Tense but largely peaceful rallies denounce racism
BOSTON — Tens of thousands of demonstrators, emboldened and unnerved by the eruption of fatal violence in Virginia last weekend, surged into the nation’s streets and parks Saturday to denounce racism, white supremacy and Nazism.
Demonstrations were boisterous but broadly peaceful, even as tension and worry coursed through protests from Boston Common, the nation’s oldest public park, to Hot Springs, Ark., and to the bridges that cross the Willamette River in Portland, Ore. Other rallies played out in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Memphis and New Orleans, among other cities.
The demonstrations — which drew 40,000 people in Boston alone, according to police estimates — came one week after a 32-year-old woman died amid clashes between white nationalists and counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va., and they unfolded as the nation was again confronting questions about race, violence and the standing of Confederate symbols.
President Trump, who has faced unyielding, and bipartisan, criticism after saying there was “blame on both sides” in Charlottesville, wrote on Twitter on Saturday that he wanted “to applaud the many protestors in Boston who are speaking out against bigotry and hate. Our country will soon come together as one!”
He also wrote: “Our great country has been divided for decades. Sometimes you need protest in order to heal, & we will heal, & be stronger than ever before!”
It was an abrupt shift in tone. The president posted earlier Saturday that it appeared there were “many antipolice agitators in Boston.”
Law enforcement officials were on alert throughout the day, wary of being seen as irresolute and ineffective after the protests in Virginia turned into running street battles and became fatal when someone drove a car through a crowd. Officers in riot gear sometimes faced off with demonstrators to maintain order. There were scattered scuffles and arrests; in Boston, the site of the largest of the weekend’s protests, police said there had been 33 arrests, mostly involving charges of disorderly conduct.
In Dallas, where a gunman killed five police officers who were protecting a protest in July 2016, authorities formed a barricade around Saturday’s demonstration site with buses and dump trucks. As sunset approached at a Confederate monument in the city, people engaged in shouting matches, while state troopers stood guard and helicopters flew overhead.