A fascinating find from some BMGers with long memories (thanks, bob-gardner and methuenprogressive). In the spring of 1981, Proposition 2-1/2 was wreaking havoc on municipal budgets and resulted in a number of layoffs, including police and firefighters. People were upset, and firefighters in particular were not interested in playing nice. April 29, 1981 (all links are behind the Globe archive paywall):
Major roads into Boston were temporarily blocked during this morning’s rush hour by protesters of cutbacks in the city’s police and fire departments, causing massive traffic jams on major and alternate routes and delaying commuters….
However, no injuries were reported nor were any arrests made during the morning demonstrations.
The first demonstration began about 7 when some 100 placard-carrying men emerged from Florian Hall on Hallet street, Dorchester – home of Boston Firefighters Union Local 718 of the International Assn. of Firefighters – and climbed an embankment to the Southeast Expressway.
Walking about 15 abreast, the group proceeded northbound on the Expressway toward Neponset Circle, blocking all inbound traffic for 20 minutes, until they reached the Neponset on-ramp.
At that point, the demonstrators walked down the up ramp and, for about three minutes, blocked traffic headed northbound on Morrissey boulevard with a 30-foot wide banner carried by 10 men that read: “Help! Save Jobs That Save Lives.” …
One of the leaders of the demonstration, Richard Besse, an off-duty Boston firefighter, surveyed the results of the Dorchester demonstration and called it “terrific. . . . This is what we wanted to do to get our message across.”
These demonstrations were not just a one-day affair, and they were not limited to a single roadway. Here’s a story from May 1, 1981, two days later:
The ranks of the Boston, state and MDC police were spread thin this morning as police tried to curb growing demonstrations protesting cuts in Boston police and fire department personnel.
Demonstrators were successful in delaying morning rush-hour traffic for as much as a half hour by blocking the Southeast Expressway at Neponset Circle, Morrissey boulevard and Columbia road at Kosciuszcko Circle in Dorchester, Soldiers Field road at the former Coca Cola plant in Brighton, the Sumner Tunnel at the East Boston end and City Square in Charlestown.
And many of the demonstrators promised to return Monday.
The blocking of Kosciuscko Circle caught many drivers by surprise as they attempted to use Morrissey boulevard to bypass the Neponset Circle blockade on the expressway.
About 7:30 a.m., some 30 persons, mostly women, began blocking cars at Kosciuszcko Circle. Almost immediately, 10 MDC patrolmen, several with riot sticks at the ready, pushed the demonstrators from the roadway.
A number of the women began yelling obscenities at the officers and one called out: “Why don’t you take off your uniform and come and meet my husband.”
As cars passed the demonstrators, the protesters called out to the drivers, “Ten bucks if you hit them,” referring to the police officers in the intersection.
Remarkable. Can you imagine the reaction if this week’s protesters had cursed at the police and encouraged motorists to hit them?
The next day, May 2, 1981, the Globe had this story:
Traffic was stopped on nine main arteries into the city yesterday, the most roads to be blocked by the demonstrators since they began protesting three weeks ago.
Some of the tieups were created on roads or at traffic interchanges where the demonstrators had not struck before, including Kosciuszko Circle and Pulaski Circle, both in Dorchester, Soldiers Field road at the former Coca Cola bottling plant in Allston, and Memorial drive in Cambridge and Storrow drive in Boston.
The demonstrators also stopped traffic on the Southeast Expressway and Neponset Circle in Dorchester, on the East Boston approaches to the Sumner Tunnel, and at City Square, all scenes of earlier protests.
And here, from the same story, is perhaps the most interesting part of all this:
No arrests have been made since the protests began on April 10, when the city’s cutbacks in fire and police personnel and closing of some fire and police stations went into effect.
Boston Police Comr. Joseph Jordan yesterday defended his department’s policy of making no arrests.
“We’ve had demonstrations for the last 15 years,” Jordan said. “Our policy has always been to make an arrest only in cases where there is an aggressive, hostile demonstration and these demonstrations have been peaceful.”
Wow. Weeks of protests, including several straight days of protests in which major roads were repeatedly blocked, and not a single arrest. Is it possible that there were no arrests because the police, although charged with trying to keep the roadways open, were basically in sympathy with the protesters? Or have policies regarding when to arrest protesters changed over the years? I don’t know, and I would be very interested in hearing from someone who does.
TheBestDefense says
I remember this stuff but it seems especially relevant with the assholes who did it this week and, in the other direction, the NYPD officers who refuse to perform their duties of enforcing the law. Assholes abound on both sides of the law.
chris-rich says
By the description, they just showed up and were ready to disperse once they made their point.
The Tufts twerps are another matter. It’s all rich brats who can’t seem to find something more imaginative or helpful to do like a vigil in troubled neighborhoods or something.
I know Tufts very well. Its 80s era radicals had more gravitas. This is a dumb attention whore stunt.
bob-gardner says
It doesn’t matter if you’re in a ambulance how much gravitas the people blocking the highway have. As far as the firefighters being portable, that is really grasping at straws. Once traffic is fucked up, it’s fucked up, or else the ambulance could have shot up hancock to Morrissey boulevard, as anyone who uses the expressway knows. I presume that the HOV lane of the expressway was blocked because nobody has said it was open. Does anyone know for sure?
In a way you’ve hit the nail on the head, Chris. Because the reaction to this protest is all about what the demonstrators look like, and what they’re protesting, and nothing to do with public safety or ambulances. I know this because cheap lying thug pols like Marty Walsh proclaim that it is all about public safety, and his lips are moving.
Christopher says
That’s the second time you’ve called him a cheap thug – sounds personal.
bob-gardner says
but somehow “thug” hurts your delicate sensibilities. All of those term appear in this thread. Kind of selective in your language policing, aren’t you?
Walsh, like a lot of thugs, picks his victims according to how little they can fight back. You didn’t notice a bunch of instant, public firings of bridge inspectors after they endangered the safety of the public by letting two bridges in Boston to deteriorate. And he enthusiastically sought the endorsement of the firefighters union, which orchestrated the 1981 highway shutdown.
All which suggests to me that Mayor Walsh is less interested in public safety than hippie punching. Is “thug” the wrong term? Would it make you feel better if I used “asshole”, “twerp”, “brat” or “whore”?
Christopher says
…though the difference to me is you singled out a named individual the second time. The other references were to groups and seemed to be more about the actions than the people. I doubt very highly he was thinking of 1981 when he sought the firefighters endorsement. Insulting people is unseemly, especially public officials or other BMGers IMO. and detracts from civil discussion.
bob-gardner says
I singled out a powerful elected official for acts he took in his official capacity. You seem to excuse worse language when it is directed at a group of people who are currently the object of a campaign of calculated opprobrium coordinated between the police and the media.
kirth says
I was all ready to uprate Bob’s comment, until I got to the attack on Walsh. It needs explaining.
ryepower12 says
It was a really good comment, so I wish you didn’t do that. It’s okay to be frustrated at Marty or have other criticisms, but “cheap lying thug?” Come now.
stomv says
I get that people are upset. I get that people think this protest wasn’t productive. On that, I’m not commenting.
What I don’t understand is the ambulance angle. The “what if a kid died in the back of the ambulance because of the traffic jam” hypothetical. Here’s the thing:
* we have major roads all over Boston metro without shoulders or where we allow commuters to drive in the shoulder during rush hour
* we as individuals (and not all of us) are terrible about getting out of the way of an ambulance and, on a major road, there’s more than enough extra space that motorists could all squeeze toward the shoulder and make space
* we gather 37,000 fans into a 100 year old park with poor roadway access just a few hundred yards from the largest hospital complex in New England, despite the congestion in Kenmore Square, Brookline Ave, Boylston Street, etc.
Why don’t we seem to care more about making sure ambulances can make it quickly through these situations — these very real ones that happen 500 times a year, all the dang time, or 81 times a year, respectively? Why don’t we have righteous indignation during those times?
Christopher says
At least that’s why I’m outraged by the latter and not the former, though the former may be a strong argument for infrastructure improvements. In the former most people make a good faith effort to get out of the way while the latter is an act of selfishness and entitlement.
ryepower12 says
Do they pull from the hat whether they’re going to have a game that day?
Also, I think it’s completely fine to question the effacacy of these protesters. I think they’re a bunch of “libertarian socialist” dunderheads. However, I highly doubt they had a sense of entitlement. Foolhardy is where they were at.
Christopher says
…and yes, the traffic is predictable, enough so that those not going to the game might plan to avoid the neighborhood of Fenway Park and those who were could give themselves plenty of time. There was, however, no grand conspiracy to surprise people to make a point. That’s why I used entitlement. These protestors feel entitled it seems to make the world revolve around their message without regard for the consequences.
tim-little says
Huntington and Longwood Avenues serve 3 major Boston hospitals: BWH, BIDMC, and Boston Children’s. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen ambulances and other emergency vehicles stuck in rush hour traffic on those streets.
Kosta Demos says
the Jamaicaway (shudder).
Jasiu says
One similarity in both of these cases: the protests were fruitless. Prop 2.5 is still with us, and the folks involved this week did not do any good for their cause either. Hope someone learns a lesson.
I do think this is good to bring up, however. Wonder if any of the MSM will tackle it.
SomervilleTom says
This is just more evidence of the double standard — precisely the double standard that the protesters are correctly calling attention to.
I support the protesters, and think these protests were masterful and effective. Protests are supposed to be disruptive, and these were. There was no violence, even threatened. The reporting is laughably one-sided (which is part of the media strategy of the protesters).
The response from morons like Colleen Geary is worse. Her boorish, knee-jerk legislative response exemplifies why she has no business calling herself a Democrat, in my opinion. It’s obvious that she has no minority constituents to hold her accountable.
The pervasive culture of police brutality against people of color must be stopped. The self-serving and corrupt refusal of government agencies and the media to prosecute police and police departments who do these kinds of things will only be stopped when the day-to-day lives of privileged whites (especially privileged white males) are disrupted.
I appreciate this diary, and I fully support the actions of these protesters.
drikeo says
The pantomime horrified reaction to traffic being blocked tells you what a complacent, pampered, sit-on-your-ass society we’ve become. It’s like interrupting the flow of traffic is the most awful thing a group of protesters could do.
If anything, the reaction tells me the protesters got it right. Apparently punching ’em right in their convenience is the way to make people pay attention.
methuenprogressive says
What a silly thing to believe.
Christopher says
…you quickly lose points with me, even if I’m inclined to agree with the point of your message. There’s also safety of both the protestors themselves and the motorists to consider. There is a reason highways aren’t supposed to be used by pedestrians. As for Rep. Garry I can confirm that she has precious few minority constituents in her Dracut-Tyngsborough district.
SomervilleTom says
I see. I think it’s safe to say that you are one of the people the protesters — and the growing political movement they reflect — are happy to alienate.
I guess that’s the point of this. As drikeo said above, it appears to me that punching you right in your convenience is the only way to get your attention. If you and those like you were nearly as concerned about the safety of millions of black Americans, then we wouldn’t have this problem.
The protesters aren’t looking for your agreement, they’re looking for the pervasive abuse of minority Americans by police to stop, and they’re looking for the coddling and protection of police who kill to stop.
Christopher says
I’m already concerned about treatment of African-Americans at the hands of cops. They don’t need to get my attention to the issue, but now all they’ve done is make me less enthusiastic about working with them. If you want something done in a democratic system you need to build coalitions, not needlessly divide them.
scott12mass says
If you’ve ever had to drive through teamster picketers you know the police look the other way when personal property is damaged, if the union people are responsible. People have the right to protest, others have the right to travel public venues uninterrupted, police should not let their own agendas influence application of the law.
Peter Porcupine says
.
ryepower12 says
Protest movements are difficult to control. Every protest movement that’s ever been big enough to be called a movement has run into these kinds of problems. Many of them have fallen apart because ultimately people don’t know how to deal with these problems.
And here’s the relevant fact: There’s no way to control any 10 or 20 people who may or may not be completely ‘with it.’
So what good does it do for everyone to hash and rehash this particular action? How much do we have to sufficiently wag our collective left-handed fingers before we move on? The haters are always going to hate, so there’s no need to worry we’ve ‘lost’ any potential supporters who want to see police reforms because of this. Anyone who describes themselves that way is lying and using a distraction as a way to excuse their bigotry.
Beyond them, the only people still complaining about this, it seems to me, are the liberals and progressives who feel uncomfortable being a part of a movement in which they don’t have complete control. We’ve got to learn to let go a little bit. Movements are organic and we can’t control every aspect of it. All we can do is organize protests we know will be effective, so that events like what happened on 93 aren’t taking up all the oxygen.
But we also have to get comfortable with the idea that the only effective protest movements that have ever happened are the ones that have caused disruption, and a lot of it. Without disruption, you can’t get at the complacency that exists as the default across society. That doesn’t mean we need to block off 93 for an hour during the morning commute, but events that cause traffic (marches, sit downs, etc.) will have to be a part of the mix.
ryepower12 says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWgvGjAhvIw
kbusch says
I have a rather different take on it.
Recent polling in New York City on the de Blasio – police department tiff shows widespread disapproval of the police behavior. The strangling death on YouTube and the sudden salience of black deaths at the hands of police make this whole issue one that considerable progress could be made on right now. There’s less resistance. One might even go so far as to say the wind is at our backs. We’re not going to have another African-American President for a while. This issue won’t always sit so prominently in the news.
So yes, protests can be sort of spontaneous, emotional things under no control liberal, radical, black nationalist or otherwise.
However, that’s a deep shame, because we want these things to succeed. Just today in the news we learn that Miami police snipers were using mugshots of African Americans for target practice. Winning — or at least making progress here — is no idle thing. Lives are at stake.
Blocking 93 is not like a sit-in at a lunch counter or a being chained to an engine of war or nuclear pollution. It is not as if highway traffic has a clear connection — or any connection to the Ferguson shooting.
It seems like a bunch of “we gotta do something” doing something. A couple days figuring out how to make “the something” effective could well be worth it.
David says
Peter Porcupine says
.
ryepower12 says
But my ability to control the 10 or 20 people who don’t is something around my ability to control the orbit of the moon.