Organizers expected 1,000 attendees; estimated several thousand turned out
Hundreds of demonstrators formed a human chain around the front of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, shouting “Hands off!” in response to President Donald Trump’s shutting the center down, United Press International reported.
The demonstration drew personal testimony from former Kennedy Center employees. Co-organizer Mallory Miller, a former assistant manager of dance programming at the Kennedy Center, lost her job in 2025 as part of mass layoffs at the venue. Before the event, she told The Washington Post: “The center had more or less become like a mausoleum rather than a vibrant cultural center. But a lot of us have amazing memories of the center hustling and bustling with people. We wanted to kind of bring that feeling back.”
In remarks to ABC News, Miller added: “The Kennedy Center can’t be renamed for anyone else. It’s a memorial to John F. Kennedy. It’s, like, silly to suggest otherwise. And it’s not just silly — it’s insulting and it’s degrading and it’s un-American.” She continued: “Artists are the risk takers in our society. We are the people who create the world that comes next, and that is what the Kennedy Center means to all of us. This is a building that belongs to the American people, not one person, and it’s our Kennedy Center. We are the Kennedy Center.”
Actress Lynda Carter, best known for her role as Wonder Woman, attended the demonstration. “Music and the arts is how we actually survive,” The Washington Post reported she said. “It is how we learn. It is about vibration in the universe. It is about gravity; it’s about our souls.”
Former ticket salesperson Jasmine Small, described by UPI as one of the first employees laid off last year, watched the human chain form. “I’m showing up today, because no one showed up with my colleagues,” Small said. “I’m going to have a voice for them to say that we won’t be forgotten.”
Hands Off the Arts organized the gathering, which had been in the planning stages for months. A July demonstration had to be postponed because of wildfire smoke before Friday’s protest was rescheduled. The group was created by Kennedy Center staff after Trump took over the venue in early 2025. By Friday, organizers expected about 1,000 attendees but estimated at the end of the evening that several thousand had turned out.
The protest coincided with what UPI described as a week with intensive news around the center. On Tuesday, a judge ruled a second time that Trump could not put his name on the building. Trump and the center’s board then closed the facility. Kennedy Center Executive Director Matt Floca said the closure was intended to last only a week. On Thursday, a judge ruled that any changes to the center must be announced to the court in writing 30 days in advance.
On its website, Hands Off the Arts described the demonstration’s purpose: “The demonstration opposes the recent sudden closure of the facility, the installation of security fencing and political efforts to alter or demolish portions of the presidential memorial.”
The group had planned to form a human chain around the entire building, but new security fencing made that impossible. Demonstrators formed the chain around the front of the building anyway.