More than 10,000 people are expected to turn out to the counter-protest against the alt-right-affiliated “Free Speech Rally” Saturday, according to organizers Monica Cannon and Angelina Camacho, who spoke to reporters this morning in Dudley Square.
The counter-protest is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Saturday with a brief speaking program. The group, which has more than 10,000 signed up as of this morning, will then march to the Boston Common via Tremont Street for a peaceful counter demonstration.
The Free Speech Rally organizers and those on its speaking roster have ties to white supremacist groups. The event, which was publicized in the wake of the violent “Unite the Right” demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, has sparked concerns of violence and hate speech on the Boston Common. IN Charlottesville, one woman was killed and 35 were injured after an Ohio man with ties to neo-Nazi groups plowed his car into a crowd of counter demonstrators.
But while the right wing Charlottesville demonstrations drew several hundred demonstrators, including neo-Nazis and other alt-right activists from across the country, it’s unclear how many are expected to participate in the Free Speech Rally Saturday.
The city has issued a permit for the Free Speech rally from 12 p.m. till 2 p.m. Demonstrators participating will be separated from the larger counter-demonstration by police barricades and a large contingent of uniformed officers. Monday, Police Commissioner William Evans told reporters the department would deploy plainclothes officers in the crowd and station “public order platoons” on buses near the Common.
Bags will be searched, sticks, shields and weapons of any kind will be prohibited and police will keep the Free Speech demonstrators physically separated from the counter demonstrators at all times, Evans said.
“If people are put in any kind of danger, we’re not going to tolerate anybody getting hurt, any acts of violence,” he said. “If we see that start to happen, the rally’s going to end real quick.”
Cannon also said she expected the counter demonstrators to be peaceful, noting that participating groups including Black Lives Matter Boston and Black Lives Matter Cambridge are organizations committed to nonviolence. But not marching is not an option given the rise of racist rhetoric in the United States, she said.
“I’m a black woman living in Roxbury,” she said. “I don’t have the privilege to ignore this problem.”
