By: Charlotte Aver

People hold protests all the time, over all kinds of things, but do they actually cause change and raise awareness? Protests are held commonly throughout the United States over things like the women’s rights movement, the right-to-life movement, and the environmental movement, to name a few. All of these protests have raised awareness around these topics but has anything actually been done about them?

Boycotts and political rallies are becoming increasingly common due to disagreement between the government and the people. A few weekends ago there was a nationally held “No Kings Rally” in which nearly 7 million people participated in across 2,700 cities. Whether or not anything will come of this rally is yet to be known.

I have some personal experience with protests and rallies because I live close to the governor’s, Tim Walz’s, mansion in St. Paul and there are commonly protests and rallies that I can hear from my house. The topics of these protests are almost always asking the state of Minnesota to divest from Israel. Sometimes the protests are calmer, such as on most Mondays around 4:00 pm a group of people come to sit in front of the governor’s mansion where they have signs that say things like “divest from Israel” and “free Palestine” and play music about peace. Other protests are rowdier, occasionally I will see a protest where they have microphones and chants that are about freeing Palestine and divesting from Israel.

Something I often wonder is whether or not the governor can actually do anything, if it is in his power to divest from Israel or to free Palestine. Since it is possible that he can’t do anything to help even if he wanted to, are these people wasting their time? You could argue yes or you could argue no. Yes, they are wasting their time because the person they are protesting to get the attention of can’t do anything about it. No, they aren’t wasting their time because people, like me, are remembering and thinking about their protest.

You could say that their protest is successful purely because I am here writing in my school paper about it and spreading awareness. So, I do believe that these protests in St. Paul are working to some extent because people are remembering and talking about it, even if these aren’t the exact results the protesters were hoping for. These results are happening and possibly changing how people think about the topics they protest. However change does not come quickly so it is a matter of time to see if anything changes because of the protests and seeing if the work the protesters put in is worth it.

For more information, please visit:

• https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-power-of-protest-in-the-us/
• https://www.wired.com/story/no-kings-protests-photos/?scrlybrkr=34863fbf