Arizona immigration law protest in Boston? What a bust!

On Saturday my family was in Boston to check my son into a Summer music program at Berklee. I knew that the governors– including Jan Brewer– were in town, and I knew that a protest against Arizona’s new controversial immigration law was also scheduled for that day. But I did not know where the protest would take place and I did not know the time that the protest was scheduled to take place.

As we entered the Performance Center at Berklee for the orientation it was hot and humid with a few clouds in the sky, but when the orientation was over about an hour and a half later we were met with heavy rains. Being unprepared for the rain, we quickly rushed down Boylston Street and took shelter in a bar and grill where we decided to have a parting lunch with our oldest son– and straight into the protest march route.

As we were eating our lunch I looked out the window when I heard a little commotion and right outside the window I saw the protesters march by carrying signs and ducking in the heavy rain. They were surrounded on both sides be people wearing tactical gear. I couldn’t tell whether these were actual guards protecting the protesters, or whether they were protesters dressed up in tactical gear. I think they were protesters (or guards of the Black Panthers variety), but I still don’t know.

My first instinct was to jump up and get a couple of pictures to show how small the protest ended up being, but the flood of people in the establishment precluded me from being able to snap a picture.

The protest was not nearly the thousands of people that were expected to show up and most likely the rain had something to do with that. Even Margery Eagan– a liberal columnist for the Boston Herald and morning talk show host with the unbearable and arrogant Jim Brody– declared in her column covering the protest that the demonstration was a bust.

While the downpours can be blamed for part of the lack of turnout, they are certainly not solely responsible as the rally started a couple of hours before the rains began. She claims that there were about four hundred protesters in total– and maybe there were before the rain started– but I estimate the crowd that I saw marching down Boylston Street to have number about 100, a generous estimate would be 150 people.

Perhaps there were more than this before the rain started, but by all accounts this protest did not nearly draw the crowd that these ill informed protesters had hoped for. And while the rain may be partly to blame for this, the fact that before the rain came the protest didn’t draw nearly as many people as had been expected has to be considered proof that there just isn’t as much opposition to the Arizona immigration law– even in Massachusetts– as these protesters believe there is. After all, Jan Brewer was in the state and this was still the best showing that the anti-Arizona protesters could muster.