Around 100 people who appeared to be affiliated with a prominent white supremacist group marched through the heart of Boston on Saturday.
Marchers were first reported to police around 12:30 p.m. EST, when a group of masked individuals wearing matching uniforms began unloading riot gear, shields, and flags with fascist insignias outside a train station near Haymarket Square.
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Within an hour, the group had marched downtown to its final destination: the Boston Public Library. Fliers found outside of the library identified those participating as members of the Patriot Front, a group described as a white nationalist organization by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The fliers, collected at the scene by a photojournalist for the Boston Herald, depict an octopus with one eye as a Democratic Party donkey and the other eye as a Republican Party donkey. The octopus could be seen swallowing an outline of the continental United States under the headline “Two Parties, One Tyranny.”
“The party system murdered the American Republic and replaced it with a fake democracy ruled by lobbyists, bankers, and unelected bureaucrats,” the flier read. “The true rulers of the State never receive any votes. Elections are now only mass illusions of popular sovereignty.”
While outside the library, an unmasked member of the group said through a bullhorn: “If you truly wish for safety, you will have it. But you can take nothing else with you. Not your home, not your family, not your liberty. There, you will be alone with your safety in a rotted world.”
It is unclear what specifically the group was attempting to protest in Boston, though those involved decamped around 1:30 p.m. EST at Back Bay Station, about a 40-minute walk from Haymarket Square and a five-minute walk from the library.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu condemned the group, which was met with jeers from locals as they marched, in two statements Saturday.
“To the white supremacists who ran through downtown today: When we march, we don’t hide our faces,” Wu tweeted after news initially broke of the march. “Your hate is as cowardly as it is disgusting, and it goes against all that Boston stands for.”
“The disgusting, hateful actions and words of white supremacist groups are not welcome in this city. Especially in a moment when so many of our rights are under attack, we will not normalize intimidation by bigots,” she added in a later statement. “This weekend as we remember Boston’s legacy as the cradle of liberty, we celebrate the continued fight to expand those liberties for all and ensure that Boston will be a city for everyone.”
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Patriot Front members were arrested last month near a local pride event in Idaho and charged with conspiracy to riot. Thomas Rousseau of Grapevine, Texas, who has been identified as the founder of the Patriot Front, was among those indicted.
The group rose to prominence in the summer of 2017, after the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. That event sparked nationwide outrage and led to the death of one counterprotester demonstrating against racial injustice.
