“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.” Those words from John Lewis echoed across city streets, courthouse steps, and community parks on July 17, as tens of thousands rallied in every state for the “Good Trouble Lives On” day of action—a sweeping, decentralized protest that honored Lewis’s civil rights legacy while sending a pointed message to the Trump administration.
The scale was nothing short of historic. Organizers confirmed over 1,600 events—from Anchorage to Miami, Riverhead to Oakland, and even in Trump’s Palm Beach backyard. RSVP counts soared past 126,000 by midweek, with expectations that hundreds of thousands would take part, making this one of the broadest distributed protest days in recent memory. Protests weren’t limited to major cities; small towns and suburbs showed up, too, a testament to the grassroots energy fueling the movement.
The heartbeat of these actions? John Lewis’s philosophy of “good trouble”—a call for nonviolent, persistent resistance against injustice. Lewis, who endured a fractured skull on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965, believed in the power of ordinary people to create extraordinary change. His journey from rural Alabama to the halls of Congress was shaped by the Black church, family, and mentors like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and by his own early acts of resistance: sit-ins, Freedom Rides, and voter registration drives that risked everything for the right to be heard. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History notes that Lewis’s activism was always about building community and “creating the beloved community” through persistence, optimism, and courage.
This year’s “Good Trouble” protests weren’t just about marching. In Detroit, volunteers collected food for immigrant families, while in Royal Oak, voter education booths helped people register and learn about absentee ballots. In Oakland, nurses and labor leaders spoke out against cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, warning, “You’re going to see rural hospitals close down. They already started cutting some services, basic needs like maternal health services in rural areas and in some hospitals,” as Cathy Kennedy, president of the California Nurses Association, told the crowd (KQED). Teach-ins, candlelight vigils, and direct action trainings rounded out the day, blending protest with practical support and civic engagement.
What united these diverse events was a clear, urgent set of demands: end the Trump administration’s attacks on civil rights, voting rights, and marginalized communities; stop the targeting of Black and brown Americans, immigrants, and trans people; and restore access to social programs like Medicaid and SNAP. “We are navigating one of the most terrifying moments in our nation’s history,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, highlighting the “rise of authoritarianism and lawlessness within our administration” (CNN).
The decentralized, nationwide approach is a page straight from Lewis’s playbook—and from the broader history of U.S. protest movements. As the Brookings Institution points out, movements that succeed in changing policy are those that build coalitions, set clear goals, and connect street protest to broader political action (Brookings). “Good Trouble Lives On” organizers seem to have taken this to heart, weaving together rallies, voter drives, and community aid to create a tapestry of resistance that’s both visible and actionable.
And while some critics worry that modern protests risk becoming fleeting or performative, the “Good Trouble” actions show how distributed, persistent activism can still move the needle—especially when it channels the spirit of leaders like Lewis, who never lost faith in the power of people to “say something, do something” when they see injustice. As Daryl Jones of the Transformative Justice Coalition put it, “That’s what July 17 is about—seeing things across this nation, seeing things that are being impacted, that are just not right. We’ve got to stand up and say something.”
On a summer day five years after Lewis’s passing, his message was alive in every chant, every food drive, every new voter signed up. Across the country, “good trouble” wasn’t just a slogan—it was a promise in action.
