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Fact check: How many people participated in no kings protest on June 14 2025 in Hawaii
1. Summary of the results
The "No Kings" protest (called "No Dictator Day" in Hawaii to avoid confusion with King Kamehameha Day parade) [1] was a massive nationwide event with participation estimates ranging from 2 to 6 million people across approximately 2,000 cities in all 50 states [2]. In Hawaii specifically, the protests took place in multiple locations with the following approximate turnouts:
- Thousands at the state capitol in Honolulu [3]
- Thousands in Kahului [3]
- Approximately 1,000 in Waimea [3]
- Approximately 1,000 in Līhuʻe [3]
- Hundreds in Kona [1]
Additional protests were held in Hilo, Kailua-Kona, and Na'alehu [3].
2. Missing context/alternative viewpoints
The original question focuses solely on Hawaii but misses the broader national context. This was actually a nationwide protest movement that saw massive turnouts in major mainland cities, including:
- Over 200,000 in New York City
- Over 100,000 in Philadelphia
- Significant numbers in Los Angeles [2]
The protests were triggered by President Trump's perceived authoritarian rhetoric and a military-style birthday parade [2], providing crucial context for understanding why these protests occurred.
3. Potential misinformation/bias in the original statement
The original question's narrow focus on Hawaii could lead to an incomplete understanding of the event's significance. While the Hawaii protests were significant, they were part of a much larger national movement involving millions of participants [2]. Additionally, there's a notable discrepancy in how the protest was named - while nationally known as "No Kings," Hawaii specifically used "No Dictator Day" to avoid cultural confusion with local traditions [1]. This demonstrates how local context and cultural sensitivity played a role in how the protests were organized and branded in different regions.
The varying attendance numbers reported by different sources (from hundreds to thousands in some locations) suggest that exact counting methods may have varied, and different sources might have had different ways of estimating crowd sizes.