Thousands turn out to counter ‘free speech’ protest in Boston
Thousands fill streets of Boston in response to ‘free speech’ event; few arrests made
BOSTON — Thousands of demonstrators, emboldened and unnerved by the fatal eruption of violence in Virginia last weekend, surged into the nation’s streets and parks Saturday to denounce white supremacy and Nazism.
The demonstrations were loud but broadly peaceful, even as tensions and worries coursed through protests that unfolded from Boston Common, the nation’s oldest public park, to Hot Springs, Ark., and the bridges that cross the Willamette River in Portland, Ore.
Boston faced dueling demonstrations, but a rally to promote “free speech” was brief and unamplified. It was undercut by police planning and starved by an enormous buffer zone between protesters and their opponents, many of whom had feared that the rally would become a haven for neo-Nazis and white nationalists.
“This city has a history of fighting back against oppression, whether it’s dumping tea in the harbor or a bunch of dudes standing around with bandannas screaming at neo-Nazis,” said a 21-year-old protester in Boston who would identify himself only as “Frosty.”
Saturday’s demonstrations, one week after a 32-year-old woman died amid clashes between white nationalists and counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va., occurred as the nation was again confronting questions about race, violence and the standing of Confederate symbols.
President Donald Trump, who has faced unyielding, and bipartisan, criticism after he said there was “blame on both sides” in Charlottesville, wrote on Twitter on Saturday that it appeared there were “many anti-police agitators in Boston.”
“Police are looking tough and smart!” he continued. “Thank you.”
Law enforcement officials were on alert, wary of being seen as irresolute and ineffective after the protests in Virginia turned fatal when someone drove a car through a crowd of protesters. In some instances, officers in riot gear faced off with demonstrators and tried to maintain order. There were some scuffles and arrests.
The epicenter of the weekend’s demonstrations appeared to be here in Boston, where the Common had been the expected setting for a pair of protests, including one that the Boston Free Speech Coalition organized before the Charlottesville violence. Organizers said they were appealing to “libertarians, conservatives, traditionalists, classical liberals, Trump supporters or anyone else who enjoys their right to free speech.”
But supporters of the free speech rally, scheduled for noon, faced thousands of counterprotesters, many of whom marched toward the Common from the Roxbury neighborhood.
Earlier, the counterprotesters had shouted down their opponents — “No Nazis! No KKK! No fascist USA!” — as Massachusetts state troopers used their bikes to keep rival demonstrators apart.
The rally, which could have lasted until 2 p.m., concluded by about 12:50 p.m. The bandstand emptied, officials removed flags tied to the free speech rally and the crowd of counterprotesters sang, “Hey, hey, hey, goodbye.”
A spokesman for the Boston police, Lt. Detective Mike McCarthy, said the demonstrators had “decided they were done, and they left the Common.” Police escorted them as chants of “Shame!” rained down from the crowd.
One man, who said he supported the rally and gave his name, after some hesitation, as Matt Staley, interjected to ask if those demonstrating in support of free speech were not Americans, too.
“I think it’s awful that people can’t speak out to express opinions,” Staley said.
“Charlottesville is what forced me out here,” said Rose Fowler, 68, a retired teacher who is black and was among the people who had gathered to march from Roxbury toward the Common, about 2 miles away. “Somebody killed for fighting for me. What is wrong with me if I can’t fight for myself and others?”
Although the protests in Boston were expected to be among the weekend’s largest, several hundred people gathered Friday evening in Portland for an “Eclipse Hate” rally. The protest soon swelled to more than 1,000 people, many of whom used chants that demonstrators used in Boston on Saturday.
In Arkansas on Saturday morning, a small demonstration supporting Confederate symbols drew about 50 people in Hot Springs. A small group of opponents walked by occasionally, denouncing Trump and racial hatred.
Along a side street in Charlottesville, the mood was somber at about 1:30 p.m. as people marked the time when, a week earlier, a man drove his car into a crowd, killing Heather D. Heyer.
Law enforcement officials made extensive plans for the demonstrations in the wake of the Virginia bloodshed.
In Dallas, where a gunman killed five police officers who were protecting a protest in July 2016, authorities planned to form a barricade around Saturday’s demonstration site with buses and heavy equipment to “lock down” the area and keep any cars from drawing too close to the crowd.
Boston authorities cleared the Common of vendors and their carts, and they shut down the Swan Boats, a major tourist attraction in the nearby Public Garden. Marchers were banned from bringing weapons, bats, sticks, flagpoles or anything that might be used as a weapon or a projectile, and backpacks were subject to search.
Still, tensions here had been rising all week. On Monday night, a teenager threw a rock at the New England Holocaust Memorial, shattering the glass; passersby quickly tackled the youth before police arrived.