photo by: Creators Syndicate

Keith Raffel

In April 1775, Paul Revere set out on horseback from Boston to warn the patriots that the British king in London was sending redcoats to suppress their demands for liberty. When I was a kid, I dreamt I was there.

In April 2025, nearly 100,000 people rallied in front of Boston City Hall to warn the would-be American king in Washington to keep his hands off their democracy. This time, as an adult, I really was there.

In his classic poem, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote that Revere shouted out “a cry of defiance and not of fear” on his ride. There was plenty of defiance in Boston’s City Hall Plaza, too. Signs demanded that the Trump Administration keep its “hands off” public health, clean air and water, women’s bodies, Medicare, free speech, due process, personal liberty and much more.

Back in 1775, Harvard was the only college in Massachusetts. Harvard’s still there, but today in Greater Boston there’s also Boston University, MIT, Tufts, Boston College, Wellesley, UMass Boston, Brandeis, Emerson, Lesley and other institutions with a total student enrollment of close to 400,000. It’s no surprise, then, that at the rally, signs were also plentiful calling for the administration to keep their “hands off our students, books, education, and science.” Cancer survivors waved placards demanding the administration also keep its hands off university cancer research to which they attributed their very lives.

But alas, in addition to the defiance, there was also fear. One protester I spoke to, having no desire to be identified or rounded up, wore a mask, oversized sunglasses and a hoodie. I saw dozens of signs demanding the release of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University who was handcuffed and bundled into a black SUV by masked ICE agents while on her way to meet up with friends. Her only offense was exercising her right to free speech by co-authoring a column in the student paper critical of America’s Mideast policy. Over 140 students have had their visas revoked by the Trump administration at last count.

Just what were the patriots fighting for in the Revolutionary War? According to the Declaration of Independence, they wished to win freedom from George III whose “every act” went to “define a Tyrant” and whose character made him “unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

These words resonated among the present-day Boston protesters. They held signs reading, “No kings, no tyranny” and “I thought Schoolhouse Rock said no more kings.” Trump has indeed recently referred to himself as a king on social media. In Great Britain, there’s been a military parade to celebrate the king or queen’s birthday since 1748. Now there are reports Trump wants one for his birthday on June 14. Does he really think that making America great again means a return to monarchy?

In the Declaration of Independence, George III was charged with “a long train of abuses and usurpation” intended to establish “absolute Despotism.” Could those same words be used in regard to Trump’s actions in his second term? He’s issued an executive order violating the 14th Amendment, called for the impeachment of a judge ruling against him, targeted law firms whose partners represented his opponents and disregarded how Congress has appropriated funds by law.

The Declaration of Independence also accused George III of “cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world” and “for transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.” Given Trump’s imposition of prohibitive tariffs and the deportation of legal U.S. residents to El Salvador, these words seem eerily spot-on for Trump’s actions, too.

There were over 1,400 demonstrations against Trump and his regime in cities besides Boston on April 5. But for me, even after 250 years, Boston stands preeminent as “the cradle of liberty.”

A person at the demonstration a few feet away from me held up a sign reading: “Boston: Making Tyrants Nervous Since 1775.” I smiled upon the realization that sentiment lives on not only at City Hall Plaza, but also in the names of two local sports teams: for football, the Patriots, and for soccer, the Revolution.

— Keith Raffel is a syndicated columnist with Creators.