Thousands Gather in Boston for Competing Protests
The rally was organized in July by a group calling itself Boston Free Speech, which says it is made up of a coalition of "libertarians, progressives, conservatives and independents."
VOA's Celia Mendoza reports from Boston
John Medlar, one of the group's organizers, told multiple media outlets the rally would not welcome white supremacists, and he has denounced racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.
"We absolutely denounce the KKK, neo-Nazis, ID Evropa, Vanguard — all these legit hate groups. We have nothing to do with them and we don't want them here," Medlar told the NBC-TV affiliate in Boston.
IN PICTURES: Dueling rallies in Boston
Despite the group's rejection of white supremacists, ANSWER Coalition Boston, a local chapter of the Black Lives Matter movement, planned a counterdemonstration, which it dubbed "Fight Supremacy," to oppose the free-speech rally.
The "Fight Supremacy" rally wasn't solely geared toward disrupting the free-speech rally, though. Its organizers posted a laundry list of issues they hope to tackle, including income inequality, "anti-immigration initiatives" and racist police officers.
"The individuals and institutions most effective in harming black and brown people do not carry torches or wear white hoods. Instead, they aggressively patrol our neighborhoods, enforce laws unequally, systematically impose poverty, and suppress the voices and needs of oppressed communities," the group said.
Boston granted a permit for the free-speech rally to be held in a downtown park from noon to 2 p.m., with a maximum of 100 people, though far fewer people showed up.
Police estimated that 15,000 people took part in the counterprotest march.
Boston officials put a plan in place to handle the dueling rallies in order to avoid the violence seen last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, which left one woman dead after a white nationalist protester allegedly drove his car into a group of counterprotesters.
No major violence was reported during the Boston rallies, though TV news video showed several groups of counterprotesters surrounding men wearing pro-Donald Trump clothing and shouting obscenities.
In another incident, an elderly woman was hit and dragged to the ground by a counterprotester who tried to rip from her hands an American flag she was waving. The counterprotester ran away and the woman was helped up by others in the crowd.
Prior to the event, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said that more than 500 police officers would be on hand to keep the peace and that certain items were to be banned from the protest site.
"No weapons, no backpacks, no sticks,'' Walsh said. "We are going to have a zero-tolerance policy. If anyone gets out of control — at all — it will be shut down," he said.
VOA's Celia Mendoza contributed to this report.