The USCG Eagle prepared to sail into inner Boston Harbor during the Sail Boston 2026 Parade of Sails on Sat., July 11, 2026. Photo by Robin Lubbock/WBUR
Last Saturday’s spectacular Parade of Sail in Boston Harbor, featuring scores of magnificent vessels from around the world, drew hundreds of thousands of people to the city’s shoreline. It recalled the spectacle of the bicentennial in 1976, when huge crowds assembled to watch the Tall Ships enter the harbor in what was then a very segregated and tense Boston that had just done great injury to itself through the disgraceful busing riots.
Fifty years ago, seven-year-old Michael Platt of Mattapan was one of the kids who watched awe-struck as the huge ships and aircraft passed by. His grandfather, Homer Baxter Platt, had brought him and his older brother to the city’s shore to watch the parade and celebrate the country’s 200th birthday.
Homer Platt had served in the US Navy. As a Black man, he had been restricted in the duties he could perform as a sailor working as a barber, but he was proud of his service to his country and was determined to celebrate the bicentennial with his two grandsons.
“I remember being somewhere on the waterfront with my grandfather, and he pointed out the Coast Guard cutter Eagle,”the younger grandson recalled. “I saw the big stripe, and I saw a helicopter flying overhead. I was fascinated by it.”
Last Saturday, Michael E. Platt — now a two-star admiral in the US Coast Guard with 34 years of service— was on the top deck of the Eagle as it followed the USS Constitution into the inner harbor to the roars of huge crowds on every pier and boardwalk and the ramparts of Castle Island.
Rear Admiral Platt on board the Eagle last Saturday. Courtesy photo
“Boston really came out that day,” he said in an interview on Tuesday. “It was amazing.”
Standing on deck with his command master chief on Saturday, Admiral Platt was reminded of that moment 50 years ago with his grandfather— pipe in hand—and marveled at his own journey.
“He said to me, ‘Look at all those people. I bet there is a grandfather out there with his grandson or granddaughter,’” the admiral said. “If I was a more emotional man, I would have been in tears thinking about it.”
His family on the Platt side came to Boston by way of Waterbury, Connecticut, and before that, North Carolina. His mother’s people came from Bermuda, first settling in Lowell as mill-workers before spreading throughout Boston’s neighborhoods.
Platt himself was born in the Philippines while his father was stationed at Clark Air Force Base. After his parents separated, his mother, Edith, “moved back to Boston with two kids and had to figure out what was next for her,” he said.
Her parents played an important role in figuring that out. Maternal grandmother Mae owned a hair salon on Blue Hill Avenue and lived in Grove Hall, where the family was centered.
“Grove Hall was one of the places we always came back to,” Platt said. “We spent holidays there, and when I was in college, I would come back.”
For her part, Edith took the civil service examination and entered the State Police Academy in 1976. She went on to serve for roughly 30 years, first as a Registry Police officer and later as a state trooper after the agencies were consolidated.
“She challenged herself to take the civil service exam and go through the State Police Academy,” the admiral said. “She believed in getting a job, working hard, and keeping it.”
Edith saved enough money to purchase her first home on Hazelton Street while still in her 20s. It was a tough time in that part of Mattapan, he remembers.
“We would be out with our friends, and you would see hypodermic needles in the alleys,” Platt said. “We saw purse snatchings and people struggling with heroin addiction. Those were things you noticed as a kid.”
Not long after, his family moved closer to the Dorchester line, eventually settling along River Street near Lower Mills. Platt remembered the transition as part of a broader demographic shift across Mattapan and Dorchester.
“When we first moved into that section of Mattapan, there were still white families living there,” Platt said. “Then you could feel the neighborhood changing. Families were moving to Randolph and other suburbs, and the dynamic was changing. My brother Dennis and I were part of that change.”
The Platt boys entered the METCO program. Dennis went to school in Lexington and Michael, two years later, took the bus daily to Belmont. “It was a challenge at times,” he said, “ but the town was receptive. For the most part, I found friends, and it was a good experience.”
After high school, Platt studied aviation at Hampton University and began putting together the childhood fascination, the encouragement of family members, and the practical lessons he had learned from his mother. Early jobs included work connected to a small airline serving New Bedford and Martha’s Vineyard, where he considered becoming a dispatcher.
“Perhaps that encounter with my grandfather lit the spark,” Platt said. “The seed was planted, but it stayed dormant for a long time. It was almost like a baby growing inside until I finally realized I could do it.”
For much of his childhood, becoming a Coast Guard pilot did not seem like a realistic possibility. “We don’t always realize everything we are capable of doing,” Platt said. “I wasn’t sure that was a possibility for me. I wasn’t sure I could do what those pilots did.”
Rear Admiral Michael E. Platt’s official portrait. Courtesy USCG
He eventually joined the Coast Guard, first serving as an enlisted member before receiving a commission. His career has now stretched for approximately four decades, including 36 years of active service including enlisted time. He had more than 3,600 hours of flight time in the MH-65 helicopter and the HC-144 airplane, according to his official biography. And he commanded USCG air stations in Detroit and Miami.
In May 2022, he came home to Boston as the commander of the Coast Guard’s Northeast district with responsibility for some 2,000 miles of coastline from New Jersey to Canada.
“It is good to come back as a mature adult,” Platt said of his return to Boston. “I can take in all the things I ignored as a teenager—the history, the different communities around Boston, and the ways the city has changed.”
“The Seaport was nothing like it is today,” he noted.
His mother, who now lives in North Carolina, has joined him at several recent events, allowing her to see the city from the perspective of her son’s impressive career. Platt said that Boston City Councillor Ed Flynn — a Navy veteran — has offered to personally provide her with a tour.
“When my mother comes back, people recognize what she did and the role she played,” Platt said. “That means a great deal to me.”
He had initially expected to leave his post sooner, but he asked the Coast Guard’s vice commandant for permission to remain through the major maritime events this summer in New York and Boston. The request was granted, allowing him to stay through Sail Boston. He will throw out the first pitch at Fenway Park on July 24.
It will be one of his last acts in uniform and it will be done here in his childhood home. A change of command ceremony will take place the day before at Faneuil Hall and he’ll be shipping out to Washington, D.C. for his next command assignment.
But this week, he’ll continue to soak up the sights and sounds of a vastly different Boston than the one he experienced at his grandfather’s knee five decades ago.
“If I can influence a seven-year-old today, maybe that child will come back in 2076, during the tricentennial and remember what they saw. Who knows, maybe they’ll be an admiral on the Eagle,” Platt said.
Rear Admiral Michael E. Platt with Reporter co-publisher and former State Senator Linda Dorcena Forry, who serves on the Sail Boston 2026 executive board, are shown at a Sail Boston kick-off event on Friday, July 10, 2026. Bill Forry photo
