Boston to march again on Freedom Rally's 60th anniversary
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Martin Luther King Jr. and marchers on April 23, 1965. Photo: Joseph Runci/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Protesters will fill the streets from Roxbury to Boston Common on Saturday, just as they did 60 years ago Wednesday, when Martin Luther King Jr. led a march against racial disparities in housing and schools.
Why it matters: Boston has made strides in reducing racial and ethnic inequalities, but attendees say the region faces new threats, including the Trump administration's crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Driving the news: The nonprofit Embrace Boston is leading a march along the same route as the 1965 Freedom Rally.
- Martin Luther King III will speak, along with Mayor Michelle Wu, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley and the Rev. Willie Bodrick.
Flashback: Thousands walked from Carter playground to the common's bandstand in 1965.
- A day earlier, King had called on state lawmakers to address the "racial imbalance" that persisted years after school segregation was ruled unconstitutional.
- "It would be demagogic and dishonest to say Boston is a Birmingham or to equate Massachusetts with Mississippi," King said on the common.
- "But it would be morally irresponsible to remain blind to the threat to liberty, to the denial of opportunity and the crippling poverty that we face in some sections of this community."
What they're saying: Wayne Lucas, a ninth grader at Campbell junior high in 1965, joined a group of Black classmates to march and hear King speak.
- He remembers the dilapidated textbooks and lack of resources his school offered compared with those of majority-white schools, and how the Freedom House stepped in to offer Black students college-preparation resources.
- Sixty years later, Lucas says, he's marching to protest threats to American democracy 250 years after the American Revolution started and the Trump administration's efforts to kill DEI and other policies supporting racial and ethnic minorities.
Lucas says he's seen the Trump administration embolden racists since white nationalists protested in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.
- A month ago, he says he was getting ready to referee a lacrosse game in Brookline when a white man walked past him and said, "Go back to where you came from."
Zoom out: Massachusetts Republicans have welcomed President Trump's sweeping changes, arguing the state has spent too much in taxpayer dollars to shelter migrants and support DEI initiatives.
- Some also have expressed support for slimming down the federal workforce, despite the loss of safety net programs, health research and other resources that federal grants and federal workers in New England provided.
What we're watching: Organizers say they hope Saturday's march draws more than 1,000 people.