Congressman Stephen F. Lynch will lead an outdoor rally in Quincy Center this Saturday (May 3) that his office says will focus on “our shared support for our veterans, federal workers, seniors, hospitals and community health centers, Social Security, the Postal Service, labor rights, pensions, due process and other legal protections, and privacy rights.”
The event was originally set for April 26, but was postponed until Saturday due to inclement weather. It will be staged at 10 a.m. at the Hancock Adams Common, 1305 Adams St., Quincy.
Lynch has been increasingly vocal in his critique of the Trump administration. In March, he called the president and his actions to date “a clear and present danger to our democracy. I honestly feel that way,” he said, “a danger to our basic rights, our basic freedoms.”
A flyer sent from Rep. Lynch’s office promoting Saturday’s rally includes a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we will all hang separately.”
It’s a remarkable citation. Ben Franklin was one of the “founding fathers” who helped to draft the Declaration of Independence in the summer of 1776. His reference to capital punishment was not an abstract reference when he offered it, allegedly to Thomas Jefferson, as they moved to sever ties with the rule of King George III. The members of the Continental Congress, Franklin included, had just been warned by royal fiat that they would be rounded up and hung for treason if they persisted in their break with the British empire. Franklin and his patriot allies, of course, plunged ahead and after eight years of war and sacrifice, succeeded in creating the American republic.
The venue for Rep. Lynch’s rally is an inspired choice. It will take place steps away from the final resting place of John Adams, another signatory of the July 4 declaration and the second president of the United States. How would Adams and his talented bride, Abigail— and their compatriots Franklin, Jefferson, John Hancock, Sam Adams, Paul Revere, Joseph Warren, et al.— regard this moment? It has been top of mind over the last week, as Massachusetts and many across the nation observed the 250th anniversary of the opening salvos at Lexington and Concord in 1775. Amid the period re-enactors and fife and drums, there were clear echoes of the revolutionary fervor that rousted minutemen and their families long ago.
Gov. Maura Healey, in an address on Lexington Green on April 19, harkened back to the patriots’ cause: “In Massachusetts, we have always lit the beacon,” she said. “We have always answered the alarm… Now it is our time to live up to this legacy. We live in a moment when our freedoms are once again under attack from the highest office in the land. We see things that would be familiar to our revolutionary predecessors: the silencing of critics, the disappearing of people from our streets, demands for unquestioning fealty.”
Healey continued: “This is our generation’s time. Standing here, in this place, at this moment, we must commit ourselves to defending it. That is what I will do, and I encourage everyone who knows our history, and values our freedoms, to do the same…Together, we will protect the freedoms that were won here. And we will not be intimidated.”
Hear, hear!
