Rally organizers still want permit
Boston Free Speech Rally organizers are meeting with city and police officials today in hopes of getting their permit to assemble Saturday on the Common, and Mayor Martin J. Walsh says he wants counter-protesters to stay out of the Hub.
“Anybody who’s expected to come to Boston and be counter-protesting instead of a peaceful rally, don’t come to Boston, don’t come to our city, I don’t want them,” Walsh told reporters at a press conference yesterday.
The planned Boston Free Speech Rally — which had previously advertised speakers who attended the deadly Charlottesville, Va., protest last weekend — has been blasted by city and state officials, with Walsh promising to do “every single thing in our power” to keep the demonstration from taking place. Although rally organizers have only completed the first step toward getting a permit to use Boston Common, organizer John Medlar said he would be meeting today with Parks and Recreation and Boston Police Department officials to complete the permit process and discuss security.
“We should be able to secure a special permit before the weekend,” Medlar said. “We regret the official challenges that the city and the police have been undergoing thus far due to our inadequate communication, and we are attempting to do everything in our power to make up for that.”
The parks department has already barred 17 vendors who operate in 37 locations from working the Common on Saturday out of public safety concerns, according to an email sent to the vendors.
A mayoral spokesperson confirmed the meeting with Medlar and said officials would revisit the situation afterward.
“We’ll see as we move forward, all I know is several individuals have dropped out of wanting to come,” Walsh said, referring to the Herald’s reporting that headliners Gavin McInnes, founder of the far-right group Proud Boys, and far-right activist Cassandra Fairbanks had pulled out of the rally.
But Walsh said he wanted people opposed to the Boston Free Speech Rally, who are expected to turn out in the thousands, to organize their own “rally of love” instead of acting in opposition.
“I hope organizers don’t lose sight here, this isn’t about countering white extremists or the freedom speech folks, this is about creating a peaceful rally and remembrance of what happened in Virginia,” Walsh said. “That’s what it should be.”