The demonstration was part of a nationwide planned day of action with over 1,000 anti-Trump protests across the country.
The demonstration was part of a nationwide planned day of action with over 1,000 anti-Trump protests across the country.
Thousands of protesters from all across New England flooded the Boston Common and City Hall Plaza on Saturday for the “Hands Off!” rally, part of a planned day of action with over 1,000 anti-Trump protests nationwide.
The protest began at the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common with announcements from emcees Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, founder of the New Roots AME Church in Dorchester, and Rahsaan D. Hall, president and CEO of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts.
Demonstrators brought hundreds of signs with anti-Trump and anti-Musk messages such as “Resist the tyrant,” “Deport Musk,” “Democracy is not a spectator sport,” and “Call rodent control! There’s a Musk-rat in the house.”
Warming up the crowd was the Good Trouble Brass Band, whose name references the famous John Lewis quote echoed by Cory Booker in his recent marathon Senate speech.
Though the “Hands Off!” protests happened nationwide, the day of action took on a special meaning in Massachusetts, which Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll called “the birthplace of democracy.”
“We’ll be celebrating 250 years of the shot heard ‘round the world later this month because Massachusetts knows how to make good trouble,” Driscoll said in a speech. “You know who’s going to make this country better? All of you, in community.”
The sea of protesters marched from the Boston Common to City Hall Plaza, led by Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey.
Carrying a banner reading “HANDS OFF Massachusetts,” demonstrators from the AFL-CIO and American Federation of Teachers of Massachusetts (AFT) led call-and-response chants asking the crowd to “show us what democracy looks like.”
As the cavalcade filed into City Hall Plaza, the Good Trouble Brass Band performed and sang “Which Side Are You On?” a labor union song from the 1930s. Rain started to fall as White-Hammond and Hall brought the protesters back together, but that only seemed to strengthen the crowd’s energy.
