Earlier this evening, I joined thousands of others for a peaceful march and protest through Franklin Park. My wife and I walked down from our apartment through the park to meet the marchers that had just begun down Circuit St. As we reached the destination for the rally, we came together in the fields by Shattuck Hospital. Dozens of police stood in the background on the steps of Shattuck watching, already in riot gear. My wife and I walked around the field to find a spot to hear better, as the two helicopters circled loudly above us. Several speakers shared their stories, their prayers, chants, spoken word, their anger, fear and hopes. They spoke of issues nationwide, and then brought the focus to Boston. Those with the organizations collaborating for this event (Black Lives Matter Boston and Violence in Boston) carried large photographs of the black men killed by police, and black men killed by police in Boston specifically. We shared a long moment of silence for them all, and moved on our way. The organizers encouraged all to exit the park before dark and to not engage in violence. 

The protesters joined back to exit onto Circuit St. We all marched back together, some stepping off in either direction to head home, picked up our signs and began chanting again, moving as one, back to where the group had started. Suddenly, we heard sirens and and shouting and the crowd parted as quickly as the packed street with parallel parked cars on either side would allow. Within inches of the last person to jump out of the street, a dozen or more police on motorcycles flew down the street, into and through the crowd of entirely peaceful protestors just trying to head home. There had been no violence, no vandalism, no fires, no fights, just people coming together from three Boston neighborhoods for a common cause. WHY!? It was not an emergency, or they would have gone the other way around the park. Was it a power play? The protestors had peacefully met, sat, marched, shared, prayed, and departed… and a bunch of white men on motorcycles with guns on their hips thought it’d be appropriate to fly through a packed, crowded street at a peaceful and sanctioned event full of people including children… to share that they are still in charge? To show that, though we can protest their violence, they can still cut through us like a knife with the speed of a motor vehicle? We call people who drive vans through crowded sidewalks terrorists… so what do you call a group of motorcyclists roaring through a crowded street of peaceful permitted protestors?

-my response to the Franklin Park (Boston) Black Lives Matter Protest
Tuesday, June 2, 2020