No Kings, NHD, and Nuremberg
Hope: A Week in Review
Hello, friends!
This past week’s return to daily life was a whirlwind, but it was one that left me more hopeful than previous weeks. Oddly enough, it all started in Nuremberg.
But I want to take a look back in reverse, starting with this past Saturday’s “No Kings” protest.
No Kings
Still dealing with a post-flight cold, I hadn’t prepared to attend the protests. But on my way to buy groceries, I stumbled upon hundreds of my neighbors holding signs or honking their horns in agreement.
Washington, DC, and its suburbs are ground zero for registering our disgust with the current policies and actions of morally bankrupt leaders. Many of my neighbors are—or were—federal workers or they work(ed) in government-adjacent jobs that have been affected by the current political climate. The family of Kilmar Abreu Garcia, the Maryland Man who was “accidentally” deported to El Salvador in April, lives in the county next door. And, of course, all of the lawmakers and politicians who “don’t give a fuck about us” live down the road in DC. Those neighbors need to know that the majority of us aren’t buying the toxic, divisive shit they are trying to sell us.
National History Day
Last week was a hopeful one because I got to see that the kids are all right. As a returning volunteer judge at National History Day (NHD)1, I got to meet school kids from across the USA (and the world) as they presented their projects on the theme of “Rights and Responsibilities.”
Kids have an innate sense of right and wrong, and that showed through when they enthusiastically presented their projects on everything from workers’ rights to government and corporate corruption.
As judges, we are to remain semi-anonymous. But when my judging group leader introduced herself using a first name and her profession, I felt obliged to do the same.
“I’m a web designer and historian,” I said, rather than say, “I’m unemployed and currently write a Substack newsletter.” 🙃
Nuremberg
What I really wanted to tell the kids, especially those who had focused on World War II or the rise of authoritarianism was that I had been in Nuremberg less than 48 hours before that.
For many people, Nuremberg is synonymous with Nazi. The huge Nazi party rallies at the Reichsparteitagsgelände from 1933-1938 were well-documented by . But I like to remember the city as the site of the trials that convicted and sentenced Nazis for their crimes against humanity.
The famous clip of an exploding swastika is from April 22, 1945, when the U.S. Army, after having captured the city, paraded around the grounds, then destroyed the swastika (Hakenkreuz) atop the grandstand of the Zeppelintribüne. The columns of the tribune were destroyed in 1967.
But I wasn’t in Nuremberg to visit the nearby Dokumentationszentrum. Instead, I was in the city to celebrate freedom, friends, and good music with tens of thousands of other festival goers at Rock im Park (RIP). One of Europe’s largest music festivals dedicated to rock, punk, and metal, RIP and its sister festival Rock am Ring celebrated 40 years in 2025.
For the majority of those years, RIP has been held in Nuremberg, along the Dutzendteich and in the shadow of Hitler’s unfinished Kongresshalle, obviously inspired by the Roman Colosseum.
Even as a more eager student German history, I never put Nuremberg on my itinerary. But attending a sloppy, muddy, music festival with the chillest bunch of antifascist music fans on the very site of the NSDAP’s most visual defeat was far more exciting than I could have imagined. (More on the historic city of Nuremberg in a later post…)
I didn’t get to stay for the full three days of RIP. But the experience of listening, singing, and dancing to hours of loud music with thousands of new friends never once left me feeling unsafe. RIP was joyful, and also a much-needed adrenaline kick.
History Connects
The combination of Nuremberg, NHD, and the No Kings protests was more than enough history for one week. But all three filled me with hope and love, two resources that grow the more that you use them.
Hope and Love are crucial at this moment in time. Make sure you schedule yourself some free time. Fill your cup. Relax now so you have strength later.
There are always more good people than bad. Let’s keep showing up for each other. Love always wins.
XO,
Melanie
National History Day had a large portion of its operating budget slashed no thanks to the goons who recently cut funding to the National Endowment for the Humanities. I encourage you to donate to NHD or volunteer to be a judge.
Here’s a write-up about NHD from the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/14/arts/national-history-day.html