where is the urgency?
This is about the unjust thwarting of self-determination for a people who deserve to shape their own future. War is not a policy, it is a failure of diplomacy and a humanitarian disaster.
But the toll of war is also felt right here, in our own neighborhoods. As a local official, we claw and scrape for every kind of funding we can get- for infrastructure, transportation, and the everyday needs for people.
Every dollar poured into the insatiable war machine is a dollar constrained from local and essential needs. Think of what we desperately require:
Funding for Healthcare to ensure every family has access to quality care. They say it's “too expensive” to ensure healthcare is a human right. But “war is fine.” Think about what this means right now. It's too expensive to keep us alive. It's easier to destroy in war.
Support for Seniors and Veterans who have dedicated their lives to our community and country.
Investment in Housing to address the affordability crisis that cuts across so many different categories of our society.
The war budget is too big. The White House is expected to request 1.7 trillion for 2027.
That is a drain on our most precious resources, for working people especially, and it is a moral failure to prioritize distant conflict over the immediate needs of our own people.
We must demand an end to these conflicts and redirect our nation's focus toward building a stronger, healthier, and more just society at home.
The time for change is now.
The time for a Single Payer Healthcare system is now!
The time to protect our seniors and veterans is now!
The time to protect the sovereignty of our fellow Indigenous communities is now!
The time for peace is NOW!
Thank you!
Roger Joslin
I want to tell you about an argument God once lost.
The people of Israel came to the prophet Samuel and said: Give us a king. All the other nations have kings. We want to be like them. We want a strong man at the top. Someone to lead our armies. Someone to make us great.
And Samuel prayed. And God answered. And what God said is one of the most astonishing things in all of scripture.
1 Samuel 8:7 Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.
God says: they don’t want me. They want a king instead of me.
But God doesn’t stop there. God tells Samuel: warn them. Tell them exactly what a king will do.
1 Samuel 8:11–18 He will take your sons… He will take your daughters… He will take the best of your fields and vineyards… He will take a tenth of your flocks. And you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king… but the Lord will not answer you.
Kings will take. They will take. They will take. They will take.
God knew exactly what kings do. Kings concentrate power. Kings demand loyalty above all else. Kings take from the many to enrich the few. Kings send other people’s children to war. Kings wrap themselves in the symbols of the sacred to make their power seem ordained by heaven.
The people didn’t listen. They got their king.
Abraham Joshua Heschel — the great Jewish theologian who marched with Martin Luther King at Selma — spent his life studying the prophets who came after that first king. And what he found was this: the prophets were those who refused to forget what God had said to Samuel.
The prophets stood in the public square and said to the kings of Israel and Judah: You do not own this people. You do not own this land. There is a sovereignty above yours, and it will not be mocked.
Amos said it to a prosperous kingdom that was selling the poor for a pair of sandals.
Isaiah said it to a king who made alliances with empire and forgot the widow and the orphan.
Jeremiah said it — and was thrown in a cistern for it.
They kept saying it. Because the alternative — silence — was not neutrality. Silence was complicity. Silence was consent.
We are here today because something in us — something old and deep and stubbornly alive — has not forgotten what God said to Samuel.
We know what kings do. We are watching it happen. We are watching it happen here, on the East End of Long Island, right now.
The people ICE has been taking from this community — from the farms and the kitchens and the fishing boats of the North Fork and the South Fork — are not criminals. They are our neighbors. They pick the crops that feed us. They build the houses we live in. They worship in our churches. Their children go to school with our children.
This is what kings do. They take the vulnerable first. They take the ones without power, without papers, without protection. They take them quietly, from parking lots and church steps and school pickup lines — and they count on the rest of us to be too frightened or too comfortable to notice.
And beyond our shores, exactly one month ago today, this administration launched surprise airstrikes on Iran —on cities full of children who had nothing to do with any argument between governments. Thousands dead. A war begun without a declaration from Congress, without a vote, announced like a king who answers to no one.
And we are here to say, in the tradition of Amos and Isaiah and Jeremiah, in the tradition of every person of conscience who has ever stood in a public square and refused to bow:
Not this. Not here. Not in our name.
Heschel said that when he marched at Selma, he felt his legs were praying. That is what we are doing today. We are praying with our feet. We are praying with our presence. We are praying with our voices.
Because we serve no king but the one who told Samuel the truth about kings. And that God — the God of the prophets, the God of the dispossessed, the God who takes no bribes and shows no partiality — that God is not finished with this country yet.
No kings. Not now. Not ever.
********************************
Alma Tovar
My name is Alma Tovar. I am a Community Advocate for OLA of Eastern Long Island, a nonprofit Latino-focused advocacy organization founded in 2002. OLA works across the five East End Towns, East Hampton, Southampton, Riverhead, Southold and Shelter Island.
Organización Latino Americana or OLA and former State Assemblyman Fred Thiele have drafted a law. I would like to quickly explain what the OLA Public Safety Local Law “Safety and Accountability for the East End” is about and why it matters.
First, it is important to be clear:
This law does not stop federal immigration enforcement. Agencies like ICE still have their authority.
What this law says is simple:
We respect federal authority, but we also have a responsibility to protect our community.
The goal is to:
● Be more transparent
● Promote accountability
● Keep our communities safe
● Reduce fear and confusion
Why does this matter?
Because we’ve seen that immigration enforcement actions can create fear, disrupt families, and affect the safety of our neighborhoods.
So what does the law do?
It makes things more transparent. If local police interact with federal immigration agents, it must be reported and shared with town leadership and eventually with the public. No more secrecy.
It creates a community task force to look at impacts, protect places like schools and hospitals, and suggest better safety policies.
It protects town buildings, federal agents can’t enter restricted areas without a warrant.
And it ensures accountability. Local police can ask agents to identify themselves.
Important to know:
This is not a “no cooperation” law. The town can still work with federal agencies when required.
At the end of the day, this is about balance, respecting the law while also protecting our neighbors. Because when people are afraid, they don’t report crimes, they avoid hospitals, and that affects all of us.
And before we close, thank you to all the Rapid Response members, you are doing critical work supporting families and keeping our community informed.
If you support this law, we invite you to sign and help spread the word.
And if you want to join the Rapid Response Team, just text your name, your town, and your phone number to 631-500-5001.
Thank you so much.
********************************
Faith Welsh
Being a teenager today in America.
Wake up. Scroll. Scroll. Click. “January 7th 2026, US immigration fatally shoots woman in Minneapolis” How is this allowed.
Scroll. Scroll. Click again. “January 24 2026, Federal agent fatally shoots man Saturday in Minneapolis.” When will it end.
School in 30 minutes, I close the app, but my mind is still open.
Becoming in a country that tells young people that we are the future, a country that asks us to grow up amidst the fear and turmoil it puts us through.
It doesn’t make sense.
We are growing up watching families being torn apart on our screens. We are desensitized.
We are growing up hearing names of those that we will never meet,
but whose lives mattered just as much as ours.
We were taught that this country stands for life, liberty, and justice FOR ALL.
But justice that costs innocent lives is not justice.
And liberty that only protects some is not liberty at all.
My generation is watching.
We are paying attention.
We are going through everyday with the constant fear of “I wonder if ICE is in town this week, I hope my friends, my family, and my co workers are okay.”
We are trying to understand this world,
And we are learning that safety is not promised to everyone equally.
As teenagers we’re told to focus on school, on college applications, on building a future,
On things that we desire.
But it’s hard to feel safe dreaming or wanting anything,
When others are losing everything just for exercising their first amendment right.
What’s happening in our country is violence that’s attempting to be disguised as enforcement of policy.
But it’s not, and it’s represented in the empty chairs at dinner tables.
In classrooms missing a student.
In parents who leave for work and never come home.
And in kids like us who are learning fear before we learn freedom.
Today, we march for those who were killed, we remember that they are not just statistics,
Not just a New York times headline, but they were human beings.
They were someone’s family.
Someone’s whole world.
So today, we march in resistance,
We march for them.
We speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves.
And if we are the future this country keeps talking about,
Then make it a future that we’re anticipating to inherit,
Not one we’re fearful to obtain.
******************************
Chip Williford
Good Afternoon,
I am honored to be standing here today on the steps of The Supreme Court House in Riverhead, New York,
In Solidarity with you and ten’s of thousands, who are raising their voices, all across this nation at NO KING Rallies, during Women’s History Month, and only days after The United Nations’ General Assembly voted to recognize The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, as “ The Gravest Crime Against Humanity”.
Today our Democracy is in jeopardy, and although it’s incredible and inspiring we are here protesting in great numbers, it is crucial we remember we must take this enthusiasm and make a plan to vote in November’s Midterm election, and the 2028 Presidential election.
Because it is Women’s History Month, I’d like to read a poem by the First-Ever National Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman
“In This Place” ( An American Lyric)
There’s
a poem in this place—
in the footfalls in the
halls
in the quiet beat of the
seats.
It is here, at the curtain of day,
where America writes a
lyric
you must whisper to say.
There’s a poem in this place—
in the heavy grace,
the lined face of this noble building,
collections burned and reborn twice.
There’s a poem in Boston’s Copley Square
where protest chants
tear through the air
like sheets of rain,
where love of the many
swallows hatred of the few.
There’s a poem in Charlottesville
where tiki torches string a ring of flame
tight round the wrist of night
where men so white they gleam blue—
seem like statues
where men heap that long wax burning
ever higher
where Heather Heyer
blooms forever in a meadow of resistance.
There’s a poem in the great sleeping giant
of Lake Michigan, defiantly raising
its big blue head to Milwaukee and Chicago—
a poem begun long ago, blazed into frozen soil,
strutting upward and aglow.
There’s a poem in Florida, in East Texas
where streets swell into a nexus
of rivers, cows afloat like mottled buoys in the brown,
where courage is now so common
that 23-year-old Jesus Contreras rescues people from floodwaters.
There’s a poem in Los Angeles
yawning wide as the Pacific tide
where a single mother swelters
in a windowless classroom, teaching
black and brown students in Watts
to spell out their thoughts
so her daughter might write
this poem for you.
There's a lyric in California
where thousands of students march for blocks,
undocumented and unafraid;
where my friend Rosa finds the power to blossom
in deadlock, her spirit the bedrock of her community.
She knows hope is like a stubborn
ship gripping a dock,
a truth: that you can’t stop a dreamer
or knock down a dream.
How could this not be her city
su nación
our country
our America,
our American lyric to write—
a poem by the people, the poor,
the Protestant, the Muslim, the Jew,
the native, the immigrant,
the black, the brown, the blind, the brave,
the undocumented and undeterred,
the woman, the man, the nonbinary,
the white, the trans,
the ally to all of the above
and more?
Tyrants fear the poet.
Now that we know it
we can’t blow it.
We owe it
to show it
not slow it
although it
hurts to sew it
when the world
skirts below it.
Hope—
we must bestow it
like a wick in the poet
so it can grow, lit,
bringing with it
stories to rewrite—
the story of a Texas city depleted but not defeated
a history written that need not be repeated
a nation composed but not yet completed.
There’s a poem in this place—
a poem in America
a poet in every American
who rewrites this nation, who tells
a story worthy of being told on this minnow of an earth
to breathe hope into a palimpsest of time—
a poet in every American
who sees that our poem penned
doesn’t mean our poem’s end.
There’s a place where this poem dwells—
it is here, it is now, in the yellow song of dawn’s bell
where we write an American lyric
we are just beginning to tell.
Copyright © 2017 by Amanda Gorman. Reprinted from Split This Rock's The Quarry: A Social Justice Database.
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