Islanders walk out with noise
Published 1:30 am Tuesday, January 27, 2026
While locally organized by Indivisible San Juan, the Free America Walk Out protest Jan. 20 was part of a nation wide Woman;s March. Participants were encouraged to bring whistles, drums, or pots and pans to make noise. Attendees did not disappoint; some even brought flutes, others loud self-made rattles.
“We will walk out of work, school, and commerce. 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 Free America Walkout event website explained.
In tandem with the national walkout, San Juan Island’s began at 2 p.m. at the courthouse lawn. Attendees then walked up Second Street, turned down Blair by the high school, then down Spring Street, up First Street and back to the Courthouse.
By the time the march wound down, approximately 1000 islanders had taken part. Some started off at the Courthouse, others joined the crowd as they walked along. According to Indivisible member Debbie Fincher, 30 or so Lopez Island neighbors took the ferry over to join. There is also an Indivisible Lopez team; they reported 60 people rallied over there.
43An estimated 100 local high school students participated as well. “Their involvement brought tears to many of our community members’ eyes,” Fincher noted. They carried signs such as “Out of Order – Ice”, “Melt-Ice”, and “Uses for ICE, in Lemonade, in Venti Oat Milk Chai, but NOT for National Security, NOT for Trump’s Hitmen.”
“These students recognize the brutality being unleashed by this administration, too,” she said.
Marchers could be heard from blocks away, as they wound their way through the town. For those who did not have an instrument or noisemaker, whistles were handed out along the way. Once at the Courthouse, a common refrain was “that was one of the longest marches I’ve been on,” referring to the number of walkers rather than the distance. One of the largest marches in Friday Harbor, also a Women’s March, occurred Jan. 21, 2017, when 1,400 islanders protested for reproductive rights, among other issues.
In the evening of Saturday. Jan. 24, in response to the murder of a Minnesota man, Alex Pretti, by ICE agents Jan. 23, approximately 75 islanders gathered for a vigil.
“These protests unite our community and fuel our determination to keep fighting for what is right. We urge everyone to recognize these are not normal times, and it is up to us to defend our values,” Fincher said.
