BOSTON — The Parkman Bandstand sits in a quiet corner of Boston Common, well away from the park’s iconic swan boats and the frog pond where little kids by the dozen are known to splash in the fountains during the warm summer months. It is an advertised stop along the city’s storied Freedom Trail, a walking tour of the spots that gave birth to American democracy and helped shape the country’s identity as the land of the free and home of the brave.
But those ideals — particularly the right to freedom of speech — could be put to the test this weekend, as Boston braces for a controversial rally hosted by far-right groups that many here worry could turn violent.
The rally, billed as the “Boston Free Speech Rally,” is scheduled for Saturday, just one week after a protest at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., turned deadly. One woman was killed and dozens were injured after a white supremacist allegedly plowed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters that was clashing with white supremacists and neo-Nazis marching against the removal of a Confederate memorial.
Organizers of Boston’s march, planned since July, have insisted that their group has no links to hate groups involved in the Virginia melee, but at least two of the announced speakers have extremist ties. The rally has prompted at least two counterprotest marches, including from the local chapter of Black Lives Matter, which also plans to converge on the Boston Common — prompting warnings from city officials and law enforcement they will not tolerate violence from either side.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/shadows-racist-past-boston-braces-far-right-rally-211424578.html
