Far-right Patriot Front rally in Boston for Fourth of July, report of Black man injured
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
- Dozens of members of the far-right group Patriot Front marched through Boston on Saturday.
- The group is known to stage marches to coincide with major US holidays, such as the Fourth of July.
- The ADL says Patriot Front is a white supremacist group focused on preserving US identity as European-American.
Dozens of far-right Patriot Front members chose the Fourth of July weekend to march through downtown Boston on Saturday.
In videos posted on social media, the masked demonstrators march to a drum beat, carrying flags with the group's logo and shields, and wearing their signature khaki pants, navy polo shirts, with baseball caps.
Most marchers had their faces covered with sunglasses and white cloth coverings around their noses and mouths.
The demonstration was about 100-strong, according to the Boston Herald.
—philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) July 2, 2022
The Anti-Defamation League describes Patriot Front as a white supremacist group who are focused on preserving America's identity as a European-American one.
"Patriot Front marching alongside the freedom trail on 4th of July holiday weekend is an insult to all who fought for freedom, equality, justice," Robert Trestan, the director for the ADL New England, said on Twitter
Patriot Front is known to stage marches to coincide with significant American holidays, such as the Fourth of July.
The marchers arrived in the area around 12:30pm and began unloading shields and flags from a truck, according to The Boston Herald.
Along with flags with their logo, many carried Betsy Ross flags, which have just 13 stars in a circle to represent the original US colonies.
Some carried American flags upside down, which conveys their belief that the nation is in distress.
In one of the videos posted on social media, a Patriot Front speaker can be heard addressing the crowd with a megaphone.
"Our current state neither represents the people, the nation, or virtue. They rip children from wombs and sell the ground beneath your feet to foreigners and then they tell you its justice," the man says.
At one point, suspected members of the group clashed with a Black man, seen in photographs taken by The Boston Herald.
The Boston Police Department received a report of an adult Black man injured in a confrontation with Patriot Front members, the paper reported.
The man told police he was knocked to the ground and assaulted by members of the group, resulting in a laceration to his right ring finger and others to his head and eyebrow, Sgt. Detective John Boyle told the Boston Herald. The man was then taken to a hospital.
Police are actively conducting a civil rights investigation, and no arrested have been made, the paper reported.
REUTERS/Faith Ninivaggi
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu addressed the group in a tweet: "To the white supremacists who ran through downtown today: When we march, we don't hide our faces. Your hate is as cowardly as it is disgusting, and it goes against all that Boston stands for."
Patriot Front broke off from the white nationalist group Vanguard America after the notorious "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 that resulted in the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer.
The group often stages marches through cities around the country, frequently appearing at anti-abortion events.
Last month, 31 extremist Patriot Front group members were arrested outside an Idaho Pride event after being seen loading into a U-Haul looking like "a little army."