America was born through protest. What has changed 250 years later ?

The founders called it “the plea for redress.”

Martin Luther King Jr. referred to it as “civil disobedience,” 

and his follower, Senator John Lewis, described it as

“good trouble.”

Whatever the term, historians largely agree:

The United States was born through protest 250 years ago and

has been propelled by intense social movements ever since,

from abolition to civil rights.

“Protest is essential to the progress of this country,”

says Gloria Brown-Marshall, author of “A Protest History

of the United States,” describing the protests as

“the human spirit of pushing against overwhelming odds for 

something that the status quo believes is unnecessary.”

Today, Americans continue a tradition of intense public dissent, 

most recently in the wake of the shooting death of Renee Nicole 

Goode, a mother of three, on Jan. 7, and nationwide protests

against the Trump administration’s broader policies.

Thousands of people across the country took to the streets in

cities and towns, carrying banners reading “ICE Out for Good”

and phrases like “Hey, Ho, I-C-E Has Got It.”

At the Golden Globe Awards, some celebrities raised awareness

for the movement by wearing black and white pins reading

“Be Good” and “ICE Out” on their tuxedos and designer

dresses.

Other Americans took to the streets of UPS and Companies

like Comcast that contract with the Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement agency have begun boycotting them.

President Donald Trump has threatened to invoke the

Insurrection Act in Minnesota, accusing protesters of 

"attacking ICE patriots." Some Republicans have blamed

Goode's killing on tactics he and other anti-ICE protesters

have used in recent months, including honking and blowing

whistles at ICE vehicles.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has called Goode

a "domestic terrorist."

On the morning Goode was killed, he drove his SUV to the scene

of an ICE raid and parked his vehicle in a way that blocked traffic. 

DHS and ICE officials said that after Goode was ordered out

of his vehicle, he tried to run over an agent;

video footage shows him being shot.

Texas Republican Representative Roger Williams argued that

the clashes between ICE and Goode were caused by protests. 

“People need to stop protesting, stop shouting at law

enforcement, stop challenging law enforcement,” he said.

Similar sentiments have been expressed during violent protests

and demonstrations since the country’s earliest days,

even as the Constitution protected Americans’ right to voice

their grievances against their government.

1773: The Boston Tea Party and the Roots of the American 

Revolution

Protests across the 13 colonies in the late 1700s paved the way

for the American Revolution.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson told the 

British king that the colonists had

“appealed in the most humble language for redress.”

“Governments are instituted among the people, deriving their

just powers from the consent of the governed,

that whenever any government becomes destructive of these ends,

it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it,”

Jefferson wrote 250 years ago.

1794: Whiskey Rebellion

Six years after the ratification of the U.S. Constitution,

a group of farmers and distillers in western Pennsylvania

protested against a whiskey tax imposed by the federal

government, arguing that it was unfair to small producers.

At first, they beat and feathered tax collectors and refused to pay. 

Then, as tensions rose in July 1794, farmers armed with

pitchforks and guns, known as the "Riot Mob," rose to revolt.

1913: National Woman Suffrage March

After decades of fighting for the right to vote, on March 3, 1913,

the day before Woodrow Wilson's first presidential inauguration,

the women's suffrage movement led a march down Pennsylvania 

Avenue in Washington.

It was the first march on Washington by a civil rights group.

The 5,000 women who participated in the march came from

all over the country and wore elaborate costumes and banners.

They organized 20 parade floats,

nine bands, and four mounted brigades among the marchers.

1963: Birmingham Campaign and the Civil Rights Movement

After two centuries and countless protest movements,

the Rev.

Martin Luther King Jr. and dozens of others were arrested and

jailed for organizing a demonstration against segregation in 

Birmingham, Alabama.

They were arrested on April 12, 1963, after a court injunction 

obtained by the Commissioner of Public Safety,

which found that King and his associates did not have the proper 

permits to protest.

They had applied for permits, but city officials in the southern

city viewed their plans as a threat to public safety.

Protesters described the injunction as "unconscionable tyranny 

disguised as maintaining law and order."

While imprisoned, King wrote a letter to fellow clergy who said 

they supported his cause but called the protests

"irrational and premature".

2017: Unite Rally

On August 11, 2017, hundreds of white nationalists and 

supremacists, along with armed men, marched on the

campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville,

Virginia, to protest the removal of Confederate monuments.

They carried torches and chanted "You will not replace us

 and "Jews will not replace us".

Protesters, including neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members, 

continued their rally downtown a day later, where they

were confronted by counter-protesters and riots soon broke out. 

Several people were injured and a 32-year-old woman,

Heather Heyer, died after driving a car into the crowd.

Several people were later tried and sentenced for crimes and 

violence committed during the protests, including the man

who killed Hair with his car.

2020: George Floyd protests

The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer

Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020, shook a nation already

reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Video of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck for more than nine 

minutes was replayed on phone screens across the country.

Thousands of people gathered to express their anger,

holding placards reading Floyd's last words, "I can't breathe".

Some protests turned into shootings, looting, and vandalism. 

Dozens of states called in the National Guard to help quell the 

unrest.

In a statement at the time, Trump said he would ensure that

Floyd "did not die needlessly",

but he called some of the protests "acts of domestic terrorism".