How I Got to April 5th
I helped organize the April 5th Hands Off! protest in Boston. A month ago, I’d never been to a protest in my life. Let me tell you a story about how I got here.
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I’m reading about yet another executive order that cuts deeply against my core values. I can’t understand why my friends, neighbors, and colleagues, who share many of my values, seem to go about their daily lives as if nothing is changing. I am deafened by their silence, barraged by their inaction, and overwhelmed by their apathy. I’m surrounded by friendly people, and yet I’ve never felt lonelier. None of this makes sense. I keep scrolling and clicking, spiraling ever deeper into despair. I arrive at Sherrilyn Ifill’s blog post. “People are doing things. You will meet those people when you start doing things,” she writes. This is a record scratch moment for me. Wait, is it really that easy?! I suddenly feel a fire under my seat.
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“OK, I made a Bluesky account. Who should I follow?” I text my sister. “Start with 50501,” she replies. Type type click click scroll scroll. Fifty states, fifty protests, one day. I search for the Massachusetts chapter of 50501 and see that they have a Discord server. I’m skeptical because I’m a left-leaning moderate, and I expect to be quickly shamed out of the group for not being woke enough, but I take the risk anyway. Ping! Someone called HeWhoRemains37 messages me. Why 37? If it were up to me, I’d remain 25, or at least 32. I learn that he’s an army veteran, and he reassures me that the group is made of folk from all walks of life with the common goal of opposing the current federal administration. He says, “Whether you like to write, translate, post flyers, or fundraise, we’ve got a job for you!”
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It’s an unusually warm afternoon for mid-March in New England. I’m waiting at the corner of Central and Main with a bag full of packing tape, staples, and thumbtacks. I’m meeting someone called Alcor, who has a color printer and is bringing a few dozen flyers to spread the word about April 5th. I don’t feel nervous about meeting this stranger because I’ve gone on more than enough internet first dates before I met my other half, but I do chuckle as I realize that in those cases I at least knew the person’s gender and had some idea of what they looked like. My phone vibrates: “I’m here, in a blue shirt.” I see Alcor across the street, holding a thick stack of flyers. “Two of my friends are about to join us,” he says. Now I’m nervous. But many hands make light work, so I go with the flow. The four of us—Alcor, Tet, Jane, and me—set out to put up the flyers. Friendly banter ensues as we walk all over town, taping, stapling, and pinning. We have much more in common than I expected, and I even laugh for the first time in weeks. Somehow, the sun has already set, so we exchange Discord handles in anticipation of the rally and part ways.
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I wake up way too early for a Saturday morning. It’s finally April 5th, and soon I need to report for safety marshal duty. I didn’t sleep well, but a sense of urgency motivates me to get out of bed. I down a cup of coffee faster than usual and pour the rest of the pot into my thermos. On my drive into Boston there is no traffic. I worry, “Oh no, did the cold and rainy weather forecast dissuade people from showing up?” I get to Boston Common by 9:30 a.m. and see a few people mingling about, all volunteers for the protest, like myself. I offer to help unload supplies as we wait, both to warm up and to serve as a distraction.
By 10 a.m., my worry gives way to pride as the lawn in front of the Parkman Bandstand fills with people. I watch an unending stream of people flow from the Park Street T station to the bandstand. The growing crowd sprawls out beyond the Embrace Memorial. A circle forms around a TikToker in a Viking costume, who entertains the onlookers with satire of the latest Trump administration talking points. The crowd laughs and seems to be in good spirits. When the protest starts at 11 a.m., a dense crowd of people raising signs, waving flags, chanting slogans, and grooving to the brass band surrounds the bandstand, and still, an unbroken wall of more people, carrying more signs and more flags, marches from the T station into the Common.
Volunteering as a safety marshal, I stay at the edge of the crowd, looking for anyone in need of help. I slowly make my way up the hill by the Soldiers and Sailors Monument for a better view of the crowd. I survey the scene from the hilltop and listen to the speaker’s voice faintly echo around the park. I take in the size of the crowd, and I feel my mouth split into a big toothy grin. Knowing that so many protesters share my concerns for our nation, I don’t feel alone for the first time in quite a while. But I do feel my teeth get cold from a gust of wind. I quickly regain my composure, take a sip of hot coffee, and let the steam from my thermos warm my face.
Suddenly, the emcee announces that it’s time to go, and we begin the slow march down Tremont Street toward Boston City Hall. A fellow marshal and I flank a section of the procession, which is somehow chaotic and orderly at the same time. About ten yards behind me, a marching band sets the tempo with upbeat music. The crowd dances merrily, brandishing signs and waving flags. I’m pretty sure my heartbeat is synchronized with the drums and I wonder if I’m too caught up in the moment to do my job. I stop at the intersection of Tremont and Congress streets to direct people into City Hall Plaza. There I remain for almost an hour before another safety marshal relives me. There is still no end in sight to the march.
At 12:30 p.m., the rally begins and the speakers come up one by one to offer us messages of hope and calls to action. Representative Pressley speaks of prior moments of activism in Boston and how we Bostonians inherited a great responsibility from those that came before us. She doesn’t need to convince me that it’s time to roll up my sleeves, but I am inspired by her call to action nevertheless: “When everything is at stake for the country, what do you do? There’s only one right answer: everything that I can.” I listen as other speakers take the stage, but keep scanning the crowd with my eyes for signs of trouble, and thankfully there is none. The crowd chants over and over, “This is what democracy looks like!” Yes, it certainly is.
Around 2 p.m., the skies open up and a cold rain starts pouring, but the crowd remains steadfast. The Dropkick Murphys take the stage to roaring applause and play a song called “Who’ll Stand with Us,” which they wrote for events just like this. They follow it with acoustic covers of famous protest songs rather than any of their own mainstream hits, lending significance to the frustration and ideas that brought us all here today. By the time the band finishes playing and the emcees wrap up the rally, my rain jacket is soaked through and I am more than a little cold, but I don’t really care: I’m so happy to live in a city that will stand up to the injustices that are plaguing our nation, and I’m so proud to live in a state with so many others who are willing to sacrifice their own comfort to come out and voice their resistance together.
By the time I leave City Hall Plaza, puddles are everywhere, and everyone but a few stragglers have left. I walk back down Tremont Street and see hundreds of protest signs from today displayed on the fence around Granary Burying Ground. The sight of our current struggle against tyranny juxtaposed against the gravestones of revolutionaries who founded our nation gives me a new perspective on what Benjamin Franklin meant when he said that the United States of America is “a republic, if you can keep it.” And so we will try.
Want to share your own impressions of the event? Want to know more about the movement? Write to us at news@mass50501.com or join us on Discord.
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