Fifty-State ‘Free America Walkout’ Targets Trump, ICE, US Militarization

Millions of Americans and citizens abroad are being requested to “walk out” as part of a coordinated effort led by nationwide event organizers to rebuke the Trump administration and display “escalating resistance to authoritarian policies and violence.”

The “Free America Walkout” will take place Tuesday, Jan. 20, across all 50 states and Puerto Rico, as well as in other countries including Canada, France, Italy and the Netherlands. Organizers, which include Women’s March and 50501, told Military.com that more than 600 events were scheduled as of Jan. 15. Their website as of Jan. 17 showed in excess of 1,000 events with roughly 30,000 Americans planning to participate.

The walkout differs in theory to other anti-Trump protests held throughout 2025, notably “No Kings” rallies that galvanized the president’s detractors and brought millions of Americans out in both blue and red cities and states. 

Instead, activists are being encouraged to organize literal walkouts—from schools, city halls, local courthouses and capitals, as well as marching to federal buildings, holding vigils “for the freedoms Americans have lost,” and sit-ins.

“Women’s March is Women’s March; we’re known for our big marches and mobilizations,” Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of Women’s March, told Military.com. “We also have other protest tools in our toolbox. We decided that we were going to mark the one-year anniversary of Trump’s second inauguration, which also happens to fall around our anniversary.

“When we thought about what we wanted to do, we wanted to obviously protest, make a statement, and really voice our affirmation and our belief that a free America is the only America worth calling great. We wanted to be on the record with that.”

The White House views the events’ intent much differently.

TDS libs are free to exercise their First Amendment rights however they desire. We are free not to care about their lies. – White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson to Military.com

Women’s March launched shortly after Trump’s first presidential victory in 2016.

This walkout, in which planning began in the fourth quarter of 2025, is a response to what organizers describe as a “series of escalations, including immigration raids, expanded militarization, attacks on workers and families, and the use of fear and force to silence dissent.”

Details of Nationwide Events

Event attendees plan to hit different events starting at 2 p.m. local time and are requested to wear red, white and blue attire.

“We will withhold our labor, our participation, and our consent. A free America begins the moment we refuse to cooperate. This is not a request. This is a rupture. This is a protest and a promise. In the face of fascism, we will be ungovernable,” the event website reads.

Domestically, events are scheduled from Miami, Fla., to Gustavus, Alaska. In Boston, there will be walkouts and vigils. Activists in Houston, Texas, will call for Trump’s impeachment. In Arizona, activities plan to surround the Tucson Federal Building while displaying signs to traffic on Congress.

Carmona said that having such events during the week, rather than those traditionally held on weekends, “kind of stretches us as a movement and really serves as a test to see what kind of skills we have, what kind of skills we need, and how we are set up for long-term kind of resistance.”

It has been 7-8 years since the last Women’s March-pushed walkout. This form of protest, she said, is different because rather than people galvanizing and collectively issuing demands in large groups, it presents the opposite side of the coin.

“Part of what we are both practicing and socializing with our folks is that we can withdraw consent,” she said. “This is a government, of the people, by the people, for the people, or it’s supposed to be. And when it stops being that, we don’t have to be the backbone and the motor that it runs on.”

We can withdraw consent. We cannot go to school. We cannot go to work. We cannot allow business as usual. We will, in fact, walk away from a system that does not have our best interests and minds [at heart], and we will walk to something else.

That includes attendees signing up for local “democracy dinners” or going to mutual aid events. Others, like individuals in Houston, will hold huge lobbying activities.

Researchers from American University will actually study the impact of this week’s actions on the broader Women’s March movement and its capacity moving forward,” Carmona added.

The New ‘Resistance’

Partners extend beyond 50501 to groups like FEMINIST, whose the latter’s co-founders and co-executive directors, Aisha Becker-Burrowes and Ky Polanco, said in a statement that “people are looking for ways to walk out and resist.”

They said the ICE-related killings of Renee Good in Minneapolis that drew widespread attention and ignited protests, as well Keith Porter—who was shot and killed on New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles by an off-duty ICE agent—led to these renewed forms of dissent.

“In the wake of the killings of Renee Good and Keith Porter, and amid rising state violence and authoritarianism, people are looking for ways to walk out and resist,” Becker-Burrowes and Polanco said. “That’s why we are mobilizing communities into action, community, and the belief that change is possible when we organize.”

Kat Duesterhaus, national coordinator of 50501, expressed things a bit more directly.

“We are walking out on Trump and MAGA,” Duesterhaus said. “People are being gunned down in broad daylight or disappeared as part of this regime’s strategy to terrorize us into submission.

“We do not accept a fascist America. We are the resistance, and we will hold the line.”

A full list of nationwide events and locations can be found here.