When Next250 organizers began planning for America’s 250th birthday, they envisioned bringing together communities in a polarized country to celebrate democracy.

But then Donald Trump returned to office as the 47th president.

Now, the left-leaning group has reframed its commemoration in response to Trump’s takeover of the country’s birthday. A communal festival in Washington, DC, on Saturday, for instance, will feature an indigenous opening ceremony, a march starting at what was once called Black Lives Matter Plaza and voter registration booths.

In seeking to put his stamp on the 250th, Trump has upended plans that had been years in the making, thrown agencies and federal funding behind his lavish, patriotic vision and drawn ire over what has become, in critics’ eyes, a partisan celebration more about the president than the country.

“It’s a lost cause to expect anything unifying and exciting coming out of Washington,” said John Dichtl, president and chief executive of the American Association for State and Local History, a nonprofit that helped advise states on their 250th planning.

Across the country, some state and local planners have distanced their celebrations from what’s happening in the nation’s capital. And in Washington, Next250 will hold its counterprogram down the street from the White House as the National Mall is being used by Trump’s “Great American State Fair.”

“The administration doesn’t own the 250th anniversary, nor do they own the story of this country,” said Linda Sarsour, one of Next 250’s organizers. The activist, known for helping to organize the Women’s March on Washington during Trump’s first term, has courted controversy over opposition to Israel.

But on Saturday, she says, “We’re coming out to say: ‘We’re all in this together, and this country belongs to all of us.’”

The first inkling of Trump’s takeover of the 250th came on a Friday afternoon last December, when Trump rattled off a dizzying list of programming for the nation’s birthday in a video on the president’s Truth Social account.

“2026 will be a celebration of America like no other, honoring our nation and all of its glory,” he declared. “To help carry out these exciting plans, we have created a public-private partnership. It’s called Freedom 250,” he said.