Activists from the Poor People’s Campaign marched Saturday to the Massachusetts State House as part of a national week of action, while pro-Palestine protesters marched to MIT to decry Israel’s anticipated ground invasion of Rafah. Both rallies had a focus on U.S. electoral politics, but while the Poor People’s Campaign wanted to mobilize poor voters, (“waking the sleeping giant,” as organizers put it), organizers for Palestine wanted to convince progressives to vote “uncommitted” in the upcoming Democratic primary as a means to pressure President Joe Biden into calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Activists and organizers with the Poor People’s Campaign assembled at the Old State House in downtown Boston at 10 a.m., then marched to the State House by Boston Common, where they set up tents, assembled speakers and handed out signs. More than a dozen organizers spoke at the event, including several local priests.
Activists described the march as one of 32 happening around the country as part of a 40-week awareness-raising campaign to organize millions of low-income citizens into a voting bloc for upcoming elections. Several members of local Service Employees International Union chapters spoke at the rally to discuss the campaign’s demands, including guaranteed health care, a $15 national minimum wage and housing for all.
Across the Charles River, activists gathered at Cambridge City Hall at 1 p.m. to protest the imminent invasion of Rafah, at Gaza’s southern border, by Israeli forces. Hundreds of people poured onto the grassy slope in front of City Hall and spilled onto Massachusetts Avenue, pushing through the police line and blocking traffic. One speaker at the pro-Palestine rally linked the two protests’ causes in her speech.
“The Poor People’s Campaign is just down the road, demanding the same thing,” she said to cheers from the crowd. “Every person around the world knows that our humanity and our faith are inextricably linked. Imagine the poverty reduction programs we could have with the $14 billion that we just sent to genocide the Palestinian people.”
The rally began its march through Cambridge to MIT’s campus as a persistent drizzle started. After the crowd massed on the steps of MIT’s Building 7, speakers from the school’s Coalition Against Apartheid and the Boston Coalition for Palestine called on voters to mark their ballots “uncommitted” for the Democratic primary in protest of Biden’s support of Israel’s military campaign.
“Cambridge has passed [a cease-fire resolution], Somerville passed one, Medford passed one – Boston is a holdout, and it shouldn’t be,” said Sharona Bollinger, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation. “We’re also calling for our politicians, our representatives in Congress and the Senate to also call for a cease-fire. Elizabeth Warren, we’ve had a lot of demonstrations calling her out, [and] her role in remaining silent in the face of what we know.”
Some activists at the rally were pessimistic about the state of U.S. politics and the failure of policymakers to respond meaningfully to the pro-Palestinian protests taking place across the nation.
“I’m in complete shock and at a loss of words at the lack of action and the general compliance that we’ve seen among all of our politicians and all of our big industries,” said a protester identifying themselves as J, in an interview. “I generally don’t have any hope for the future. I don’t have any hope for improvement. But that’s why I came together with my friends to come to a protest, to hopefully grow that hope in my own self.”
When asked what they would say to Biden regarding the Middle East crisis, J paused for a moment to think before giving their message to the president: “Fuck you.”
A stronger
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