Thousands of demonstrators chanting anti-Nazi slogans in a public rejection of white nationalism upstaged a small group in Boston that planned a “free speech rally” a week after a violent clash rocked Virginia and reverberated across the US.
Similar protests were held in several other US cities.
Counterprotesters marched through the city on Saturday to historic Boston Common, where conservatives had planned to deliver a series of speeches but soon left. Police vans later escorted the conservatives out of the area, as boisterous counterprotesters scuffled with police, AP reported.
Organizers of the event, the Boston Free Speech Coalition, had publicly distanced themselves from the neo-Nazis, white supremacists and others who fomented violence in Charlottesville on Aug. 12. A woman was killed at that Unite the Right rally, and many others were injured, when a car plowed into counterdemonstrators.
Opponents feared that white nationalists might show up in Boston anyway, and turned out in force, some dressed entirely in black with bandannas over their faces. Officials said the rallies — the largest of about a half dozen around the country on Saturday — drew about 40,000 people.
Counterprotesters chanted slogans, and waved signs that said: “Make Nazis Afraid Again,” ?Love your neighbor,” ?Resist fascism” and “Hate never made US great.” Others carried a large banner that read: “SMASH WHITE SUPREMACY.”
Members of the Black Lives Matter movement held a protest on the Common, where a Confederate flag was burned and protesters pounded on the sides of a police vehicle.
Boston Commissioner William Evans said 33 arrests had been made by Saturday night —mostly for disorderly conduct while some were for assaulting police officers.
The police department tweeted Saturday afternoon that some protesters were throwing bottles, and rocks at them.
Trump’s Message
US President Donald Trump applauded the people in Boston who he said were “speaking out” against bigotry and hate. Trump added in a Twitter message that “Our country will soon come together as one!”
In California, a rally was held near the famed Venice beach boardwalk in Los Angeles and an anti-racism rally was held in Laguna Beach one day before the group America First! planned to hold a demonstration in the same place that’s being billed as an “Electric Vigil for the Victims of Illegals and Refugees.”
Mayor Toni Iselman told the crowd that “Laguna Beach doesn’t tolerate diversity, we embrace diversity.”
In Silicon Valley, more than 500 people gathered in Mountain View in response to a far-right “March on Google” to rally against the technology company’s firing of a white male software engineer over his claim that women were biologically unsuited to tech jobs. Organizers postponed the right-wing march, alleging threats from leftists.
In Dallas, a scuffle broke out between people at a rally against white supremacy and supporters of Confederate monuments as the event was ending. Police officers had to subdue the crowd.
The rally, which authorities estimated 2,300 people attended, was at City Hall plaza, near a Civil War cemetery that houses a memorial to Confederate soldiers. Only a few hundred people remained when tempers flared and officers on horseback broke up the two sides.
The Rev. Michael W. Waters, one of the speakers at the rally, said: “Now is the time to do what is right in the city of Dallas. Now is the time to bring these monuments down.”
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