Trump's attack on diversity takes center stage as Boston remembers 1965 Freedom Rally led by MLK
Source: AP
Updated 12:06 AM EDT, April 26, 2025
BOSTON (AP) — As a Black teenager growing up in Boston, Wayne Lucas vividly remembers joining some 20,000 people to hear the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speak out against the city’s segregated school system and the entrenched poverty in poor communities.
Sixty years on, Lucas will be back on the Boston Common on Saturday to celebrate the anniversary of what became known as the 1965 Freedom Rally. This time, though, Lucas expects much of the focus will be on President Donald Trump and concerns that the commander-in-chief is exploiting divisions and fears about race and immigration.
“There’s different forms of, how do we say it, racism and also I have to include fascism, what’s going on in this country,” said Lucas, a social activist and retired postal worker who was standing on the Boston Common near the site of 20-foot-high (6-meter) memorial to racial equity, “The Embrace,” where the rally will be held.
The rally will be preceded by a march mostly along the route taken to the Boston Common in 1965 and feature up to 125 different organizations. “People gotta be aware and say something.” he continued. “We can grumble (and) stuff like that, but we need to take part and do something.”
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/freedom-rally-1965-martin-luther-king-jr-8256f61320a2466ecd8d20417405c500
= new reply since forum marked as read
