The Unaccounted: America’s Invisible Resistance

Welcome to today's edition of From the Picket Lines: Daily News from the Dissenters

Welcome to We (the People) Dissent, a publication where I tell the stories of dissenters, record protests, and connect people to civic action.

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TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 2026

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE DAY

Today’s photograph of the day froms from Greenfield, MA. It was submitted by Pam Brown. Submit your photographs to our map HERE. See the MAP.

SCROLL TO THE END OF THE EDITION FOR: The Unaccounted: America’s Invisible Resistance

THE COUNT…

Over the weekend, there were 635 protests on Saturday and 154 on Sunday.
Yesterday, April 27, there are 113. See the map.

NORTHAMPTON STUDENTS CALL TO DE-ICE CITIZENS BANK

On April 17, students from JFK Middle School in Northampton, Massachusetts, and allies marched for one hour to their local Citizens Bank. They called for Citizens Bank to cut all ties with Core Civic and other private prisons connected to ICE detention centers.

Several young people spoke. One young leader shared, “Innocent children, who were just trying to live their childhood to its fullest, have been thrown into detention centers.”

Another shared, “Without immigrants, America wouldn’t be America.”

Go to De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition for news on additional news, or check my list to find ICE protests in your area.

The Unaccounted: America’s Invisible Resistance

On any given week, if you search for coverage of protests, this is what you’ll find: a smattering of articles from local newspapers covering the latest battle against a detention center or arrests made during a sit-in. A piece that places the number of protests at roughly one to four thousand a month. Coverage of the most recent No Kings Day, or a sound bite about an upcoming rally.

These are the stories reported by the media, studied by think tanks, and circulated by pundits. They are accepted as gospel.

Our algorithms mirror these numbers. In the valleys between No Kings and national strike days, articles and images of protest are few and far between. Occasionally, a video here or a story there will surface, ripples on an otherwise placid lake. It would be rational, given the near silence, to believe that on any given day, the signs are tucked away in closets, awaiting the next crisis.

America—and, I would dare wager, the world—believes that civil dissent in the United States moves in haphazard waves rather than as a steady stream.

There’s just one problem: that picture is wrong.

THE NUMBERS

Every week since April of last year, I have kept a database of civil dissent. With the help of volunteers, we record hundreds of demonstrations, rallies, protests, marches, and vigils. The database is compiled from roughly 75 sources, including regional organizers, platforms like Mobilize, and news reports.

To be transparent, compiling a complete record is nearly impossible. The movement’s scope is vast, organizing not only in public spaces but also across private channels. Its breadth makes any definitive accounting difficult.

Still, the picture painted on the nightly news is incomplete. What is described as hundreds is, in reality, thousands. What is criticized as unsustained is anything but.

Here are the numbers:

JANUARY | 7,125
FEBRUARY | 5,907
MARCH | 8,733
APRIL | 5,773*
TOTAL | 27,538

*Still compiling data. VIEW THE DATA.

Twenty-seven thousand is encouraging, especially considering there were 55,000 to 60,000 protests in the entirety of 2025. However, when you analyze the data and examine the trends behind it, a more complete picture emerges.

Let’s begin with the weekly average. If you remove No Kings Day from the data, the average number of protests per week is 1,419. April, despite not featuring a mass protest such as International Women’s Day or May Day, has averaged 1,443 per week. That is an increase of more than 500 protests compared to the averages I recorded in the days following the October 18 No Kings. This growth is striking—and yet, to my knowledge, it has gone unreported.

The consistency of the dissent is another aspect that has gone largely unnoticed. Roughly two-thirds of protests are weekly or daily actions. That translates into hundreds of communities—and tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people—encountering dissent regularly. Sustained protest is a sign of a healthy movement, and yet it, too, is being overlooked.

Then there are the organizers—the hubs in a community wheel. Few organizers simply host weekly protests. They are conduits of information, mobilizing their communities in moments of crisis. The vigils and strikes in January and February offer a clear example of their reach. Within hours of Renee Good and Alex Pretti’s deaths, hundreds of organizers had planned vigils and marches. Hundreds of communities hosted ICE Out for Good rallies, organized on short notice yet drawing thousands. Still, protests and rallies account for only a fraction of their impact.

For every protest, there are at least three to four, often more, additional organizer-initiated actions: classes, phone banks, postcard circles, mutual aid events, town halls, and canvassing. Though these may draw smaller crowds, their role is vital. They are how the movement builds leaders. It’s how it influences policy. If there have been 27,000 protests this year, there have been more than 100,000 additional actions. And it is in these often unseen spaces that real, lasting change takes root.

Of course, we cannot overlook the student movement, which not a single media outlet has reported on accurately. At least thirteen hundred in two months—that’s the number of protests that predominantly high school students have led. Yet, if you rely on pundits or publications, you’d believe it was nonexistent. Yes, it is a fraction of what past generations experienced, but it is still in its infancy. No movement begins with millions.

These are the numbers—the unaccounted, unseen, invisible resistance:

Twenty-seven thousand protests.
Hundreds of thousands of actions.
At least three thousand organizers.
Thirteen hundred student-led protests.
Millions of participants.

All of it adds up to a mass movement of people marching toward a better democracy. The movement doesn’t have a numbers problem; it has a visibility and strategy problem. And that is the kind of problem we can solve.

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Tomorrow… continue the conversation and read how the movement can address its visibility and strategy struggles.