Suburban Protest and Social Conflict: An Analysis of Social Movement Dynamics in Four Boston Area Suburbs During the 2020 George Floyd Protests
An Honors Thesis Submitted to the Department of Politics in partial fulfillment of the Honors Program
by Andrea Catharine Bolduc Advisor: Professor Daniel Kryder Brandeis University May 2021
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Introduction, Literature Review, and Research Design & Methods 1-27
Chapter 2: Narrative Backgrounds of Case Study Communities 28-57
Chapter 3: Analysis 58-80
Chapter 4: Discussion 81-90
Appendix
Images of Social Conflict
Acknowledgments
I am greatly indebted to my thesis advisor, Professor Daniel Kryder, for believing in me and in this project. I am forever grateful for all of the time, guidance, and expertise you dedicated to this research, and I could not have asked for a more generous and invested advisor. Your patience and encouragement to always dig deeper has been invaluable, and I would not have come as far as I have today without your support. It has been an absolute pleasure to learn from and work with you.
Thank you also to Professor Lucy Goodhart for all of your support, generosity, and mentorship throughout my time at Brandeis. Additionally, I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to Professor Jefferey Lenowitz for providing direction, reassurance, and community during such an unprecedented year, and Professor Sarah Mayorga, for acting as my third reader.
Thank you to the local journalists whose work is cited extensively in this project, and without whom this research would not have been possible. Across the United States, local news outlets are critically underfunded and rapidly disappearing. Local reporting is essential to the function of democracy and in need of support.
Thank you as well to my friends and to my teammates on the Brandeis Cross-Country and
Track & Field team for the endless show of support, constant check-ins, and listening ears. It has meant the absolute world and I am so lucky to have crossed paths with all of you. Roll Deis!
Finally, thank you to my family. None of this would have been possible without all of your support and endless encouragement. From the beginning of my time at Brandeis to the very end, and especially during this strangest of years, you have been my rock. Thank you for always believing in me, lifting me up, and for being the ultimate example of generosity, faith, and love. Words cannot express my gratitude.
Chapter 1: Introduction, Literature Review, and Research Design & Methods
On the evening of May 25, 2020, at around 8:30 pm, Minneapolis police officer Derek
Chauvin—a white man—put his knee on the neck of George Floyd—a black man—for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.1 Mr. Floyd, 46 years old at the time of his death, died while being placed under arrest by four police officers in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The officers had responded to a 911 call placed by an employee at a nearby convenience store, alleging that Mr. Floyd had used a counterfeit $20 bill to purchase cigarettes.2
Officers James Alexander Keung and Thomas Lane were the first to arrive at the scene; they ordered Mr. Floyd to show his hands and, after a brief exchange, pulled him out of his parked vehicle. Mr. Floyd was handcuffed, placed under arrest, and walked back to a police cruiser. He became distressed, telling the officers that he did not want to sit in the police cruiser because he was claustrophobic, had anxiety, and could not breathe. Officers Derek Chauvin and
Tou Thao arrived shortly thereafter; Chauvin proceeded to pull Mr. Floyd from the backseat of the police cruiser and onto the street. 3
1 The actual length of time that Chauvin kneeled on George Floyd’s neck is disputed, with official estimates ranging from 7 minutes and 46 seconds to 9 minutes and 20 seconds. However, the ensuing protest movement has largely referenced 8 minutes and 46 seconds, transforming it into a symbol of police brutality that is utilized in signs, speeches, chants, and has marked moments of silence at countless protests and demonstrations (Bogel-Burroughs, Nicholas. 8 Minutes, 46 Seconds Became a Symbol in George Floyd's Death. The Exact Time Is Less Clear. The New York Times. June 19, 2020.)
2 Hill, Evan, Ainara Tiefenthäler, Christiaan Triebert, Drew Jordan, Haley Willis, and Robin Stein. “How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody.” The New York Times. The New York Times, June 1, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd- investigation.html.
3 Ibid
Bolduc 1 Multiple bystander videos and security footage from a nearby restaurant show Mr. Floyd
lying prone on the pavement, with three of the four officers gathered around him applying
pressure to his neck, torso, and legs. Mr. Floyd can be heard struggling, gasping “I can’t
breathe,” “please, the knee on my neck,” and crying out “Mama” before becoming
unresponsive.4 Despite Lane making two separate calls to dispatch for emergency medical assistance, Chauvin continued to hold his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for an additional 7 minutes.
None of the four police officers on the scene attempted to treat Mr. Floyd while waiting for an ambulance to arrive, despite multiple bystanders shouting at the officers to unpin Mr. Floyd and check his pulse. Chauvin only got off of Mr. Floyd’s neck after being instructed to do so by a paramedic. The officers and paramedic loaded Mr. Floyd into an ambulance, where he went into cardiac arrest. Shortly after arriving at a nearby hospital, doctors pronounced Mr. Floyd dead.5
A video of George Floyd’s murder—taken by Darnella Frazier, a young bystander—
spread rapidly over social media platforms, including Instagram and Twitter.6 Outrage over the
murder shown in the video prompted the broadest wave of demonstrations in American history,
starting in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area on May 26. Over the course of the next
several days, protests in response to the killing of George Floyd spread, peaking on June 6, when
over half a million people marched in over 550 different locations across the country.7
4 Ibid 5 Ibid 6 Bogel-Burroughs, Nicholas, and Tim Arango. “Darnella Frazier, the Teenager Who Filmed George Floyd's Arrest, Testifies at the Trial.” The New York Times. The New York Times, March 30, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/us/darnella-frazier-video-george- floyd.html. 7 Buchanan, Larry, Quoctrung Bui, and Jugal K. Patel. “Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in U.S. History.” The New York Times. The New York Times, July 3, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html.
Bolduc 2 Motivations for This Research
Congressman Tip O’Neill (D-MA), the former Speaker of the United States House of
Representatives from 1977 to 1987, famously quipped that “all politics is local.” Abstract
conversations regarding systemic racism and inequity at the national level sometimes become
tangible local struggles over specific institutions, policies, and individuals’ reputations. The
nuances of specific local contexts, this research argues, reflects and reshapes the dynamics in the
wider national polity. In that same vein, examining processes of local policy change provides greater insight into the challenges and mechanisms involved in national reforms. In his
dissenting opinion in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann (1932), Associate Supreme Court Justice
Louis D. Brandeis wrote that states are “laboratories of democracy.” State and local governments
are more open to policy change and experimentation than their counterparts within the national
legislature.8 In order to properly gauge the potential implications of suburban protest, social
scientists must understand the dynamics that are driving critical conversations about systemic
racism within local communities, as well as the results of such dialogues.
Research Questions
This research project seeks to answer three interrelated questions concerning suburban
protest in the summer of 2020:
1) What varying factors shaped protest forms in suburban communities in particular?
2) What changes did suburban protests cause in local institutions and policy, and in the
development of indigenous social movement organizing?
8 Brandeis, Louis D. “New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann (1932).” Legal Information Institute https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/285/262.
Bolduc 3 3) What implications, if any, does the suburban protest phenomenon have for the national
movement for racial justice, and for wider sociopolitical shifts in American politics?
A Focus on Suburban Massachusetts This project seeks to answer these research questions through case study analyses of
protest events and ensuing social conflicts in four suburban communities within the Greater
Boston area (see Map 1).
Map 1: Map of George Floyd protest events in Massachusetts, with four case study communities identified. (Source: Alex Smith)9
As a region, New England has historically been relatively racially homogenous and is infamous for its legacy of institutionalized racism.10 The Greater Boston area is halfway across
9 Smith, Alex. “2020 George Floyd / Black Lives Matter Actions Map.” Creosote Maps, 2020. https://www.creosotemaps.com/blm2020/index.html. 10 The Spotlight Team. “Boston. Racism. Image. Reality.” BostonGlobe.com, December 10, 2017. https://apps.bostonglobe.com/spotlight/boston-racism-image-reality/
Bolduc 4 the country from Minneapolis. The fact that there were sustained protests in suburban
Massachusetts—at first glance perhaps the most unlikely of places for such social movement action due to its geographic separation from Minneapolis, relative socioeconomic affluence compared to the rest of the country, and white racial homogeneity—speaks to the magnitude of the George Floyd protests nationwide. Suburban Massachusetts communities are one set of towns that allow observation of protest and policy change.
Summer 2020 Protests These racial justice protests were unprecedented in geographic, socioeconomic, generational, and experiential scope. Protest was particularly widespread outside of major metropolitan areas; more than 40 percent of all counties in the U.S.—nearly 1,360 counties— generated protest (see Map 2).
Map 2: Map of George Floyd protest events in the United States (Source: Alex Smith)
Bolduc 5 Of those protesting counties, 95 percent were majority white, with close to 75 percent of
protesting counties being more than 75 percent white.11 The protests occurred in urban,
suburban, and rural spaces, taking place in communities “where the median income was as low
as $20,000 and as high as $220,000.”12 Youth leadership of and participation in the protests was
widespread, with over 50 percent of self-reported participants under the age of 30.13
The graphic nature of the video of the murder of George Floyd exposed the most brutal police treatment of black people, and drove mobilization. Around 50 percent of protesters responding to a Civis Analytics poll reported that the summer of 2020 marked the first time they participated in a protest. A majority reported that they had watched a video depicting police violence towards either protesters or black people within the past year, and half of those respondents attributed such videos to their current support of the Black Lives Matter
movement.14 Protests over the killing of George Floyd not only spread across the United States,
but the world. Scores of people organized in cities and towns across the globe to both express
solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States and protest against
instances of police brutality and racism within their own national and local contexts.15
11 Ibid 12 Audra, Busch D.S., Weiyi Kai, Gabriel Gianordoli, Morrigan McCarthy, and Jugal K. Patel. “How Black Lives Matter Reached Every Corner of America.” The New York Times. The New York Times, June 13, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/13/us/george-floyd- protests-cities-photos.html. 13 Pressman, Jeremy, and Lara Putnam. “Analysis | Black Lives Matter Beyond America's Big Cities.” The Washington Post. WP Company, July 8, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/08/black-lives-matter-beyond-americas-big- cities/. 14 Buchanan, Larry, Quoctrung Bui, and Jugal K. Patel. “Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in U.S. History.” The New York Times. The New York Times, July 3, 2020. 15 Ibid
Bolduc 6 The protests occurred as the Covid-19 pandemic ripped across the world, killing millions,
devastating the global economy, “underscoring many deep inequities in society, [and] removing
competition for the public’s attention by disrupting work, school, and entertainment.”16 In the
United States, low-wage frontline workers—who are more likely to be people of color—have
been infected and died from Covid-19 at drastically higher rates than that of wealthier—and often white—people working at home.17 When viewing the George Floyd protests within this wider historical context, it becomes evident that they are part of, as social movement scholar
Doug McAdam notes, “a social change tipping point”..[which has]…“set in motion a period of significant, sustained, and widespread social and political change.”18
Suburban Protest Participation Although currently ongoing, the major wave of these protests began on May 26, 2020 and
decreased in the latter half of August 2020.19 This protest wave was a novel phenomenon
because its scale and scope depended on sustained organizing efforts and protest participation in
America’s suburbs.20 Over 52 percent of Americans now reside in what they describe as suburbs,
which have become more racially and socioeconomically diverse over the past few decades;21
16 Ibid 17 Wood, Daniel. “As Pandemic Deaths Add Up, Racial Disparities Persist - And In Some Cases Worsen.” NPR. NPR, September 23, 2020. https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2020/09/23/914427907/as-pandemic-deaths-add-up-racial-disparities-persist-and-in-some- cases-worsen. 18 Buchanan, Larry, Quoctrung Bui, and Jugal K. Patel. “Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in U.S. History.” 19 This protest wave is ongoing as of the writing of this thesis (April 2021). 20 July 9, 2020 Dan Reed. “Protests: A Racial Reckoning in Suburbia.” NRDC, December 29, 2020. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/protests-racial-reckoning-suburbia. 21 According to the 2017 American Housing Survey, conducted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, nearly 52 percent of respondents described their neighborhood as suburban. (“The 2017 AHS Neighborhood Description Study: AHS Rural Urban: HUD USER.”
Bolduc 7 Between 1990 and 2010, the percentage of non-white suburban residents in the United States increased from 17 percent to 35 percent.22 Black and allied youth stood at the forefront of the suburban demonstrations, translating their connections with one another via social media into protest activity.23 A variety of suburban stakeholders demanded policy change from local
institutions, signaling at least a temporary shift in the practice and focus of suburban municipal
politics.24
Protesters affiliated with the Civil Rights, Black Lives Matter, and general racial justice
movements have historically gathered in America’s cities. The surge in suburban protest
demonstrates a shift in local political engagement, with an increased focus on racial justice and
equity. With nearly 10 percent of American adults who attended a protest self-identifying as
political independents, the suburban protest phenomenon is indicative of a potential shift in the
wider national sociopolitical climate, which, if sustained, could affect future elections.25
Literature Review These research questions have not yet been fully explored in the relevant literature. There
is a dearth of research on the political behavior of suburban voters and activists within
contemporary protest movements. In addition, this particular wave is a recent phenomenon and
there has not been enough time for a substantial body of scholarship to develop. This work thus
The 2017 AHS Neighborhood Description Study | AHS Rural Urban | HUD USER, 2017. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/AHS-neighborhood-description-study-2017.html.) 22 Frey William H. Melting Pot Cities and Suburbs: Racial and Ethnic Change in Metro America in the 2000s. Washington, DC: Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings; 2001. 23 Pressman, Jeremy, and Lara Putnam. “Analysis | Black Lives Matter Beyond America's Big Cities.” The Washington Post. WP Company, July 8, 2020. 24 Ibid 25 Ibid
Bolduc 8 builds on scholarship on the politics of race and racism, social conflict, and protest, as well as the
sociology of suburban political behavior.
New England has a complicated history with racism. Sokul argues that “the Northeast’s
unique spirit grew out of a selective interpretation of its past.”26 Sokul argues that the political
liberalism of the Northeast is complicated and tainted by the region’s history of persecuting
Native Americans and religious outsiders, direct role in establishing and benefitting from the
slave trade, and unfortunate distinction as being the birthplace of Jim Crow laws. This dynamic
of decrying racism while maintaining structures of exclusion permeates the sociopolitical
landscape of Massachusetts. Aside from analyses of the 1974 busing crisis in Boston and the
work of Sokul, there is not much contemporary scholarship that analyzes the history of racism in
New England and within Massachusetts in particular.27 The Greater Boston area has deep-seated and persistent issues with race and racism that merit critical study because of the political and academic prominence of institutions there, particularly higher education, biomedical research, and finance.
V.O. Key originated the “racial threat hypothesis,” arguing that proximity to a competing
racial group has affects on the voting behavior and ideologies of whites; “the backbone of
southern conservatism may be found in those areas with high concentrations of Negro
26 Sokol, Jason. All Eyes Are Upon Us: Race and Politics from Boston to Brooklyn. Pp.13. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2017. 27 The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team has done valuable investigative reporting into the issue of racism within Boston in its 2018 series Boston. Racism. Image. Reality, concluding that “here in Boston, a city known as a liberal bastion, we have deluded ourselves into believing we’ve made more progress than we have…inequalities of wealth and power persist, and racist attitudes remain powerful, even if in more subtle forms.” (The Spotlight Team. “Boston. Racism. Image. Reality.” BostonGlobe.com, December 10, 2017.)
Bolduc 9 population.”28 The racial demography of counties and localities shapes white political attitudes.
In more recent work, Ryan Enos confirms that Key’s racial threat hypothesis applies in a
northern setting, finding that when the city of Chicago overhauled housing projects in 2000,
relocating black Americans to areas separate from whites, “voting patterns among white
residents living near these projects before and after” shifted toward lower turnout rates and less
Republican candidates.29 American suburbs display racialized settlement patterns and
perceptions of racial threat relative to other groups, which directly translates into political
behavior and ideology. Enos studied the population of interest in this research project:
suburbanites residing within the Greater Boston area. In this randomized controlled trial, pairs of
Spanish-speaking volunteers were assigned to wait on MBTA Commuter Rail platforms in
majority-white communities during the morning rush hour over the course of ten days. Post- treatment surveys of subjects tested attitudes toward exclusionary immigration policies. Enos noted that “even very minor demographic change causes strong exclusionary reactions…however, this effect may have weakened with repeated contact.”30 While group threat
dynamics clearly exist within the Greater Boston area, further research is needed to analyze the
behavior of suburbanites as they grapple with their personal and institutional roles in
perpetuating exclusionary policies and attitudes.
28 Key, Valdimer Orlando. Southern Politics: In State and Nation. New York City, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1949. Pp.43. 29 Enos, Ryan D. “What the Demolition of Public Housing Teaches Us about the Impact of Racial Threat on Political Behavior.” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 00, No. 0, XXX 2015, Pp. 1–20. Midwest Political Science Association, 2015. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/renos/files/enoschicago.pdf. 30 Enos, Ryan D. “The Causal Effect of Intergroup Contact on Exclusionary Attitudes.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 111, no. 10 (March 11, 2014). https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/renos/files/enostrains.pdf.
Bolduc 10 State and local politics are the most tangible avenues through which American citizens
participate in representative democracy and interact with their government. Schaffer, Rhodes,
and Raja note that “the collision of increasing [ethnic] diversity and [socioeconomic] inequality
on one hand, and increasing local government responsibility, on the other, has drastically
increased the range and complexity of tasks facing local governments today.”31 Schaffer et al.
blend quantitative and qualitative community study analyses to examine sociodemographic inequalities in the local political systems of American cities and towns. This research reveals systematic racial and class biases in local representation and frames municipal politics and policymaking as an arena in which residents express racial and class attitudes and interests.
Most existing comparative case studies of local communities pertaining to questions of race focus on disparities in physical health that are rooted in systemic inequality. Students of color attending a predominantly white institution of higher education in the American south identified certain communications as racial microaggressions, both on campus and within the local community. Study participants provided qualitative descriptions of their negative experiences with racial microaggressions.32
Tali Mendelberg analyzes the dynamics surrounding implicit racial messaging in The
Race Card. While white Americans have embraced a “norm of equality” which renders explicit
racial messages socially unacceptable, “implicit racial appeals... [instead] prime white citizens’
31 Schaffner, Brian F., Jesse H. Rhodes, and La Raja Raymond J. Hometown Inequality: Race, Class, and Representation in American Local Politics. Pp.6. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 32 Tina M. Harris, Anastacia Janovec, Steven Murray, Sneha Gubbala &Aspen Robinson (2018): “Communicating Racism: A Study of Racial Microaggressions ina Southern University and the Local Community.” Southern Communication Journal, DOI:10.1080/1041794X.2018.1492008.
Bolduc 11 racial resentment while circumventing their mechanisms of self-censorship,” and argues that “the effective way to counter implicit messages is to expose their underlying racial meaning.”33 This
theoretical insight helps explain what made suburbanites more responsive to the summer 2020
protests for racial justice than they had been in years past: grotesque footage of police violence
made explicit the implicit reality of systemic racism.
Difference in expressions of political anger and grievance between white and black
people in the United States are the result of these groups’ sense of their place within the nation’s
sociopolitical hierarchy. Davin Phoenix notes that “each group is informed by distinct sets of
expectations, ideologies, and narratives about their respective positioning within the political
sphere.”34 The link between lived experience, acceptance of specific narratives, and political
mobilization is important to analyzing how one’s sense of place and social identity inform
political attitudes and behavior. Cramer asserts that group consciousness and political resentment
combine to demonstrate that racism “is intertwined with other fundamental attitudes, [and
therefore] can be invoked and expressed in seemingly socially acceptable ways.”35 Conceptions
of community identity are linked to sociopolitical and partisan identity; suburban protest marked
a struggle to publicly align community values with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Political entrepreneurs appropriate and redeploy collective memories of major events for
collective action by attributing past events “to the articulation of grievances [and use framing
33 Mendelberg, Tali. “The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality.” The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality, Pp.4; Pp.43. Princeton , NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. 34 Phoenix, Davin L. The Anger Gap: How Race Shapes Emotion in Politics. Pp.5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. 35 Cramer, Katherine Jean. The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. Pp.88. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2016.
Bolduc 12 mechanisms to] inform strategies for collective action.”36 Harris’s theory of collective memory
and collective action is a process of social appropriation, in which movement actors use the event
to construct action frames that “incorporate the event into the social group’s memory
repertoire.”37 Entrepreneurs appropriated George Floyd’s murder and used it as a motivating
symbol of the national Black Lives Matter movement. The widespread Internet circulation of the
video of George Floyd’s murder was thus an event with the potential to form collective memory
among and galvanize movement newcomers across geographic space. This research seeks to
understand the mechanisms of social appropriation of collective memory at work among local
movement entrepreneurs and actors.
Suburbanites, like all other Americans, have developed a sense of community and identity that will affect their political behavior. Ryan Enos argues that “the geographic space between groups leads to a psychological space between groups, which, in turn, leads to a
political space between them.”38 The political behavior of suburbanites follows to some extent
from their distance, both physical and psychological, from the urban spaces where protest for
racial justice typically occurs. Movement actors sought to disrupt this political and psychological
space through protest.
The role of American suburbs in the struggle for racial and socioeconomic justice is
evolving as these areas continue to diversify: “contemporary suburban political movements
36 Harris, Fredrick C. “It Takes a Tragedy to Arouse Them: Collective Memory and Collective Action During the Civil Rights Movement.” Pp. 21. In Social Movement Studies 5, no. 1 (2006): 19–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742830600621159. 37 Ibid, Pp.38. 38 Enos, Ryan D. The Space between Us: Social Geography and Politics. Pp.3. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Bolduc 13 reflect the growing diversity of suburbanites and the frustration, felt by many, that the American suburbs have not lived up to the promise they once held for so many who have fought so hard to get there.”39 In 2008, suburban poverty rates were higher than those in cities, making suburbs
“home to the largest and fastest-growing poor population in the country.”40 Suburbs are
increasingly diversifying socio-geographic spaces that Denton and Gibbons note are “greatly
differentiated by size, ethnic makeup, and economic status.”41 Contemporary research must also
consider the impacts of rapid demographic change on the political geography of these spaces.
There is a strong existing body of work covering suburban protest in majority-minority
suburbs, but most of the focus has been on the experiences of marginalized racial groups with
divestment and poverty. Ferguson, Missouri—the St. Louis suburb where protests over the
killing of Michael Brown originated—and Sanford, Florida—the central Florida suburb where
Trayvon Martin was murdered—have attracted attention. There is a gap in the literature when it
comes to looking at protest mobilization in predominantly white and relatively affluent suburbs,
where such social and racial unrest has been absent until the summer of 2020. Lung-Amam and
Schafran explicitly call for research into white suburban protest, arguing that “as more and more
media, academic, and political attention is paid to struggling racialized suburbs, vigilance is also
needed to ensure that the story of metropolitan inequality is written not only from the places
39 Lung-Amam, Willow, and Schafran, Alex. From Sanford to Ferguson: Race, Poverty, and Protest in the American Suburb. Pp.15. White Rose Research Online. Routledge, August 30, 2018. http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/126896/. 40 Kneebone Elizabeth, Garr Emily. The Suburbanization of Poverty: Trends in Metropolitan America, 2000 to 2008. Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings. 2010. 41 Denton, Nancy A., and Joseph R. Gibbons. "Twenty-First-Century Suburban Demography: Increasing Diversity Yet Lingering Exclusion." In Social Justice in Diverse Suburbs: History, Politics, and Prospects. Pp.17, 13-30. Temple University Press, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt14bstxs.4.
Bolduc 14 where protest appears, but also where it does not” [i.e. “exclusive, generally white suburbs”].”42
This research shows that the majority of the summer 2020 racial justice protests occurred outside
of urban areas, involved broad local coalition-building across the political spectrum, and were largely sustained by Black and allied youths.43
McAdam famously outlines the “political process model” for social movement analysis.
He posits that “insurgency is a product of both factors internal and external to the movement”
whose generation is dependent upon expanding political opportunities, indigenous organizational
strength, and the cognitive liberation of members of the aggrieved minority community.”44 This
project examines a phenomenon of local suburban protest that is part of a wider, decentralized national Black Lives Matter movement, which engaged in unprecedented mobilization in response to the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others in the summer of 2020. It is essential to consider how suburban protest fits within the political process model of social movement emergence. Is it the novel demonstration of previously latent indigenous organizational strength and cognitive liberation within suburban communities, or merely an ephemeral extension of national black political grievances, with no tangible effect on policy change?
In Regimes and Repertoires, Charles Tilly argues that “contentious politics” occurs when
“connected clusters of persons make consequential claims on other clusters of persons or on
42 Ibid, Pp.17. 43 Pressman, Jeremy, and Laura Putnam. “Analysis | Black Lives Matter beyond America's Big Cities.” The Washington Post. WP Company, July 8, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/08/black-lives-matter-beyond-americas-big- cities/. 44 McAdam, Doug. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970. Pp.58. Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1982.
Bolduc 15 major political actors,” [provided that at least one government is a claimant, target, or third party to the claims].”45 He asserts that contentious politics is comprised of “repertoires” of claim- making routines [or episodic performances and strategies] that apply to the same claimant-object pairs, within certain established spatial, temporal, and contextual bounds.46 Social movement action is a process of sustained interactions and dynamics.
In Dynamics of Contention, Doug McAdam, Charles Tilly, and Sidney Tarrow define an offshoot of contentious politics, “transgressive contention,” which involves “episodic, public collective interaction among makers of claims and their objects…[wherein] at least some of the parties to the conflict are newly self-identified political actors [emphasis added].”47 This focus on new political actors within contentious politics is an essential frame through which to consider the relatively new phenomenon of widespread suburban protest. McAdam, Tilly, and
Tarrow note that the “mobilization of [political] identities constitutes a major part of claim- making [within contentious politics particularly and social movement action more broadly].”48
Understanding how suburban protesters locate their various and intersecting social identities within the context of local movement mobilization and action is critical to understanding sub- national repertoires of racial justice protest.
In the first chapter of How Social Movements Matter, Burstein argues that “the greater the impact of interest organizations on the public’s preferences on an issue as currently framed or
45 Tilly, Charles. Regimes and Repertoires. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. ProQuest Ebook Central. 46 Ibid 47 Ibid 48 Ibid
Bolduc 16 reframed, the greater their (indirect) impact on legislative action.”49 The Black Lives Matter
movement has heightened the public salience of policy change as an important frame through
which to analyze suburban protest action and thus the prospects for policy change in policing.
Donatella della Porta analyzes the manner in which identities and framing processes interact
within social protest and protest policing dynamics. Della Porta states that “frames can be
distinguished according to their functions: defining a problem, giving a solution, providing
motivations for action, stating identities, [and] attributing blame.”50 The identities and frames
utilized by suburban protesters to explain and lend credibility to their participation in movement
action will augment understanding of how local community dynamics contributed to varied
intensity in expressions of grievance and conflict.
Omar Wasow advances the model of “agenda seeding” to describe the way in which activists employ methods of disruption to garner media attention and elevate movement agendas in the wider public consciousness as a means of overcoming political asymmetries.51 Wasow
argues that “protest tactics influence how news organizations frame [movement] demands,” and
that “strategies that try to appeal to persuadable members of the majority, like nonviolent civil
disobedience, are expected, on average, to generate more sympathetic coverage of subordinate
group claims.”52 Widespread suburban support of and participation in the summer 2020 George
49 Burstein, Paul. "Social Movements and Public Policy." In How Social Movements Matter, edited by Giugni Marco, McAdam Doug, and Tilly Charles, by Tarrow Sidney, 3-21. University of Minnesota Press, 1999. 50 Porta, Donatella Della. "Protest, Protesters, and Protest Policing: Public Discourses in Italy and Germany from the 1960s to the 1980s." In How Social Movements Matter, edited by Giugni Marco, McAdam Doug, and Tilly Charles, by Tarrow Sidney, 66-96. University of Minnesota Press, 1999. 51 Wasow, Omar. “Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion and Voting.” American Political Science Review 114, no. 3 (May 21, 2020): 638–59. https://doi.org/10.1017/s000305542000009x. 52 Ibid
Bolduc 17 Floyd protest wave is an example of successful minority-initiated agenda seeding. Because the suburban protest wave was predicated on the large-scale first-time participation of members of the majority group [i.e. white and/or affluent suburbanites], the ubiquity of peaceful local protests made the Black Lives Matter movement’s claims more palatable to the majority-oriented press. This was a process of, as Wasow notes, “mov[ing] median elites and masses toward [the] subordinate group-aligned coalition [and policy preferences].”53
The literature has thus far acknowledged that one’s sense of place- and group-based identity influences political behavior; that the manner in which racialized messages are presented can either reinforce complacency with the status quo or spark disruption; that Massachusetts has a troubled and oftentimes distorted history of racism and social injustice; and that American suburbs are increasingly becoming the backdrops upon which protest over racial and socioeconomic inequality occurs. The political process model and the conception of social movement protests as repertoires of contention within which claims are made, provide a useful lens through which to analyze the sociopolitical dynamics at work in suburban communities.
This research provides a fresh scholarly perspective to the fields of political science and sociology because it focuses on a recent phenomenon: the widespread suburban protests for racial justice in the summer of 2020. Why did social movement action occur at such an unprecedented magnitude in the suburbs at the particular historical moment that it did? And which movement actions, if any, will result in meaningful institutional change? Little attention has yet been paid to whether this protest wave, occurring in the places that were purposefully settled to distance whites from such conflict, will result in a sustained growth in social movement
53 Ibid
Bolduc 18 action, organizing, and policy change. This research seeks to explore these new social dynamics and provide a greater understanding of this phenomenon’s long-term implications, both for the movement for racial justice and for the sociopolitical climate of the United States.
Research Design & Methods Blending Qualitative & Quantitative Methodologies Because smaller-scale, suburban protests for racial justice are a relatively new phenomenon, and because such events are deeply personal and emotional for individual local communities, this research project blends qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The case study selection process was quantitative in nature; I narrowed down the options for possible case study communities by using demographic data parameters and the availability of evidence to make final selection determinations (see Case Selection section below).
For my analysis of the patterns and dynamics of local protest organization and mobilization, I crafted detailed narrative reconstructions of the protest events that occurred in four chosen suburban communities in the Greater Boston, Massachusetts metropolitan area, within a case study format that relied heavily on local reporting of protest events and other forms of related social conflict and conversation. This was essential to ensuring the quality and applicability of this research’s subsequent theoretical analysis of the protest patterns and institutional dynamics occurring at the community level, since the systems and institutions this research seeks to understand were comprised of unique individuals existing within idiosyncratic local historical contexts. Analysis and conclusions made with regards to the four chosen case study communities should theoretically be applicable to all similar community cases.
Bolduc 19 Key Terms & Definitions
No widely-accepted definition exists for “suburbs” or “suburban areas.” They are
interesting sociopolitical backdrops against which to conduct research precisely because their
identity necessitates that they be outside of an urban area, but also not be part of rural space,
either. They are the in-between spaces, which complicates social science research into their
peculiarities. There is no official United States Census or Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) definition for suburbs. A widely-cited piece of scholarship, written by Whitney Airgood-
Obrycki and Shannon Reiger for the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University,
provides three separate definitions for the suburban space:
“(1) the census-convenient (places that fall outside of categorized cities, but inside metropolitan area boundaries); (2) suburbanisms (stereotypical ‘suburban’ ways of life: single-family home ownership, automobile commuting, and homeownership), and (3) typology (conceptualizes suburbs in terms of the eras in which they were built, [ie. Inner- and outer-ring suburbs]).”54
For the purposes of this research, I will use the census-convenient definition, and will
thus define suburbs as municipal incorporations with a population of less than 75,000 people.
“Social conflict” will be defined as a disruption of the sociopolitical status quo, through overtly
ideological discourse, either online or in-person. “Meaningful institutional change” will be defined as change which reflects an intention to rearrange institutional structures or sociopolitical behavior in an effort to foster equity. “Anti-racism,” as defined by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi in How to
Be Antiracist, is, “that which actively works to dismantle the intersectional and multidimensional aspects of racism.”55 The “intensity of social conflict” will be defined as the extent to which the
54 Airgood-Obrycki, Whitney, and Shannon Rieger. “Defining Suburbs: How Definitions Shape the Suburban Landscape.” Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies, February 2019. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/media/imp/Harvard_JCHS_Airgood- Obrycki_Rieger_Defining_Suburbs.pdf. 55 Kendi, Ibram X. How to Be an Antiracist. Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group, 2020.
Bolduc 20 conflict impacted individuals or communities. Such impact can be measured by the amount of
disruption (in terms of time, financial burden, or emotional distress), experienced as a result of
the social conflict.
The Thin Blue Line The “thin blue line” (TBL) flag is a black-and-white American flag, with a blue line replacing one of the 13 stripes directly underneath the square of stars. The blue line is supposed to represent law enforcement officers as the only force that prevents society from descending into violent chaos.56 TBL imagery has been coopted by the “Blue Lives Matter”
countermovement, which formed in 2014 in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and
advocates, among other things, that those who are prosecuted and convicted of killing law
enforcement officers should be sentenced under hate crime statutes.57
The main argument underpinning the “Blue Lives Matter” movement is that police
officers are under a heightened threat of ambush killings due to an increasingly anti-police sociopolitical and media climate.58 The “Blue Lives Matter” movement has been criticized for
some of its members’ intersection with white nationalist movements in the United States, as TBL
flags were flown by white supremacists and white nationalists at the deadly Unite the Right rally
56 Wall, Tyler. “The Police Invention of Humanity: Notes on the ‘Thin Blue Line’ - Tyler Wall, 2020.” SAGE Journals, n.d. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1741659019873757. 57 Lynch, Sarah N. “FBI Says US Police Deaths Spiked 61% in 2016.” Business Insider. Business Insider, October 16, 2017. https://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-police-deaths-on-duty-spiked-in-2016-fbi-2017- 10. 58 Ibid
Bolduc 21 59 in Charlottesville, Virginia in August of 2017. Critics also argue that Blue Lives Matter
supporters, either intentionally or unintentionally, are actively perpetuating the existence of a
60 violent and racially discriminatory system of policing. In the midst of the Black Lives Matter
protests in the summer of 2020, and the ensuing national conversation that it raised regarding
systemic racism and police brutality, the symbolic meaning of the TBL flag and associated
imagery took on additional —and increasingly controversial—significance.
Case Selection
The geographic scope of this research was limited to suburban Massachusetts
communities located within the Greater Boston metropolitan area. Case study communities were
chosen from a “universe” of 15 comparable municipalities within the selected area, and included:
the towns of Arlington, Hingham, Holbrook, Lexington, Marshfield, Plymouth, Randolph,
Stoughton, Walpole, and Wareham, and the cities of Chelsea, Everett, Framingham, Lynn, and
Marlborough.
After identifying this universe of 15 possible communities from which to conduct
narrative case studies, I created Figure 1, a 4-cell table which measures the degree of racial
demographic diversity on the x-axis and socioeconomic status (SES) on the y-axis (see
Appendix).
59 “Courthouse Removes Flag After White Supremacists Display It.” U.S. News & World Report. U.S. News & World Report, April 25, 2017. https://www.usnews.com/news/best- states/oregon/articles/2017-08-25/courthouse-removes-flag-after-white-supremacists-display-it. 60 Lindsey, Treva B. “Why Blue Lives Matter Is Just as Dangerous as White Lives Matter.” Complex. Complex, April 20, 2020. https://www.complex.com/life/2016/09/blue-lives-matter- bill.
Bolduc 22
Figure 1: Universe of Cases (SES & Racial Diversity)
Because Massachusetts is 80.6 percent white, I have defined “high racial diversity” within a community as being comprised of a population that is 20 percent or more non-white, and “low
racial diversity” within a community as having a population that is 10 percent or less non-
white.61 A community was considered to be of a “higher socioeconomic status” if its median
household income was above the state of Massachusetts’ 2018 median household income of
61 “U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Massachusetts.” Census Bureau QuickFacts, n.d. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/dashboard/MA/INC110219.
Bolduc 23 $79,835, and “lower socioeconomic status” if below.62 The ultimate goal was to choose 4 case
study communities, each one representative of a cell within the table (High SES/High Racial
Diversity; High SES/Low Racial Diversity; Low SES/High Racial Diversity; Low SES/Low
Racial Diversity). I then populated the 4-cell table with the 15 communities from the universe of possible cases.
The narrative case study nature of the research required a substantial body of evidence from which to profile local social conflicts, protest events, and possible institutional policy change, so I then further narrowed the field by availability of evidence. For the purposes of this research, I prioritized selecting communities that had a reliable and active local news apparatus, or were host to events that received substantial amounts of coverage, either by local news sources, the Boston Globe, or national and international news syndicates. Substantial news coverage was defined as a community having 5 or more readily accessible articles reporting on local protest events, social conflicts, and potential policy changes. Availability of evidence was determined from a general online news database search that listed the community name, state of
Massachusetts, and keywords pertaining to racial justice protest. The data used to determine socioeconomic status, racial diversity, and availability of evidence for each community within the universe of cases is compiled in Table 1.
62 Guzman, Gloria G. Issue brief. Household Income: 2018 (American Community Survey Briefs). United States Census Bureau, September 2019. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2019/acs/acsbr18-01.pdf.
Bolduc 24 Table 1: Universe of Cases Key Data
From this universe of 15 possible communities, 4 that each occupied a separate cell within Figure 1 and had 5 or more readily available news articles were selected: Hingham,
Marlborough, Everett, and Wareham.
Measuring Political Ideology The average political ideology of selected communities was analyzed during the case selection process. I compiled the Democratic candidate vote percentages of individual case study communities in the 2012, 2016, and 2020 presidential elections, and then compared them to the
Democratic vote percentage of the state of Massachusetts as a whole in each respective year. I used Democratic vote percentages as the baseline for determining the overall political leaning of communities because the state of Massachusetts has been a consistent bastion of Democratic political clout for several decades, consistently delivering Electoral College votes to the
Bolduc 25 Democratic presidential candidate since 1988.63 Variation in Democratic vote margins compared to the state average thus reveals more about individual municipalities’ degrees of liberalism or conservatism relative to the political context of the state as a whole. This provides a more complete and nuanced picture of communities’ sociopolitical context than would a comparison of Democratic and Republican vote totals.
Community Democratic scores are found in Table 2. The table compares the Democratic candidate vote percentages of individual communities in the 2012, 2016, and 2020 presidential elections, and compares them to the Democratic vote percentage of the state of Massachusetts as a whole. This measures whether a community can be considered more liberal (defined as a larger
Democratic vote percentage) or conservative (defined as a smaller Democratic vote percentage)
than the Massachusetts state average.
Table 2: Democratic Vote Margins in Case Study Communities
Policy Change Questionnaires To assess institutional policy changes made in response to the summer of 2020’s protest
events, policy changes in school districts and police departments were recorded from local
newspapers. After securing an exemption from the Brandeis University Institutional Review
Board (IRB), I emailed police chiefs, public school system superintendents, and their staffs a
policy change questionnaire, in a worksheet format, and asked for responses and any additional
63 “PD43+ " Search Elections (Massachusetts Election Statistics).” PD43+, n.d. https://electionstats.state.ma.us/elections/search/year_from:1972/year_to:2020/office_id:1/stage: General.
Bolduc 26 thoughts or comments they had pertaining to policy changes within their respective institutions and wider local communities. The narrative, case study-centered nature of the research project negated the need to maintain anonymity. A generic copy of the introductory email, as well as blank copies of the “police” and “schools” versions of the questionnaire that were sent out, are available for review in the Appendix, labeled Documents 1, 2, and 3, respectively.
The response rate to the policy questionnaires was exceptionally low, with only four completed questionnaires returned by the Superintendent of the Wareham Public Schools and the
Police Chiefs of Everett, Walpole, and Wareham. These completed questionnaires provided valuable evidence on social conflict dynamics in these communities. However, the low response rate prevented the questionnaires from providing much additional information on institutional policy change across all 4 case study communities.
Bolduc 27 Chapter 2: Narrative Backgrounds of Case Study Communities
Hingham Profile The town of Hingham is located on the South Shore of Massachusetts and was incorporated into the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635. In the early 20th century, the First and
Second World Wars led to the construction of an ammunition magazine for the United States
military’s North Naval Reserve Atlantic Fleet, and the later establishment of an additional
ammunition depot in what is now Wompatuck State Park. This transformation into a munitions
center for American naval forces eventually resulted in the 1942 conversion of a section of
Hingham Harbor into a shipyard. Shipbuilding remained the dominant industry for several
decades, as the town enjoyed rapid population growth following the post-war housing stock expansion. By the 1970s, local leaders began to focus on acquiring land that could be preserved as open space; this municipal policy was motivated by both environmental concerns and a desire to ensure that quality of life and property values in town remained high.64
This community of 24,679, situated on Boston Harbor, is relatively affluent, with a
median household income of $133,596 and only 4.6 percent of residents live below the poverty line. The relative socioeconomic affluence of the community is reflected in reported education levels, with 98.6 percent of adults having at least graduated from high school, and 70 percent
having at least a bachelor’s degree; Hingham’s relative political liberalism can partly be
attributed to this large professional class. 81.4 percent of the housing stock in Hingham is owner-
occupied, and 18.6 percent is rented. High real estate costs are continuously cited as major
64 “History: Hingham, MA.” History | Hingham, MA, n.d. https://www.hingham- ma.gov/435/History.
Bolduc 28 barriers to fostering racial diversity in the community; Hingham is racially homogenous, with
96.4 percent of the population identifying as white, 0.4 percent as black or African American, 2.1 percent as Asian, 1.1 percent as Hispanic or Latino, and 1 percent as two or more races.65
Along with most municipalities in the Bay State, the Democratic Party dominates local
politics. Its two state representatives are Democrats Joan Meschino and James Murphy, and its state senator is Republican Patrick O’Connor. At the municipal level, it is run by Town
Administrator Tom Mayo, and a Board of Selectmen comprised of Chairwoman Mary Power,
Joe Fisher, and William Ramsey. Hingham has increasingly leaned Democratic in recent years, transitioning from only 50 percent of the town voting for Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election (10.65 percent less than the Massachusetts 2012 state average of 60.65 percent), to 57
percent of the town voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016 (3 percent less than the MA 2016 state
average of 60 percent), to 66 percent of the town voting for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential
election (almost exactly the MA 2020 state average of 65.6 percent).66
Social Conflict Timeline Initial Protests Inspired to act in response to the May 26 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis,
Hingham residents took part in the nationwide movement of protests in support of the Black
Lives Matter movement. The Hingham Unity Council, a coalition of local faith leaders and racial
justice advocates, organized a candlelight vigil at St. John the Evangelist Church on June 2. A
65 “U.S. Census QuickFacts: Hingham Town, Plymouth County, Massachusetts; United States,” n.d.https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/hinghamtownplymouthcountymassachusetts,U S/PST045219. 66 Fujiwara, Daigo. “Map: How Your Mass. City Or Town Voted In Dozens Of Recent Elections.” Map.| WBUR News. WBUR, March 19, 2018. https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/03/19/massachusetts-past- election-results.
Bolduc 29 crowd of about 1,000 people listened to remarks from Reverend Tim Schenck, the Rector at St.
John’s. The event concluded with the crowd observing 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence, with
many taking a knee to honor George Floyd.67
The first local protest was held on the afternoon of June 6 at the Hingham Bathing
Beach.68 Organized by two local high school seniors, Olivia Monarch of Hingham and Darcy
Milligan of neighboring Scituate, protesters stood on the side of Route 3A, a major local
causeway, at noon, holding signs, chanting, and calling for reforms to the American policing and
criminal justice systems. Norwell resident and local anti-racism activist Raquel Soto spoke briefly and led the crowd in chants. At 2 pm, protesters gathered around a nearby gazebo to listen to speeches from local students Gabriella Bonitto, Katie Milligan, Ryan Frankel, and Kristin
McCarthy. Katie Milligan spoke about issues of systemic racism that existed on the South Shore, stating that, in the area, like most of the United States, “we are all part of a culture that oppresses black people and black bodies.”69 Ryan Frankel’s speech implored young protesters to take the lead in addressing systemic inequalities in the United States, stating that, “it’s up to us, the youth, the young people in this country to bring change and fix what’s broken. We can’t keep putting band-aids on a festering wound and walk around like it’s okay. It is finally time to stitch it up
67 Borger, John, Robert Edson, Linda Weldon, and Pat Granahan. “Peaceful Hingham Candlelight Vigil to Support Black Lives Draws Large Crowd ~ Hingham Anchor.” Hingham Anchor, June 4, 2020. https://hinghamanchor.com/peaceful-hingham-candlelight-vigil-to-support-black-lives-draws- large-crowd 68 Jordan, Keely. “Hingham Residents Show Their Support For The Black Lives Matter Movement.” The Harborlight, June 8, 2020. https://harborlight.hinghamschools.com/9347/student-life/hingham- residents- show-their-support-for-the-black-lives-matter-movement/ 69 Ibid
Bolduc 30 and let that scar help us heal.”70 Hazel Orth, an 8th grader at Hingham Middle School, also
addressed the crowd of protesters, asserting that “our country has been living in systemic racism
for so long, for way too long, and it’s time that we realize our mistakes and stop it.”71 Hingham
9th grader Lilja Martel directed her frustration towards the local police department’s response to
the racial justice movement: “the cops that claim to stand for the civilians of our town won’t
kneel with us. That itself shows how corrupt the system is.”72
The Hingham Anchor reported on the pervasive nature of racism in the Hingham
community, publishing a June 14 article that documented the experiences of several local black,
Hispanic, and biracial families in Hingham. These community members identified a general
sense of ignorance —in terms of awareness of racial diversity and acknowledging the reality of
racism and systemic inequality in the U.S.—as being pervasive among their white neighbors and
classmates. They also observed widespread “cultural apathy” in the greater Hingham
community, which they defined as a lack of a desire to learn about other cultures and languages.
These residents argued that such apathy and ignorance have created a climate where racist
remarks and microaggressions are common, especially in the public school system.73 The article
cited the South Shore’s ethnic insularity and high real-estate prices as two major reasons that
70 Ibid 71 Ibid 72 Ibid 73 Petersen, Sue. “Seeking Solutions: Despite Hingham's Welcoming Feel, Racism Sometimes Rears Its Head ~ Hingham Anchor.” Hingham Anchor, June 14, 2020. https://hinghamanchor.com/seeking-solutions-despite-hinghams-welcoming-feel-racism- sometimes-rears-its-head%E2%80%8B/.
Bolduc 31 racial minorities do not settle in Hingham in larger numbers, and suggested that the town
increase racial inclusivity by hiring a more diverse teaching staff and public safety officials.74
Thin Blue Line Flag Controversy On July 15, 2018, Sergeant Michael Chesna, of the Weymouth Police Department, was
shot and killed in the line of duty. Chesna had been pursuing a man suspected of shooting and
75 killing Vera Adams, 77, outside of her home. Sgt. Chesna was deeply embedded in both the
Weymouth and South Shore public safety communities.76 Memorials displayed in his honor are
inherently political due to his professional identity as a police officer as well as the direct visual
connections to thin blue line imagery. The intensely local and personal nature of the ongoing
memorialization of this police officer mirrors the intensely personal, historical, and identity- rooted nature of police violence towards black and brown Americans. This personalization of violence explains the intense vitriol generated by protesters and police. On July 16, 2018, one day after Chesna’s death, over 1,000 community members and several local politicians gathered at Weymouth High School to grieve and lend support to Chesna’s family at a candlelight vigil.77
74 Ibid 75 Souza, Scott. “Weymouth Sgt. Michael Chesna Remembered 2 Years After Death.” Weymouth, MA. Patch. July 15, 2020. https://patch.com/massachusetts/weymouth/weymouth-sgt-michael-chesna- remembered-2-years-after- death. 76 A lifelong resident of Weymouth, Massachusetts, Chesna served two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with the United States Army and was the recipient of a Purple Heart after being wounded during his service. (Libon, Daniel. “Obit: Officer Michael Chesna, 42.” Weymouth, MA Patch. Patch, July 17, 2018.) 77 Bentley, Jimmy. “1,000+ Attend Vigil For Fallen Weymouth Police Officer Chesna.” Weymouth, MA. Patch, July 17, 2018. https://patch.com/32assachusetts/weymouth/over-1-000-attend-vigil-fallen- weymouth-police-officer-chesna
Bolduc 32 Public safety officials in neighboring communities across the South Shore expressed their
support for Chesna’s family and the Weymouth Police Department: offering financial assistance,
sharing heartfelt written tributes, and displaying blue lights and the thin blue line flag outside of
their homes and on their vehicles.78
On July 15, 2020, two years after the death of Michael Chesna, firefighters in the town of
Hingham hung thin blue line flags on two of the Hingham Fire Department’s engines and a ladder truck.79 Max Giarusso, a local college student, asked the Hingham Board of Selectmen to
remove the flags on July 22, as he did not find it appropriate “for a public safety vehicle to don
such a politically-charged flag.”80 Shortly after Giarusso’s request, Hingham Police Chief Glenn
Olsson and Hingham Fire Chief Steve Murphy sent their respective departments a letter that expressed gratitude for their employees’ desire to honor the sacrifice of public safety colleagues, but also acknowledged that given the current context of the nationwide George Floyd protests, the thin blue line had taken on “a different political meaning that may be offensive to some.” The letter ordered that the flag be taken down from public safety vehicles, which were town property.81
On July 26, Cindy Doran Chesna, Sgt. Chesna’s widow, released a statement on
Facebook in which she decried the orders of Chief Olsson and Chief Murphy as “a personal
attack” on the memory of her late husband and everything that he stood for, and that “it has
become absolutely permitted and almost encouraged to despise police officers because of the job
78 Ibid 79 Smith, Tovia. “Thin Blue Line Flags Stir Controversy In Mass. Coastal Community.” NPR. NPR, July 31, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/07/31/897615425/thin-blue-line-flags-stir- controversy-in-mass-coastal-community. 80 Ibid 81 Ibid
Bolduc 33 they choose to do.”82 On July 27, the Hingham Firefighters Local 2398, a local union, released a
statement on Facebook, refusing to take down the thin blue line flag because it had “no political
message.”83 On July 28, the Hingham Board of Selectmen and Town Administrator Tom Mayo
clarified their position, expressing respect for public safety officials while also explaining that
flying the thin blue line flags on firetrucks “flew in the face of town practice, limiting flags
displayed on town property to U.S., state, and town flags, as well as a few military-related ones.”84 On the same day, around 80 local residents attended and provided tense, and at times,
emotional public comment at a Board of Selectmen meeting, where Selectman Joseph Fisher
read a statement from the board reminding community members that “displaying the thin blue
line flag was inconsistent with the Town’s flag practice…[and] was not based on any ill will
towards our Police heroes…[but instead] was a practice that had been applied in the prior month
to the rainbow [LGBTQ+] flag with the same result.”85 Community members provided public
comment that extended support to both the victims of police violence and systemic racism, as
well as to Sgt. Chesna’s family and community in Weymouth, calling for empathetic civil
discourse outside of social media.86
82 Doran-Chesna, Cindy. “Doran-Chesna Facebook Post.” Facebook, July 26, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/cindy.doranchesna/posts/10158460748731772. (Post has since been removed from Facebook, but researcher was able to save screenshots of post in November of 2020.) 83 “Hingham Firefighters Local 2398 Facebook Post.” Facebook, July 27, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/HFDLocal2398/posts/1562729030567916. 84 Office of the Board of Selectmen, Mary M Power, Michelle Monsegur, Tom Mayo, William C Ramsey, and Joseph M Fisher, Statement from the Hingham Board of Selectmen § (2020). https://www.hingham- ma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/10472/Board-of-Selectmen-Statement-July-28-2020?bidId=. 85 Board of Selectmen, Remote Meeting Via Telephone Conference Call: Transcript § (2020). (p.7) https://www.hingham-ma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_07282020-5719 . 86 Ibid, Pp. 8-11.
Bolduc 34 On the same day, following the Board of Selectmen meeting, protests and counter-
protests occurred outside of Hingham Town Hall. Both supporters and opponents of the thin blue
line flag and its symbolic significance displayed political signs and, at times, engaged in heated
arguments with one another while police officers attempted to control the crowd of about 100
people. A Hingham firetruck flying a thin blue line flag reportedly drove past the rally several
times, leading some residents to question why the town’s firefighters were “allowed to engage in
a political rally.”87 The question of the thin blue line flag’s place on Hingham town property had arose in response to the George Floyd protests within the community.
On July 30, Hingham Firefighters Local 2398 relented and complied with the flag
removal order, releasing a brief Facebook statement that outlined the agreement to remove the
flags from Hingham firetrucks, with the intention of donating the flags to the Weymouth Police
Department, which had agreed to fly them. The union stated that it “did not want to risk the
chance of having these flags be removed from the trucks in a disrespectful manner. The decision
was made to conduct the removal of the flags on our own terms to provide the highest level of
respect they deserve.”88 On the same day, the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts, a
statewide AFL-CIO union affiliate, released a statement announcing that it would be sending the
Hingham flag on a statewide tour, hanging from firetrucks “in communities that support public
safety.”89
87 Cooney, Audrey. “Hingham Officials Double down on Order to Remove 'Thin Blue Line' Flags.” The Patriot Ledger. July 29, 2020. https://www.patriotledger.com/story/news/local/2020/07/29/Hingham- officials-double-down-on-order-to-remove-thin-blue-line-flags/114503006/. 88 “Hingham Firefighters Local 2398 Facebook Post.” Facebook, July 30, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/HFDLocal2398/photos/a.467194916788005/1565322790308540/. 89 Smith, Tovia. “Thin Blue Line Flags Stir Controversy In Mass. Coastal Community.” NPR. NPR, July 31, 2020.
Bolduc 35 On July 31, Hingham residents held a pro-police rally, with counter-protesters also in attendance. On August 2, the Hingham Unity Council organized a No Place for Hate rally at the
Hingham Bathing Beach, attended by around 100 people. Emmanuel Oppong, one of Hingham’s few black residents, was at the rally and stated that, to him, the flag represented his fear of becoming another victim of police brutality.90 Pro-police protesters held a Back the Blue rally at
the same time across town at the Hingham Shipyard, where several protesters displayed imagery
supportive of President Donald Trump, in addition to signs supporting the thin blue line flag.91
Hingham Police Chief Glenn Olsson resigned on August 4, citing a desire to spend more time with family after the fatigue of leading the Hingham Police Department through the Covid-
19 pandemic and the flag controversy.92 On that same day, Hingham Firefighters Local 2398 cast
a symbolic unanimous vote of no-confidence for Town Administrator Tom Mayo, to no effect.93
On August 16, Hingham residents held another Back the Blue rally on Route 3A on Lincoln St. in Hingham, with counter-protesters supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement also in attendance.94
90 DiFazio, Joe. “Hingham's 'Thin Blue Line' Flag Continues to Divide Town.” The Patriot Ledger. The Patriot Ledger, August 1, 2020. https://www.patriotledger.com/story/special/2020/08/01/hinghams-thin-blue-line-flag- continues-to-divide-town. 91 Ibid 92 [email protected], Jackson Cote. “Hingham Police Chief Retires amid 'Thin Blue Line' Flags Controversy.” masslive, August 4, 2020. https://www.masslive.com/police- fire/2020/08/hingham-police-chief-glenn-olsson-retires- amid-controversy-surrounding-removal-of-thin-blue-line-flags-from-town-firetrucks.html. 93 Ibid 94 DiFazio, Joe. “Dividing Line: Thin Blue Line Flag Source of Division on South Shore.” Wicked Local. The Patriot Ledger, August 21, 2020. https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/special/2020/08/21/dividing-line-flag-creates- controversy-division-on-south-shore/42569847/.
Bolduc 36
Policy Changes & Actions Taken In the wake of the George Floyd protests, St. John’s Church began hosting Sacred
Ground, a 10-week racial and social justice workshop series. The Hingham Unity Council has
continued to host programming and other activities dedicated to anti-racist education and policy
change, including “Schools and Curriculum,” “Community Programming,” “Affordable
Housing,” and “Policies and Activism” working groups meeting regularly via video conferencing
platforms.95 The Hingham Public Schools committed itself to launching an Equity and Inclusion
Plan in September 2020, with the working group in charge of this endeavor chaired by Assistant
Superintendent Dr. James LaBillois. Johnny Cole, Director of Equity and Student Supports for
the Lexington Public Schools, hosted an implicit bias professional development workshop for
Hingham Public Schools faculty and administrators over the summer of 2020.96
Marlborough Profile The city of Marlborough sits at the far western edge of the Greater Boston area in the
MetroWest corridor of Massachusetts. The community’s identity is rooted in its historical role as
a rest stop for travelers and center of industrial innovation and manufacturing. As the population
of the Massachusetts Bay Colony grew throughout the 18th century, Marlborough’s location on
the heavily-traveled Boston Post Road made it a popular rest stop. The industrialist Samuel
95 “Events Archive - Page 2 of 6.” Hingham Unity Council, n.d. https://hinghamunity.org/events/list/page/2/?eventDisplay=past. 96 Petersen, Sue. “Seeking Solutions: Despite Hingham's Welcoming Feel, Racism Sometimes Rears Its Head ~ Hingham Anchor.” Hingham Anchor, June 14, 2020. https://hinghamanchor.com/seeking-solutions-despite-hinghams-welcoming-feel-racism- sometimes-rears-its-head%E2%80%8B/.
Bolduc 37 Boyd, known as the “father of the city,” established a shoe manufacturing business in 1836, and
by 1890 the population had grown to 14,000 as Marlborough became one of the nation’s major
shoe manufacturing centers, producing boots for Union soldiers during the Civil War.
Marlborough’s reputation as an industrial center attracted an influx of immigrant laborers,
hailing from Quebec, Ireland, Italy, and Greece in the late 19th century.
Marlborough has been forced to wrestle with its role in the legacy of slavery. As the
Massachusetts Bay colony, and later the state of Massachusetts, continued to grow and develop
throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, Marlborough’s role as a crossroads of trade and travel
inevitably made it community that both profited from and actively participated in the slave trade.
Reverend Smith, of the First Church of Marlborough, was the owner of two slaves, a mother and
a daughter named Dinah and Dill, who Smith sold to a parishioner before leaving the
community. Dinah and Dill were freed in 1783, after the Supreme Court of Massachusetts ruled
that slavery was illegal.97
The construction of the Massachusetts Turnpike (Interstate 90) in 1957, along with the
concurrent growth of Interstates 495 and 290, continued Marlborough’s long tradition as a cross-
roads of travel and industry, enabling the development of the city’s rapidly growing high
technology and specialized electronics industries.98 Marlborough has flourished under local pro-
business and pro-development policies, which, along with easy access to major highways and a
central location between New England’s two largest cities, has attracted local employers such as
97 Young, Lauren. “Marlborough Residents Mark Juneteenth with Rally on Union Common.” Milford Daily News. The Milford Daily News, June 20, 2020. https://www.milforddailynews.com/story/news/local/2020/06/20/marlborough-residents-mark- juneteenth-with-rally- on-union-common/42455839/. 98 “About Marlborough.” Marlborough MA, n.d. https://www.marlborough-ma.gov/about- marlborough.
Bolduc 38 TJX, Raytheon, Hewlett-Packard, Quest Diagnostics, and Fidelity Investments. The city’s high
technology sector has brought a substantial immigrant population to the community. This highly-
educated and ethnically diverse population informs much Marlborough’s political liberalism.
Marlborough has a population of 39,597, with a median household income of $79,228
and 6.3 percent of residents living below the poverty line. In terms of levels of educational
attainment, 92.8 percent of adults have at least graduated from high school, 59.5 percent have
completed less than a bachelor’s degree and 40.5 percent have at least a bachelor’s degree. 57.1
percent of the housing stock in Marlborough is owner-occupied, and 42.9 percent is rented.
Marlborough is relatively diverse in comparison to the rest of the state, with 78.9 percent of the population identifying as white, 3 percent as black or African American, 5.9 percent as Asian, 14
percent as Hispanic, and 4.6 percent as two or more races.99
Marlborough is represented in the U.S. House of Representatives by Democrat Lori
Trahan of the 3rd Massachusetts House District. Its two state representatives on Beacon Hill are
Democrats Danielle Gregoire and Carmine Gentile, and its state senator is Democrat James
Eldridge. At the municipal level, it is run by Mayor Arthur Vigeant and a city council comprised
of four at-large seats and fourteen total ward councilors, with each ward represented by two councilors. Marlborough has remained solidly Democratic in the past three general presidential elections, with 56 percent of the city voting for Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election
(4.65 percent less than the Massachusetts 2012 state average of 60.65 percent), to 57 percent of the city voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016 (3 percent less than the MA 2016 state average of 60
99 “U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Marlborough City, Massachusetts; United States.” Census Bureau QuickFacts, n.d.https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/marlboroughcitymassachusetts,US/PST045219.
Bolduc 39 percent), to 65 percent of the city voting for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election (0.6
percent less than the MA 2020 state average of 65.6 percent).100
Social Conflict Timeline The Marlborough community responded to the murder of George Floyd with a series of
local protests, the first of which occurred on June 2 on Marlborough’s Union Common, close to
City Hall. Organizers who held a smaller demonstration in the same spot the previous day, June
1, had faced threats and verbal attacks. Protesters held a peaceful gathering on June 2, where they received honks of support from passing cars and listened to a slate of speeches from community leaders, including local politicians and solitary confinement abolition activists.101
The protest organizer, Marlborough resident Vickie Paquette, stated that “it’s a hostile climate
when you’re standing out here” and recounted how “at least one man intentionally coughed on
her, an act she took as being extremely aggressive…during the COVID-19 crisis,” while another
man “threatened to run her over with his car if she continued protesting.”102
During the June 2 protest on Union Common, a woman pulled up to the crowd in her
vehicle and began arguing with protester Derrick DeSousa, who is black. The argument culminated in the woman hurling a series of racial slurs at DeSousa.103 Protesters in
Marlborough were aware of the significance of their suburban protest in the midst of a national
movement for racial justice, with protester Kathy Ekdahl, a Hudson resident, stating that “we
100 Fujiwara, Daigo. “Map: How Your Mass. City Or Town Voted In Dozens Of Recent Elections.” Map. WBUR News. WBUR, March 19, 2018. 101 Dakota Antelman. “Marlborough Protesters Gather after Facing Scattered Threats Day Before.” Community Advocate, June 7, 2020. https://www.communityadvocate.com/2020/06/03/Marlborough-protesters-gather-after- facing- scattered-threats-day-before/. 102 Ibid 103 Ibid
Bolduc 40 [suburbanites] don’t really have the same experiences as urban people…a lot of us are in denial
or have never experienced any form of racism, so we can’t change this unless everybody is
involved.”104 Protests continued on Union Common on June 3 and 5, with a Marlborough
Against Racism Peace Vigil hosted by local activist group One Marlborough on June 4.
On June 7, the Marlborough Police Department released a statement responding to the
police killing of George Floyd, stating that they were “outraged and saddened by the recent
tragic events in Minneapolis” and that they “accept the difficult role we will play in this process
[in bringing an end to systemic racism and reforming policing in the United States]”, pledging to
“work together towards better days where all residents and visitors will feel safe, accepted, and
protected.”105 On June 9, Marlborough’s Mayor, Arthur Vigeant, released a statement responding to the police killing of George Floyd and the resultant national protest movement, reassuring residents that he was upset by displays of police brutality and blaming “extremist responses on both sides [of the issue of systemic racism and police brutality] making it difficult for the average citizen to know who to support or what to believe.”106 Mayor Vigeant rejected
the idea of defunding the police, stating that “under no circumstances will I ever consider such a
proposal as long as I hold the Office of the Mayor.”107 Vigeant further affirmed his support for
the Marlborough Police Department and promised to work with local law enforcement to
104 Ibid 105 McNamara, Neal. “Marlborough Police Release Statement On George Floyd Killing.” Marlborough, MA. Patch. June 8, 2020. https://patch.com/massachusetts/marlborough/marlborough-police-release-statement-george- floyd- killing. 106 Office of the Mayor, Arthur Vigeant, Statement from Mayor Arthur G. Vigeant, City of Marlborough, MA § (2020) https://www.marlborough- ma.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif3411/f/uploads/statement_june_2020_1.pdf 107 Ibid
Bolduc 41 improve community relations and officer training protocols in the future, a stance for which he
received backlash from local activists, who claimed that he was not doing enough to support the black community.108
On June 19, the local racial justice activism group, One Marlborough, led by Jaime
Andrade, organized a Juneteenth Freedom Tribute—a celebration of the Juneteenth holiday—on
Marlborough’s Union Common. It was attended by around 60 people, with the main goal of the
rally being to educate the Marlborough community on the origins of Juneteenth, the white-
washing of American history, and Marlborough’s own historical role in perpetuating slavery.109
The rally featured thirteen speakers and singers, with One Marlborough calling on local city
leaders to make Juneteenth an official holiday.110 Andrade also commended Marlborough High
School’s class of 2021 for their persistence in protesting racial injustice by protesting on Union
Common in support of the Black Lives Matter movement for a two-week stretch of time between
June 5 and June 19.111
On August 1, about 75 protesters marched through downtown Marlborough in solidarity
with the Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, Oregon. The march was organized by One
Marlborough and began at Union Common, with protesters continuing onto Main Street and
Granger Boulevard. Protesters marched two laps around the downtown area, chanting “Black
108 Young, Lauren. “Marlborough Residents Mark Juneteenth with Rally on Union Common.” Milford Daily News. The Milford Daily News, June 20, 2020. https://www.milforddailynews.com/story/news/local/2020/06/20/marlborough-residents-mark- juneteenth-with-rally- on-union-common/42455839/. 109 Ibid 110 Speakers and singers included Joseph Andrade, Pastor Kaz Bem from the First Church of Marlborough, Pastor Joe Graumann from St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church, Robert Preciado, Danny Wright, Jake Baker, Kevin Foster, Emily Wilde, Janica Pierre, David Leo McNair, Meyer Stratham, and Jasmina Lee. 111 Ibid
Bolduc 42 Lives Matter” and “no justice, no peace”, as well as the names of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor,
and other black Americans killed by police.112
Policy Changes & Actions Taken One Marlborough, a local activist group committed to making meaningful systemic
change in the community’s public institutions, has emerged as a major local organizing force.
Originally named “Part of the Solution,” it emerged as a Facebook group on May 29. On its
Facebook page, it introduces itself as “an organization of residents in the [Marlborough] area
advocating to end systemic racism and come together as one community.”113 One Marlborough’s
website outlines the goals of the organization as “[a commitment] to making Marlborough a
place where diversity, equity, and inclusion is at the forefront of every organization and
institution while working to dismantle systems of oppression.”114 The group’s co-chairs, Mike
Joseph and Pamela McNair, seek to use the organization to create a place for anti-racist work, activism, and community-building in suburbia.115 One Marlborough’s stated goals are to:
meet regularly with the Marlborough Police Chief and Community Policing Unit
to obtain and maintain information regarding the profiles of people being pulled
over, questioned, and arrested, and other types of police calls…meet regularly
with the mayor of Marlborough and establish a working relationship with the
Office…[and] meet with the superintendent of the Marlborough Public Schools
112 Ibid 113 “ONE MARLBOROUGH.” Facebook, May 29, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/groups/onemarlborough/about. 114 “About Us.” ONE MARLBOROUGH, n.d. http://www.onemarlborough.com/about-us.html. 115 Smith, Liz. “Activism In Suburbia: Art, Anti-Racism, and Community In Marlborough, MA.” Brain Arts Org, July 24, 2020. https://brain-arts.org/blog?post=activism-in-suburbia-art-anti- racism-and-community-in- marlborough-ma.
Bolduc 43 and establish what needs to be done to make students and parents feel valued and
not marginalized because of their differences.116
Members and volunteers meet regularly in small committees via video conference to keep track of local institutional changes within the policy realms of the judiciary, municipal government, and education in Marlborough.
Everett Profile The city of Everett is located directly north of Boston, in Essex County. Everett has a
storied history as a major 20th century industrial center, with its plentiful waterfront property
making it prime real estate for companies such as Monsanto Chemical, Colonial Beacon Oil, and
New England Coke Works.117 Industry stagnated with the onset of the Great Depression in the
1930s, but was revived by increased production needs during the Second World War, when the
General Electric Company was awarded a government defense contract and bought land for an
industrial plant in Everett in 1941. In 1942, the H.K. Porter Company opened a plant that
produced railroad locomotives, and in 1943 the Boston Edison Company established a plant in
Everett; the presence of the natural gas distributor Distrigas, established in 1971, has maintained
Everett’s role as a major energy manufacturing center in the modern day.118 The Encore Boston
Harbor Casino, which opened its doors in the summer of 2019 following an expensive
construction process, is also a major employer in the city.
116 “About Us.” ONE MARLBOROUGH. 117 “City of Everett 1892-1970,” n.d. http://cityofeverett.com/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/132. 118 Ibid
Bolduc 44 Everett has a population of 46,451 people, with a median household income of $60,482 and 13 percent of residents living below the poverty line. In terms of levels of educational attainment 81 percent of adults have at least graduated from high school, 79.7 percent have completed less than a bachelor’s degree and 20.3 percent have at least a bachelor’s degree. 37.9 percent of the housing stock in Everett is owner-occupied, and 62.1 percent is rented. Everett is incredibly diverse in comparison to the rest of the state, with 59.2 percent of the population identifying as white, 19 percent as black or African American, 6.9 percent as Asian, 26.5 percent as Hispanic or Latino, and 5 percent as two or more races.119
Everett is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse communities in the state of
Massachusetts. Following the end of the Civil War, an influx of black migrants from the
American south as part of the Great Migration spurred the development of a sizable black middle class in Everett.120 Since the 1980s, the city has been a popular destination for a professional class of Haitian immigrants leaving Boston for the suburbs.121 By the end of the 20th century, a substantial Brazilian community has also established itself in the area, drawn to the city in the
1990s by low-cost housing and opportunities to buy homes and open small businesses.122
However, despite Everett’s diversity, its local political, educational, and public safety institutions remain largely dominated by white people who are unrepresentative of the larger community. The Everett City Council has been particularly notorious for its treatment of
119 “U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Everett City, Massachusetts; United States.” Census Bureau QuickFacts, n.d. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/everettcitymassachusetts,US/PST045219. 120 “City of Everett 1892-1970,” n.d. http://cityofeverett.com/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/132. 121 MAMcIntosh. “A History of Immigration to Boston: Eras, Ethnic Groups, and Places.” Brewminate, May 28, 2019. https://brewminate.com/a-history-of-immigration-to-boston-eras- ethnic-groups-and-places/. 122 Ibid
Bolduc 45 councilwoman Gerly Adrien, who made history in the fall of 2019 by garnering the largest vote total of any at-large candidate in the race to become the first Black woman to sit on the Everett
City Council.123 Councilwoman Adrien has been an outspoken voice for racial justice and progressive policy since taking office, an uncomfortable change for more entrenched members of
Everett’s municipal leadership, which had previously “been exclusively white and often handed down by generation.”124 Adrien’s proposal for the establishment of a committee on racism was
“rejected by her fellow councilors…and one took umbrage at the very notion of racism in
Everett, challenging Adrien’s assertion that constituents have told her they feel unwelcome in
City Hall.”125
Everett is represented in the U.S. House of Representatives by Democrat Katherine Clark of the 5th Massachusetts House District. Its state representative on Beacon Hill is Democrat
Joseph McGonagle, and its state senator is Democrat Sal DiDomenico. At the municipal level, it is run by Mayor Carlo DeMaria and a city council comprised of five at-large councilors and six ward councilors. Everett has remained solidly Democratic in the past three general presidential elections, with 71 percent of the city voting for Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election
(10.35 percent more than the Massachusetts 2012 state average of 60.65 percent), 66 percent of the city voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016 (6 percent more than the MA 2016 state average of 60
123 Gerly Adrien’s fellow Everett City councilors have called her “a problem…who has been trying to destroy our city since day one” (Council President Rosa DiFlorio), and “the cancer on our City Council” (former councilor Stephen Simonelli). (https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/26/metro/everett-first-black-woman-historically-white- council-stands-alone/) 124 Ibid 125 Ibid
Bolduc 46 percent), and 70 percent of the city voting for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election (4.4
percent more than the MA 2020 state average of 65.6 percent).126
Social Conflict Timeline
Local leaders of Everett’s municipal institutions and leaders of the city’s black faith
community responded to the murder of George Floyd and other black people at the hands of
police by holding an online vigil on June 2, hosted by Mayor Carlo DeMaria and City Councilor
Gerly Adrien.127 The virtual vigil provided a space to honor George Floyd and discuss
addressing structural racism in Everett. Reverend Myrlande Derosiers of the Everett Haitian
Community Center opened the vigil with a prayer, followed by Mayor DeMaria asserting that he
stands with the Black Lives Matter movement, making clear that the behavior of the Minneapolis
police officers involved in Floyd’s death would never be tolerated by the Everett Police
Department. Everett Chief of Police Steve Mazzie urged community members to “stop pointing
fingers…[and] roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty doing the hard work.” Chief
Mazzie’s sentiment was echoed by Bishop Robert Brown, of Zion Church Ministries, a frequent
advisor to the Everett Police Department, who urged young members of the civil rights and
Black Lives Matter movement to “stop talking and start walking.” City Councilor Gerly Adrien
discussed the prevalence of systemic racism in the Greater Boston area, stating that “so many
times white residents get defensive or water down the issues of racism built into education,
finance, policing, health care, and other systems in Everett and beyond.”128
126 Fujiwara, Daigo. “Map: How Your Mass. City Or Town Voted In Dozens Of Recent Elections.” Map. WBUR News. 127 Also in attendance were City Council President Rosa DiFlorio, state Senator Sal DiDomenico, State Representative Joe McGonagle, Minister Jean Daniel, and Dr. Omar Easy, Everett High School’s executive assistant principal for Academics.
128 Daniel, Seth. “Everett Community Hold Online Vigil to Remember George Floyd, Talk about Addressing Structural Racism.” Everett Independent, June 10, 2020.
Bolduc 47 On June 7, younger members of Everett’s black community organized A Moment to
Breathe: A Black Youth-Led Vigil, from 6 to 8 pm at Glendale Park. Between 150 to 200 people
attended the vigil, which included speakers delivering eulogies for George Floyd and discussing
systemic racism and police violence more generally. The vigil was organized by local activists
Fanelson Monexant, Fabrice Jacques, and Lorna Closeil, with a community prayer for change led
by Derby Farncilme. Attendees took a knee for 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence, followed by
several young people, mostly black and Hispanic residents in their 20s and 30s, performing
poetry, spoken word pieces, and sharing their personal experiences with racism and
discriminatory policing and racist treatment during their time in the Everett Public School
system.129 Rothsaida Sylvaince, a recent Everett High School graduate, vocalized the tension she
felt between celebrating her achievements as an outstanding student, while also recognizing the
self-disavowal that resulted from “adapting…to living in a white world by minimizing myself.”
Kim Walsh, a former student at the Pioneer Charter School, recalled having the police called on
her when she was a teenager waiting for her younger sister outside of the school building whilst
wearing her school uniform. Everett police officers told her to leave and threatened to arrest her,
and that “they affirmed that it was because she was black.”130
The youth-led vigil was a direct response to the city government’s previous online vigil,
which organizers of the in-person vigil said was not representative of the actual sentiment of
black people, and especially black youth, in Everett with regards to systemic racism. No local
http://everettindependent.com/2020/06/10/Everett-community-hold-online-vigil-to-remember- george-floyd-talk-about-addressing-structural-racism/. 129 Daniel, Seth. “Scores of Residents Turn out for Peaceful, Youth-Led Vigil Against Racism.” Everett Independent, June 10, 2020. http://everettindependent.com/2020/06/10/scores-of- residents-turn-out-for-peaceful-youth-led-vigil- against-racism/. 130 Ibid
Bolduc 48 elected officials were in attendance.131 Sabine Jacques, a speaker at the in-person vigil, remarked
there were several community members who didn’t believe that young people could not hold a
protest or a vigil without violence or disruption. Jacques stated that local leaders in Everett
needed to
check [their] implicit biases…[and] racism, [because] we [the young Black people
of the community] are constantly being spoken for as if we aren’t experts of our
own truth” and that, “the online vigil was a disgrace. No one from the community
was asked to be part of it. This [the in-person vigil] is community. Our voices, our
breath, and our lives matter.132
On June 17, the Everett Independent reported that Everett High School teacher Robert
LeGrow was being placed under investigation by the Everett school committee and local
authorities after allegedly posting tweets on his personal Twitter account that appeared to
promote violence towards Black Lives Matter supporters. One of LeGrow’s tweets urged
President Donald Trump to “call in the Marines [on Black Lives Matter protesters] and shoot to
kill,” while another tweet, in response to President Trump being taken to a White House bunker
during May 31 protests in Washington, D.C., read, “This is war. Kill the enemy.”133 Current and
former Everett High School students, many of whom had attended the larger racial justice
protests in Boston, and several of whom had directly organized the June 7 youth-led vigil in
131 Mahoney, Jim, and Josh Resnek. “Local Youth Remember George Floyd, Others during Peaceful Vigil.” Everett Leader Herald, June 11, 2020 https://everettleader.com/2020/06/10/local-youth-remember-george-floyd-others- during- peaceful-vigil/. 132 Ibid 133 Daniel, Seth. “Everett High Teacher Questioned about Tweets.” Everett Independent, June 17, 2020. https://everettindependent.com/2020/06/17/everett-high-teacher-questioned-about- tweets/.
Bolduc 49 Glendale Park, felt that LeGrow’s tweets were “advocating violence against them in principle.”
Student leader Amera Lila stated that she “felt it would be nearly impossible for any student— particularly given the [racially diverse] demographics of Everett’s current school system—to feel comfortable in a class run by LeGrow” and remarked that racism is “embedded at Everett High
School with a lot of teachers [not just LeGrow].”134 Current and former students reiterated the need for the Everett Public Schools to hire more teachers and administrators of color, and were heartened by the hiring of Superintendent Priya Tahiliani, who is herself a woman of color.
Several students scheduled a meeting with Supt. Tahiliani to discuss issues of racism within the local school district and to help develop a new initiative aimed towards improving equity, decreasing bias, and taking anti-racist approach to education in the Everett Public Schools.135
Policy Changes & Actions Taken On July 22, the Everett Education Coalition (EEC), a partnership of community members and activists, released a statement of anti-racism solidarity with students in a letter to the editor of the Everett Independent. The EEC had met with Everett High School faculty and administration, school committee members, and Superintendent Tahiliani to discuss “specific and concrete anti-racist solutions [to issues of injustice] with the Everett Public Schools, among other problems.” Moving forward, the EEC asked major stakeholders to specifically identify the ways in which racism has manifested itself in the Everett Public Schools, namely by
“avoid[ing]the ‘toxic positivity’ of proclaiming that structural racism is not a problem in
134 Ibid 135 Ibid
Bolduc 50 Everett,” which appears to be a prevalent issue within the city’s educational and civic
institutions.136
Everett High School senior Anne Laurie Pierre’s existing club, Empowering Young
Black Excellence (EYBE), which she founded in 2018, has seen its membership and virtual
programming attendance surge in the wake of the George Floyd protests, even attracting a
racially diverse array of students from the neighboring communities of Chelsea, Malden, and
Saugus. Students, administrators and faculty at Everett High School have become involved with
EYBE, helping host virtual art expositions and speakers who touch on topics ranging from black
history and experience to institutional racism and generational trauma.137 Within the municipal
realm, on September 22, the City of Everett advertised an opening for a director of Diversity,
Equity, and Inclusion, a new department created by Mayor Carlo DeMaria that had been
discussed and planned for prior to the George Floyd protests.138
Wareham Profile The town of Wareham is located in southeastern Massachusetts, just west of Cape Cod, in
Plymouth County. It is a largely agricultural community, with the local economy dominated by
the cranberry industry. Wareham has a population of 22,745 people, with a median household
136 Staff, Independent. “Letter to the Editor: Everett Education Coalition Statement of Anti- Racism Solidarity with Students.” Everett Independent, July 22, 2020. http://everettindependent.com/2020/07/22/letter-to-the-editor-69/. 137 Quinn, Cristina. “'We Get To Celebrate Our Blackness': An Everett Teen's Club For Discussing Race Catches On.” News. GBH, February 22, 2021. https://www.wgbh.org/news/education/2021/02/22/we-get-to-celebrate-our- blackness-an-everett-teens-club-for-discussing-race-catches-on. 138 Daniel, Seth. “City Advertises Position for Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.” Everett Independent, September 22, 2020. https://everettindependent.com/2020/09/22/city- advertises-position-for-director-of-diversity- equity-and-inclusion-2/.
Bolduc 51 income of $63,365 and 11.3 percent of residents living below the poverty line. In terms of levels of educational attainment, 91.4 percent of adults have at least graduated from high school, 76.7 percent have completed less than a bachelor’s degree and 23.4 percent have at least a bachelor’s degree. 73.8 percent of the housing stock in Wareham is owner-occupied, and 26.2 percent is rented. Wareham is extremely homogenous in terms of racial diversity, with 83.9 percent of the population identifying as white, 2.4 percent as black or African American, 0.9 percent as Asian,
4 percent as Hispanic or Latino, and 5.2 percent as two or more races.139
Wareham is more politically conservative than the state of Massachusetts as a whole, which on average leans heavily Democratic. Its state representative on Beacon Hill is Republican
Susan Gifford, and its state senator is Democrat Marc Pacheco. At the municipal level, it is run by Town Moderator Claire L. Smith and a Board of Selectmen chaired by Peter Teitelbaum, clerked by Judith Whiteside, and comprised of councilors James Munise, Alan Slavin, and
Patrick Tropeano. Wareham has remained slightly Democratic in the past three general presidential elections, with former President Barack Obama winning 55 percent of the vote in the
2012 presidential general election (5.65 percent less than the MA 2012 state average), Hillary
Clinton winning 47 percent of the vote in 2016 (13 percent less Democratic than the MA 2016 state average) and Joe Biden winning 54 percent of the vote in the 2020 presidential contest
(11.6 percent less Democratic than the MA 2020 state average).140
139 “U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Wareham Town, Plymouth County, Massachusetts; United States.” n.d. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/warehamtownplymouthcountymassachusetts,US/P ST045219. 140 Fujiwara, Daigo. “Map: How Your Mass. City Or Town Voted In Dozens Of Recent Elections.” Map. WBUR News.
Bolduc 52 Social Conflict Timeline On June 1, the Bourne/Wareham Race Amity Committee held a small, socially distanced
protest at the park on Main St. in Buzzards Bay, with the goal of promoting peace and unity. The
committee was formed in 1990s, following the national outcry sparked by the Los Angeles
Police Department’s beating of Rodney King.141
On June 2, the Wareham Area Clergy Association and the Tri-Town Against Racism group hosted the Communities for Peace, Justice, Healing and Heart Changes vigil at the
Wareham High School track. The vigil, which was attended by about 100 people, opened with a prayer and playing of the song “Waymaker” by Pastor Gerald Fernandes. Pastor Virginia Goode-
Doran, of the United Wesley Church in Wareham, then led a community prayer that emphasized
standing up to injustice and listening to those in need. Pastor Dan Bernier, of the Church of the
Good Shepherd, spoke about the “wound of racism” that is deeply rooted in the United States,
acknowledging that “communities of color have been disproportionately impacted by the
coronavirus.” Local high school senior Jendell Teixeira spoke to the crowd, describing her
experiences with racism, which have been “embedded in her everyday life as a black student in a
predominantly white school district,” stating that “[racism] isn’t just something that happens
down south or in other cities and states. It’s in Massachusetts, in the Southcoast heavy, and now
is the time for us to take a stand.”142 Teixeira called for the Old Rochester Regional School
District to address racism through the hiring of a more diverse teaching staff and the
modification of the curriculum so as to better amplify the voices and experiences of black
141 Shelford, Chloe. “Protest Calls for Friendship between Races.” Wareham, June 1, 2 https://wareham.theweektoday.com/article/protest-calls-friendship-between-races/48168. 142 Borges, Kenneth, and Tim Seeberger. “Community Gathers to Pray, Speak out against Racism.” Wareham, June 2, 2020. https://wareham.theweektoday.com/article/community- gathers-pray-speak-out-against-racism/48207.
Bolduc 53 historical figures and characters. She also urged the white people in attendance to make an effort
to educate themselves on racism instead of relying on the emotional labor of people of color.143
On June 4, several Wareham residents, including the Wareham Community Youth
Empowerment organization, attended a large protest at Buzzards Bay. The protest was organized by Sturgis Regional Charter School student Joycelyn Tompkins, of New Bedford. Around 600 people attended the protest, which began at 2 pm along the Cape Cod Canal and concluded in a march to the Bourne Police station.144 Michael Mendes, the son of a black police officer in
Wareham, attended the protest. In an interview with the local press, Mendes recalled how his
father would often remark that to the world “he’s a black man first, and a police officer
second.”145
On June 5, a group of about 25 protesters gathered at Onset Pier in Wareham for a protest, displaying signs expressing support for the Black Lives Matter movement and decrying systemic racism and police brutality. Passing drivers gave honks of support, and the local press spoke to Kathy Ayala, an indigenous woman, United States military veteran, and Wareham resident, who described her experiences with racism and discrimination, growing up on the
Southcoast and serving in the armed forces.146
On June 6, an estimated 400 protesters marched from Onset Pier and Besse Park to the
Wareham Police station. At 6 pm, around 250 protesters gathered in Besse Park, converging at
143 Ibid 144 Rausch, Michael J. “Peaceful Rally Draws Hundreds to Buzzards Bay.” The Bourne Enterprise, June 5, 2020. https://www.capenews.net/bourne/news/peaceful-rally-draws- hundreds-to-buzzards-bay/article_a1357615-780e-538f-a7a9-6c48f2719806.html. 145 Rausch, Michael J. “Peaceful Rally Draws Hundreds to Buzzards Bay.” The Bourne Enterprise, June 5, 2020 146 Shelford, Chloe. “Black Lives Matter Protest Comes to Onset.” Wareham, June 5, 2020. https://wareham.theweektoday.com/article/black-lives-matter-protest-comes-onset/48257.
Bolduc 54 7pm with a group of about 20 to 30 young people who had started their march at Onset Pier.
From Besse Park, the protesters marched along Main St and Route 28, arriving at the Wareham police station around 7:30 pm. The protest originating at Onset Pier was organized by Jazzy
Andrade, 18, through social media posts and word-of-mouth.147 Protesters ranged in age, from
toddlers to elderly community members, holding hand-made signs that expressed support for the
Black Lives Matter movement and honored victims of police brutality. Although there was a
heavy police presence throughout the route, the protesters remained peaceful. They received
honks of support from passing cars during their march and maintained an “almost party-like atmosphere,” with one protester playing music from a speaker attached to the back of his bicycle.148
There had been tension in the Wareham community prior to the protests, with rumors
circulating online—and particularly on Facebook—claiming that between 5,000 to 7,000 out-of-
towners were planning to stage a march in Wareham. Businesses in the downtown area boarded
up their windows prior to the protests, as did the downtown police substation operated by the
Onset Fire District, which also removed all of its engines from the Main St. station earlier in the
day. Speculation that the Wareham Police Department had called in armored cars from the
National Guard after a reported—but unconfirmed by local officials—sighting of the vehicles
around 4 pm added to the apprehension. 149
147 Shelford, Chloe, and Andrew W Griffith. “Protesters March from Onset, Besse Park to Police Station.” Wareham, June 6, 2020. https://wareham.theweektoday.com/article/protesters-march- onset-besse-park-police- station/48266#&gid=1&pid=29. 148 Ibid 149 Griffith, Andrew W. “Businesses on Main Street Board up Ahead of Evening Protests.” Wareham, June 6, 2020. https://wareham.theweektoday.com/article/businesses-main-street- board-ahead-evening-protests/48264.
Bolduc 55 After arriving at the Wareham Police station, protesters listened to speakers, including
Jendell Teixeira, who called for justice for George Floyd and for Malcolm Garcia, a New
Bedford teenager who was killed by police in 2012. Protesters demanded that police officers standing in front of the station join them in taking a knee to honor George Floyd, but the officers remained silent and standing. Wareham Police Chief John Walcek then met the protesters in front of the station, but refused to kneel with them after they personally asked him to do so.
Chief Walcek walked in and out of the station several times before returning to address the crowd directly at 7:45 pm. Walcek did not speak about systemic racism within the criminal justice system or express solidarity with the protesters. He instead spoke of his own personal character, claiming that he treats people with respect and dignity, and that, because of his devout
Catholicism, the only place he kneels is in church.
Protesters continued to call for Walcek to kneel, and then began calling for Lt. Walter
Correia to kneel, but were once again met with a refusal. At 8 pm, the crowd of protesters began to chant “no justice, no peace, no racist-ass police.” At 8:10 pm, a Wareham police officer,
Detective Karl Baptiste, kneeled. Detective Bapiste, a black man who was raised in Wareham, stated that he chose to kneel because “I’m part of the community. They’re part of me.” Detective
Dean Decas was the second police offer to kneel, stating that he chose to do so because it was
“the right thing to do.” A third, unidentified police officer also knelt and observed 8 minutes and
46 seconds of silence with protesters, who then dispersed.150
150 Borges, Kenneth, and Chloe Shelford. “Police Asked to Take a Knee - Some Do.” Wareham, June 6, 2020. https://wareham.theweektoday.com/article/chief-john-walcek-refuses-take-knee- protesters/48267.
Bolduc 56 Policy Changes & Actions Taken Prior to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and George Floyd protests of summer 2020,
the Bourne/Wareham Race Amity Committee, in a collaboration with the Wareham-based
Church of the Good Shepherd, had been working with local public middle schools to help design
and implement “anti-racist and pro-amity education,” an effort spearheaded by the organization
Race Amity Massachusetts.151
The Tri-Town Against Racism group is a coalition of local community members, three of
whom are black and three of whom are white, formed with the goal of addressing systemic
racism and eliminating racist incidents in the Tri-Town school district. Margaret Elaine, the
group’s coordinator, outlined its three major areas of focus: “education, exposure, and
awareness.” Barbara Sullivan, the organizer of the June 2 vigil and co-founder of the
organization, has encouraged community members to submit “war stories” detailing their
experiences with racism in the local school district to the Tri-Town Against Racism Facebook
page, in an effort to demonstrate the pervasiveness and severity of the issue.152 The Old
Rochester Regional School district has released a statement to the community acknowledging its
past and present issues with racism, denouncing the racist actions taken by individuals within the
school district, and committing itself to anti-racist action in the future.153
151 Shelford, Chloe. “Protest Calls for Friendship between Races.” Wareham, June 1, 2020. 152 Borges, Kenneth, and Tim Seeberger. “Community Gathers to Pray, Speak out against Racism.” Wareham, June 2, 2020. 153 Ibid
Bolduc 57 Chapter 3: Analysis of Sociopolitical Dynamics
Hingham: June 2 to August 16, 2020
The Hingham Unity Council, a coalition of faith leaders and racial justice activists,
initiated the first local social movement action, organizing a candlelight vigil at Saint John the
Evangelist Church on June 2. The vigil was scheduled to coincide with larger racial justice
protests in Boston as a means of providing Hingham residents with an opportunity to support the
Black Lives Matter movement while also limiting the potential spread of Covid-19. Attended by approximately 1,000 people, the event was predominantly focused on honoring George Floyd’s memory and expressing solidarity with the national Black Lives Matter protest movement. This vigil did not directly address patterns of systemic racism within local institutions, but instead remained focused on symbolic events that had taken on national prominence, with attendees expressing the view that “the scale of the protests happening across the country in response to
Floyd’s killing made them hopeful that society has reached a turning point in addressing police brutality and racism.”154
The first protest in Hingham was organized by local students—mainly high school
seniors and recent graduates—for June 6 at the Hingham Bathing Beach. This youth-led protest
involved the display of signs, chanting, and calls for reforms to the American policing and
criminal justice systems. However, despite the national focus of the protest’s signs and chants,
speeches from a local racial justice advocate and from students predominantly discussed issues
of systemic racism that exist on the South Shore, and in Hingham specifically. Protest organizer
154 Cooney, Audrey. “Hundreds Flock to Hingham Vigil to Say ‘Black Lives Matter.’” Wicked Local. Wicked Local, June 3, 2020. https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/hingham- journal/2020/06/03/hundreds-flock-to-hingham-vigil-to-say-black-lives-matter/42967133/.
Bolduc 58 Darcy Milligan, a high school senior from the neighboring town of Scituate, MA, addressed
protesters, asserting that “Scituate does have a race problem. So does every town on the South
Shore because, like everywhere in the U.S., we are all part of a culture that oppresses black
people and black bodies.”155 Speakers implored their fellow students to call attention to national
systems of inequality while also criticizing what they claimed to be the inherent hypocrisy of the
Hingham Police Department’s claim that it stands with the Black Lives Matter movement while
refusing to kneel in solidarity with George Floyd and other victims of police brutality. This
youth-led protest therefore acknowledged the way in which local institutions and sociopolitical environments are directly implicated in wider national systems of injustice.
June 14 reporting in the Hingham Anchor by local journalist Carol Britton Meyer examined how an interrelated combination of prohibitive zoning and housing policies, as well as economic outcomes sustain systemic racism and inequality in Hingham. The article, titled
Despite Hingham’s Welcoming Feel, Racism Sometimes Rears its Head, discussed the resultant and pervasive phenomenon of “cultural apathy” that fosters a climate of racist microaggressions, especially within the public school system.156 The article provided recommendations for policy
changes that could address issues of homogeneity, such as expanding access to housing and
capital, and improving the diversity of school and public safety staff, thus framing local
manifestations of systemic racism as meriting institutional solutions. This investigative reporting
155 Jordan, Keely, and Mary-Kelly Prosky-Gilbert. “Hingham Residents Show Their Support For The Black Lives Matter Movement.” The Harborlight, June 8, 2020. https://harborlight.hinghamschools.com/9347/student-life/hingham-residents-show-their-support- for-the-black-lives-matter-movement/.
156 Britton-Meyer, Carol. “Seeking Solutions: Despite Hingham's Welcoming Feel, Racism Sometimes Rears Its Head.” Hingham Anchor. June 14, 2020. https://www.hinghamanchor.com/seeking-solutions-despite-hinghams-welcoming-feel-racism- sometimes-rears-its-head%E2%80%8B/.
Bolduc 59 of the community’s history with systemic racism placed local policy, social conflict, and
movement organizing within a wider national and historical context.
The Thin Blue Line flag controversy demonstrates the way in which local events mirror
and follow issues and debates of national scale. Weymouth Police Sergeant Michael Chesna’s death roiled the South Shore community in 2018; the event was a shared community experience
of loss. This created a local context in which many residents deeply appreciated the reality of the
occupational hazards faced by police officers and other public safety officials. Those displaying
the thin blue line (TBL) flag, it appears, intended to honor an individual person, not a social and
political cause.157 This local context of widespread community engagement, support, and
grieving led to the common display of the TBL flag on the South Shore.
The order to remove the TBL flag from Hingham Fire Department firetrucks, which are
town property, was given by the Fire and Police Chiefs, Town Manager, and Board of
Selectmen. This order was perceived as a personal attack by the Hingham Firefighters’ Union
and Cindy Doran-Chesna—Sgt. Chesna’s widow—both of whom framed the removal order as a sign of disrespect towards the memory of Sgt. Chesna and the profession of policing itself. This official rejection by public officials of the flag, as well as subsequent reactions on the part of public safety officials to the flag removal decision demonstrates the tension between the Black
Lives Matter and “Blue Lives Matter” protest movements in Hingham over who and what was
“under attack,” and what political meaning the TBL flag expressed.
157 The “Thin Blue Line” flag itself references the entire profession of policing, not specific individuals who have been killed or injured in the line of duty. However, community display of the TBL flag in the wake of a police officer’s death in the line of duty is a common practice; widespread community display of the flag blurs the lines between the individual and wider political utility of such a symbol (Wall, Tyler. “The Police Invention of Humanity: Notes on the ‘Thin Blue Line’ - Tyler Wall, 2020.” SAGE Journals, n.d.).
Bolduc 60 The controversy surrounding the Hingham Fire Department’s display of the TBL flag on
town property was a local issue reflecting national contention. Protesters expressed how they wanted Hingham to align itself within the wider national discussion of systemic racism and police brutality. Subsequent protests and counter-protests involving the flag, including the July
28 demonstrations following a Board of Selectmen meeting at Town Hall, focused more on the national political significance of the flag—and what its display in Hingham said about either (a) the local community’s place in the moral arc of the current historical moment of the nationwide racial justice protests (BLM protesters) or, (b) whether or not Hingham appreciated and respected its public safety officials during a time of heightened national scrutiny of American policing (“Blue Lives Matter” protesters). The presence of symbols supporting former president
Donald Trump at the Back the Blue rally demonstrates the wider political meaning that the local
TBL flag display issue had taken on over time in Hingham.
Equal enforcement of the existing municipal flag policy in Hingham by municipal government officials was an institutional policy response to wider national social movement events that had altered the context within which the TBL flag existed. Although the municipal flag policy banning the display of unauthorized flags existed before the emergence of the national protest movement, enforcement of the policy had not been applied to displays of the
TBL flag in the wake of Sgt. Chesna’s death in 2018.158 The decision to apply the flag ban to the
TBL flag in 2020 is demonstrative of a change in the enforcement of local policy in direct
158 The municipal policy banning the display of unauthorized flags on town property included political symbols, such as the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement’s rainbow flag and the TBL flag, which had become associated with opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of 2020.
Bolduc 61 response to an evolving national context in which the TBL flag was now regarded as a racist
symbol.
Local Faith Leaders and Social Justice Activists
Typically belonging to older generations, established faith leaders and activists were the
first groups to act in response to the national protest movement by organizing their solidarity
events. Organizers focused these events on promoting “peace,” “unity,” and “solidarity” with the
national Black Lives Matter movement, rather than directly addressing manifestations of
systemic racism at the local level. Because leaders did not implicate specific local institutions
(such as municipal government, the police department, or the public schools), individuals, or
groups at the candlelight vigil, the event did not spark local controversy.
Students High school student protesters explicitly identified systemic racism within the local
community, while also maintaining consistent rhetorical frames that connected their claims to
that of the national protest movement. Student protesters in Hingham initiated direct action,
organizing protests that directly addressed local racism and critiqued local institutions, especially the Hingham Police Department. College student Max Giarusso’s July 22 request to remove the
TBL flag from municipal public safety vehicles was motivated by his opposition to the political nature of the flags within the existing national context.
Local Controversy The disconnect between claims about who and what was truly under attack within the local context of honoring Sgt. Chesna amidst a national movement of racial justice protest sparked controversy. Was the TBL flag being displayed in opposition to the widespread wave of racial justice protest, or in reference to a local tragedy? The response of pro-police protesters to
Bolduc 62 accusations of upholding institutions that perpetuate systemic racism was indignant, as such
claims implied that all police and supporters of police were racist. Conversely, the opposition of
Black Lives Matter protesters to local display of the TBL flag was steeped in a strong desire to signal that the town of Hingham itself had zero tolerance for systemic racism. The question of the TBL flag on Hingham town property coincided with and amplified the salience of the nationwide George Floyd protests. National meaning was assigned to local events and players, increasing the intensity of social conflict in Hingham.
Marlborough: June 1 to August 1, 2020 Marlborough resident Vickie Paquette organized the first June 1 and 2 protests on Union
Common. This demonstration was visible to cars passing through the city’s downtown area, with
passing vehicles offering protesters occasional honks of support. Community leaders, including
local politicians and racial justice activists, attended the protests and gave speeches, further
amplifying and legitimizing the social movement activity. Protesters did receive threats from
several passersby, including a man who argued with Paquette and threatened to run her over with
his car, as well as a man who intentionally coughed on Ms. Paquette.159 A woman also pulled up
to protester Derrick DeSousa, a young Black man, and hurled racial slurs at him from her car.
This explicit, if scattered, opposition to the demonstrations indicates the discomfort and tension
inherent in suburban protest, where widespread community support for Black Lives Matter is not
as strong as it is in more politically liberal urban areas. The intentionality of the suburban protest
on Marlborough’s Union Common demonstrates the connection that participants made between
159 The act of coughing on Ms. Paquette can be interpreted as aggressive in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, where the transfer of respiratory droplets can transmit a potentially life- threatening illness.
Bolduc 63 their actions at the local level and its contribution to the national Black Lives Matter movement,
with one protester saying that “a lot of us [suburbanites] are in denial or have never experienced
any form of racism, so we can’t change this unless everybody is involved.”160
The local racial justice activism group One Marlborough hosted the Marlborough
Against Racism vigil on June 4. The organizing task was a significant development because the
group’s explicit, stated goal was to address systemic racism within Marlborough’s own
institutions. The vigil was not simply an expression of solidarity with the national movement, but
instead brought the mission and goals of the national movement to the local community level.
On June 7, the Marlborough Police Department released a statement expressing outrage
at the murder of George Floyd. The statement also said that “we have witnessed the
demonstrations, protests and vigils, which call for action and push for continued change, and we
accept the difficult role we will play in this process.”161 The Marlborough Police Department’s
statement acknowledged the link between national events and local context and policy change.
The Marlborough Police Department was the only police force studied which published a
statement expressing acceptance of a responsibility to change local practices within a wider
national historical context.
160 Dakota Antelman. “Marlborough Protesters Gather after Facing Scattered Threats Day Before.” Community Advocate, June 7, 2020. https://www.communityadvocate.com/2020/06/03/Marlborough-protesters-gather-after- facing- scattered-threats-day-before/. 161 McNamara, Neal. “Marlborough Police Release Statement On George Floyd Killing.” Marlborough, MA. Patch. June 8, 2020. https://patch.com/massachusetts/marlborough/marlborough-police-release-statement-george- floyd-killing.
Bolduc 64 Mayor Arthur Vigeant’s office released a statement on June 9, expressing outrage at the murder of George Floyd. Despite being upset by the displays of police brutality in Minneapolis,
Mayor Vigeant also blamed “extremist responses on both sides [for] making it difficult for the average citizen to know who to support or what to believe” and explicitly rejected the idea of defunding the police. Mayor Vigeant further affirmed his support for the Marlborough Police
Department and promised to work with local law enforcement to improve community relations and officer training protocols in the future. Mayor Vigeant’s statement rejected individual, and presumably anomalous, instances of police brutality in America, but did not recognize police brutality as a structural issue of institutionalized racism. The invocation of “both sides” framed the claim-making activities of movement actors as unjustified given the reality of the local sociopolitical context. The outright rejection of “defund the police” proposals drew a firm line demarcating what Mayor Vigeant deemed as legitimate from illegitimate claims. Mayor
Vigeant’s affirmation of support for working with the police department to improve the local institution indicates the lowest institutional reception of movement actors’ agenda seeding processes within the case study communities.
Local Social Justice Activists One Marlborough, an emergent local racial justice activist group created with the explicit goal of addressing systemic racism in the Marlborough community, developed local social movement organizing capacity and a created a community space within which to coordinate future efforts and actions at the local level that were aligned with the national Black Lives Matter movement. On June 19, One Marlborough hosted a Juneteenth Freedom Tribute on Union
Common, which sought to educate attendees about the historical significance of the Juneteenth holiday, called attention to the widespread white-washing of American history, discussed
Bolduc 65 Marlborough’s own historical role in perpetuating slavery, and called on local leaders to make
Juneteenth an official city holiday. One Marlborough also connected itself to the national protest
movement, organizing the August 1 march through downtown Marlborough in solidarity with
Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, Oregon (whose demonstrations and conflict with local and federal police had garnered national media attention).
Altered Sociopolitical Norms and Expectations As the racial justice protest movement spread throughout the United States, local
suburbanites faced the question of whether to express solidarity with the national movement.
This rearranged set of social norms resulted in local suburban communities expressing a desire to
organize demonstrations. The national movement, and by extension, local protest activity, sought
to force white Americans to take a position—either in favor of systemic reform, or not.
Everett: June 2 to September 22, 2020 The leaders of local municipal institutions and black faith community leaders hosted the
first social movement action in Everett on June 2 in the form of an online vigil. An
indeterminate amount of Everett residents attended the vigil, due to its virtual setting. The vigil
sought to provide a space to honor George Floyd and discuss structural racism in Everett.
However, the vigil also received criticism from young community members, who argued that it
was an instance of local elites monopolizing and directing the conversation regarding race and
policy change, rather than the wider community itself. At this event, Everett Mayor Carlos
DeMaria affirmed his support of the Black Lives Matter movement and made clear that the
police brutality demonstrated in Minneapolis would never be tolerated in the Everett Police
Department, stating that “if he [Derek Chauvin] was in our city, he would not have been in
uniform. We do not tolerate that behavior. When we do hear of unjust racism, we deal with them
Bolduc 66 and always will deal with them.”162 Distinguishing between the specific actions of police officers
in Minneapolis and the standards of the local police, EPD Chief Stephen Mazzie urged community members to stop blaming local institutional actors for systemic racism in Everett and instead collaborate with those institutions to enact change, asserting that:
I think people need to stop pointing fingers. They need to roll up their sleeves and
get their hands dirty doing the hard work. Everyone needs to be involved. We
need to involve stakeholders and partnerships if we want to make real, long-
lasting solutions. If not, the symbolic solutions don’t work and won’t last. It will
take a community to get it done.163
Mazzie rejected the framing mechanisms used by movement actors in Everett that implicated
local actors, such as police officers. At the same meeting, City Councilor Gerly Adrien also
discussed systemic racism in the Greater Boston area, specifically white peoples’ defensiveness
towards and denial of personal involvement in the perpetuation of systemic racism within
institutions, asserting that “we need changes black people have been calling out for over decades.
Stop sabotaging or dismissing the work and help us get justice.”164
Bishop Robert Brown, a prominent local Black faith leader and frequent advisor to EPD,
urged young people in the Black Lives Matter movement to engage in dialogue with institutional
actors instead of simply identifying and protesting against local and national systemic injustices.
162 Daniel, Seth. “Everett Community Hold Online Vigil to Remember George Floyd, Talk about Addressing Structural Racism.” Everett Independent, June 10, 2020. http://everettindependent.com/2020/06/10/Everett- community-hold-online-vigil-to-remember-george-floyd-talk-about-addressing-structural- racism/. 163 Ibid 164 Ibid
Bolduc 67 This admonition demonstrated the tension between younger and older generations of movement
actors in Everett. The older generation were more open to collaborating with local institutional
leaders, and objected to the framing strategies employed by the younger generation, which were
more rhetorically confrontational. Established municipal and community leaders thus used the
online vigil to publicly align themselves with the Black Lives Matter movement’s claims and
goals, but also sought to shape the direction of community mobilization toward engagement with existing authorities. The virtual format of the vigil allowed local civic and religious elites to attempt to control the conversation, and critique the younger generation’s claims, rhetorical frames, and approach to protest action.
On June 7, younger members of Everett’s black community organized A Moment to
Breathe: A Black Youth-Led Vigil, which honored George Floyd and other victims of police brutality, and included discussions of systemic racism and police brutality, both nationally and locally. This in-person vigil of around 150 people was more widely attended by the local community than the online vigil, and provided a space for young protesters to share stories of local experiences with individual and systemic racism in Everett, especially discrimination from the Everett Police Department and in the public schools.165 Organizers directly addressed the
earlier online vigil, calling it a disgrace since it did not provide a space for participation by the wider community; Sabine Jacques, a protest organizer speaking to the crowd of attendees, said
that young people of color in Everett:
165 Daniel, Seth. “Scores of Residents Turn out for Peaceful, Youth-Led Vigil Against Racism.” Everett Independent, June 10, 2020. http://everettindependent.com/2020/06/10/scores-of- residents-turn-out-for-peaceful-youth-led-vigil- against-racism/.
Bolduc 68 are constantly being spoken for as if we aren’t experts of our own truth. I’m sorry,
but that online vigil was a disgrace. No one from the community was asked to be
a part of it. This [the in-person vigil] is community. Our voices, our breaths, and
our lives matter.166
This in-person youth-led vigil, organizers argued, was a true reflection of the local community’s
sentiments. Featured speakers denounced the online vigil as an example of the older
generation—and established leaders with political and social capital that older local movement
actors are aligned with—chastising and questioning the younger generation’s ability to protest
peacefully. The in-person youth-led vigil thus allowed the younger generation to assert itself and
its claims as legitimate, both within the Everett community and within the wider racial justice
movement.
The Everett School Committee, local law enforcement authorities, and local attorneys
investigated Everett High School teacher Robert LeGrow’s tweets, which advocated state
violence against Black Lives Matter protesters in Washington, D.C.. LeGrow’s tweets, published on a personal Twitter account, have since been deleted. Reporting in the Everett Independent described several of LeGrow’s tweets as “political speech in support of President Donald Trump or in support of him putting an end to the rioting [in Washington, D.C.],” while other tweets
“allegedly compared the protesters to the 1990s anti-government domestic terrorist Timothy
McVeigh—who blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City with a fertilizer bomb.”167 In
another tweet, LeGrow wrote
166 Ibid 167 Daniel, Seth. “Everett High Teacher Questioned about Tweets.” Everett Independent, June 17, 2020.
Bolduc 69 Get on TV. Declare that you have intelligence that this is not about George Floyd
but instead That this is an insurrection by anti American leftist forces. You
consider this an act of war. Declare martial law and send in the (expletive deleted)
marines with shoot to kill orders. NOW (in response to rioting in New York City)
and, on May 31, when President Donald Trump was taken to a White House bunker,
LeGrow tweeted “This is war. Kill the enemy.”168 The LeGrow incident shifted local
focus towards the Everett Public Schools, which further legitimized the claims of student
protesters, who argued that LeGrow’s calls for violence threatened the wellbeing of
students, and was thus an example of how the community’s local institutions had failed
young students of color in Everett. The LeGrow incident was a turning point in the local
conversation regarding systemic racism because it shifted the onus of a policy response
onto the public schools.
On July 22, the Everett Education Coalition, a group of Everett teachers and community
members working together to improve the Everett Public Schools, released an anti-racism statement of solidarity with Everett High School students in a letter to the editor of the Everett
Independent.169 This statement addressed issues of systemic racism within the public schools, and outlined specific actions taken in partnership with Superintendent Priya Tahiliani, school committee members, and students to begin enacting anti-racist policy change.
168 Ibid 169 “Everett Education Coalition.” Facebook, 2018. https://www.facebook.com/EverettEdCoalition/.
Bolduc 70 A Generational Divide
In this majority-minority community, social movement actors aligned their work with the national Black Lives Matter movement. However, a generational divide regarding frames and goals separated youth protesters from older, more established black faith and activist leaders, who preferred to partner with local institutions. The LeGrow Twitter controversy shifted local focus onto the existence of systemic racism within the Everett Public Schools, prompting a targeted policy change campaign between institutional leaders and various social movement actors and affiliated stakeholders.
Wareham: June 1 to June 6, 2020
The Bourne/Wareham Race Amity Committee held a small protest at Buzzards Bay on
June 1. Organizers used this this socially-distant protest to express solidarity with the Black
Lives Matter movement and called for peace and race amity, both locally and nationwide.
Founded in the 1990s in response to the Rodney King riots, the Bourne/Wareham Race Amity
Committee represents an older generation of social movement actors who did not use the June 1 protest to make claims that implicated specific local institutions as perpetuating systemic racism.
The Communities for Peace, Justice, Healing, and Heart Changes vigil that took place on
June 2 at the Wareham High School track was hosted by the Wareham Area Clergy Association and the Tri-Town Against Racism group. This collaboration between local faith leaders and racial justice activists provided a space for community members to express outrage toward the murder of George Floyd, solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, and acknowledge the reality of systemic racism in the U.S.. Jendell Teixeira, a student speaker featured at the vigil, explicitly connected national systems of injustice to her experiences as a student of color in the local public school system, ranging from microaggressions to to the time when she was called
Bolduc 71 the n-word by a classmate in the eighth grade, asserting that “this [racism] isn’t just something that happens down south or in other cities and states. It’s in Massachusetts, in the Southcoast heavy, and now is the time for us to take a stand.”170
On June 5, a group of 25 community members held a small protest at Onset Pier, and expressed support for the national Black Lives Matter movement and denounced systemic racism and police brutality. A local news outlet interviewed Kathy Ayala—an Indigenous woman, U.S. military veteran, and longtime Wareham resident—who spoke about her experiences with racism, both nationally within the institution of the Armed Forces and locally within the
Wareham and Southcoast communities, where she watched white workers receive promotions that remained unavailable to their non-white peers, stating that the protest for racial justice “is not a political matter—it’s human rights.”171
The June 6 march and protest was the largest social movement action that occurred in
Wareham during the summer of 2020. Organized by local student Jazzy Andrade and publicized via social media and word-of-mouth, an intergenerational mix of community members marched from Onset Pier and Besse Park to the Wareham Police Station. The protesters held signs and chanted to express support and alignment with the national Black Lives Matter movement’s claims and goals. The subsequent demonstration outside of the Wareham Police Department building featured student speakers, including Jendell Teixeira, who stated that “we are fighting
170 Borges, Kenneth, and Tim Seeberger. “Community Gathers to Pray, Speak out against Racism.” Wareham, June 2, 2020. https://wareham.theweektoday.com/article/community- gathers-pray-speak-out-against-racism/48207. 171 Shelford, Chloe. “Black Lives Matter Protest Comes to Onset.” Wareham, June 5, 2020. https://wareham.theweektoday.com/article/black-lives-matter-protest-comes-onset/48257.
Bolduc 72 for the world to see that black lives do matter…I’m sick and tired of my people getting killed.172
Teixeira also called for justice for both George Floyd and Malcom Gracia, a 15 year-old victim
of police brutality from the nearby city of New Bedford. Gracia, a teenager who struggled with
mental illness, was shot and killed by New Bedford police officers on May 17, 2012.173
Community advocates, including the New Bedford chapter of the NAACP, have asserted that
Gracia’s death is a symbol of “the aggressive use of racial profiling that leads to unnecessary
confrontations and the failure to resolve conflicts without fatal force.”174 Demanding justice for
Malcom Gracia demonstrated youth protest organizers’ understanding of local events as part of a wider national systems.
Protesters demanded that Wareham police officers, who were standing in front of the
Wareham Police Department building, join the crowd in kneeling to honor George Floyd.
Wareham Police Chief John Walcek was personally singled out in the protesters’ request to kneel, but he refused to do so and instead spoke about his own personal character, stating that he treats people with “dignity and respect,” and that because of his devout Catholicism, “the only
172 Borges, Kenneth, and Chloe Shelford. “Police Asked to Take a Knee - Some Do.” Wareham, June 6, 2020. https://wareham.theweektoday.com/article/chief-john-walcek-refuses-take- kneeprotesters/48267. 173 Gracia, 15 at the time of his death, had struggled with mental illness. On the night he was killed, Gracia and a companion had been stopped by police officers, and after a brief struggle, Gracia allegedly stabbed an officer with a concealed knife before being tased and shot to death. The case between the city of New Bedford and the Gracia family was eventually settled, but unanswered questions remain regarding the police officer’s initial stopping of Gracia on the basis of an alleged gang handshake, as well as whether the shooting was justified. In 2019, a judge ruled that the police unlawfully stopped Gracia. (Silvia, Michael. “A Deep Dive into the 2012 Shooting Death of 15-Year Old Malcolm Gracia in New Bedford.” New Bedford Guide, July 30, 2020. https://www.newbedfordguide.com/a-deep-dive-into-the-2012-shooting-death-of-15-year- old-malcolm-gracia-in-new-bedford/2020/07/14.) 174 Murphy, Shelley. “Eight Years after Police Fatally Shot a Black Teenager, Renewed Calls for an Investigation - The Boston Globe.” BostonGlobe.com. The Boston Globe, July 19, 2020. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/18/metro/eight-years-after-police-fatally-shot-black- teenager-renewed-calls-an-investigation/.
Bolduc 73 place I take a knee in is church.”175 Chief Walcek did not acknowledge or discuss systemic
racism with protesters. Lieutenant Walter Correia was also personally called out by protesters,
but he refused to kneel. Protesters then chanted “no justice, no peace, no racist-ass police” in
response to the Chief and Lieutenant’s refusals to kneel.176 Three police officers—Detectives
Karl Baptiste, Dean Decas, and a third unnamed officer— eventually joined the protesters in kneeling for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, with Baptiste, a black man, explaining that he knelt because “I’m part of the community…they’re part of me” and Decas stating that “it [kneeling with protesters] was the right thing to do.”177 Chief Walcek’s refusal to kneel was criticized by
protesters, including Brianna Tavares, who said that “I think he [Chief Walcek] sent the message
that he does not care about the community.” Another unnamed protester told local reporters that
“we’re asking them [WPD] to show a little solidarity for 400 years of oppression. It’s [the refusal
to kneel] disgusting.”178
Chief Walcek’s Response In responses to a completed policy change questionnaire, Chief Walcek expressed an
understanding that local protesters “felt that the timing was right to have their voices heard, and
show support to the global topic of racial injustice and policing” but didn’t want “all officers
painted with the same broad brush as the actions of one [i.e. Derek Chauvin] who do[es] not
175 Borges, Kenneth, and Chloe Shelford. “Police Asked to Take a Knee - Some Do.” Wareham, June 6, 2020. https://wareham.theweektoday.com/article/chief-john-walcek-refuses-take-knee- protesters/48267. 176 Ibid 177 Ibid 178 Ibid
Bolduc 74 speak for our whole profession.”179 Chief Walcek understood the concerns and motivations of
protesters but wrote that
the police are not going anywhere. We are always going to be needed, we are
always going to be armed, and we are sometimes going to have to use force.” The
biggest problem we face is one we can never change. We hire human beings.
Even with the best hiring practices sometimes a person slips through the cracks
who should not be here. When we do hire the very best-suited and honorable
person, they still may be forced to make a life-and-death decision that will have
international implications.180
Chief Walcek’s interpretation of the origins and potential policy solutions to the issue of police
brutality was that it is a question of individual character and behavior. This explanation is
fundamentally disconnected from local protesters’ claim that systemic racism and police brutality have a historical legacy in the U.S. and are thus inherently structural problems.
In terms of local policy change, Chief Walcek wrote that “our department is going to follow state guidance for best practices in policing and assorted reforms…with regard to police reform, including training related to bias or racial sensitivity and de-escalation ” but also noted that, while waiting for policy changes at the state level, his police department,
in the interest of best serving Wareham…will be conducting a series of meetings
with Dr. Dana Mohler-Faria, former president of Bridgewater State University,
and some of his colleagues. The goal of this meeting is to see where we [are]
179 Policy Change Questionnaire (Police) Response of Wareham Police Chief John Walcek [Email interview]. February 15, 2021. 180 Ibid
Bolduc 75 maybe missing the mark and how we can better serve our large Cape Verdean
community.181
Chief Walcek expressed a desire to increase racial diversity among departmental
personnel, but was also proud of the Wareham Police Department for being “rather progressive
in our ideas, especially for having a police department that is reflective of our [local]
population.” The main barrier to increased diversity among police personnel that Chief Walcek
identified was the civil service system, and, in particular, the examination component of the
evaluation. Chief Walcek described the hiring process within the civil service system as
“cumbersome, and while I would very much like to be completely representative of our
community, that entry level test is a driving force. The way we are trying to combat this is to
speak one-on-one with individuals and encourage them to take the test.”182
On the question of “defunding the police” (in order to redirect funding to social services),
Chief Walcek said that the Wareham Police Department was unable to make policy changes that
called for the redirection of funding because “unfortunately, our department has a rock bottom
budget which gives us little wiggle room,” thus reducing the department’s ability to offer the
community a broader array of social services.183
Differing Approaches to Protest and Policy Change The younger generation of protesters were a major force of organizing energy; their use of social media helped make the large community march through Wareham happen at the magnitude that it did. The focus of young protesters was thus on the local Wareham
181 Ibid 182 Ibid 183 Ibid
Bolduc 76 community’s response to the national conversation around systemic racism. This stood in stark
contrast to Chief Walcek’s refusal to kneel, which demonstrated the police department’s
perception that it has an obligation to change its policies exclusively in response to state and
local events. The focus of local faith and racial justice organizations—typically comprised of an
older generation of movement actors, such as the Tri-Town Against Racism group—was instead on addressing systemic racism through tangible policy change and shifting social attitudes, such as improving anti-racist education efforts within the public schools.
General Analysis Major Dynamics
Local Social Movement Organizations Well-established social movement organizations—often comprised of an older generation
of actors—were more likely to collaborate with local faith and institutional leaders to organize
demonstrations that expressed solidarity with the national movement’s claims and goals. These
well-established organizations focused their efforts on community-based programming, such as workshop series and the arts, to aid in individual anti-racist educational initiatives. Emergent local social movement organizations that were established amidst the summer 2020 protest wave
however, reflected the national Black Lives Matter movement’s goals and tactics, placing a
greater emphasis on institutional policy reform and monitoring in addition to individual anti-
racist education, and community cooperation.
A New Generation of Social Movement Actors In all four communities, student activists and organizers consistently made direct
connections between their local experiences with racism to national events, symbols, and
conversations. Students distinguished themselves from other generations of social movement
Bolduc 77 actors through the use of framing mechanisms that explicitly and forcefully implicated local
institutions—and even named individuals—with national issues of systemic racism and
inequality. Sequentially, this younger generation of actors organized demonstrations either in
direct response to, or as an addendum to, events hosted by established actors and leaders.
Student protesters sought to highlight the existence of a culture of systemic and institutionalized racism within their communities and shine an uncomfortable spotlight on local leaders, in an effort to compel them to respond. Insufficient or disingenuous (in the view of student protesters), or non-existent responses were then critiqued by student actors in a public conversation regarding the need for policy change within institutions and changes to the local sociocultural climate, as was demonstrated by the student-led protest at the Hingham Bathing
Beach, the A Moment to Breathe: A Black Youth-Led Vigil in Everett, and the student-organized march from Onset Pier and Besse Park to the Wareham Police station. Marches and other public demonstrations focused on local issues with racism were thus a new protest repertoire.
Local Police Departments
Local police departments focused their response to the movement claims of both national
and local protests on individual departmental policy, and especially personnel training. In a
statement released by Chief Glenn Olsson of Hingham Police Department, the [now former]
chief wrote that
those actions [of the Minneapolis police officers who murdered George Floyd]
are in direct conflict with the rules, values, and training Hingham Police Officers
live by. We cannot allow actions like this to go unpunished…[and that] we stand
Bolduc 78 in solidarity with the citizens of Hingham [presumably meaning local
protesters].184
While local police departments issued statements expressing outrage at the murder of George
Floyd, thus restricting the apparent scope of police misconduct and misuse of force in that
incident, one department within the case study communities, Marlborough, explicitly
acknowledged there being a role that local departments must play in national police reform,
stating that
we recognize that there have been reforms to officer recruitment, advances in
techniques for de-escalation, changes in mental health assistance, and building
relationships with our children in our schools. We also acknowledge that although
progress has been made, more effort lies ahead as we work towards a society free
from bias and inequality. We understand we need to work together as a
community and we pledge to continue working side-by-side with all persons who
seek resolution through open communication, shared accountability, and peaceful
actions.185
184 Olsson, Glenn. “Statement of Hingham Police Chief Glenn Olsson Regarding the Death of George Floyd.” https://www.hpd.org. Chief Glenn Olsson, June 2, 2020. https://www.hpd.org/DocumentCenter/View/694/Statement-of-Hingham-Police-Chief-Glenn- Olsson-Regarding-the-Death-of-George-Floyd.
185 McNamara, Neal. “Marlborough Police Release Statement On George Floyd Killing.” Marlborough, MA. Patch. June 8, 2020. https://patch.com/massachusetts/marlborough/marlborough-police-release-statement-george- floyd- killing.
Bolduc 79 The Local Response to National Events
When implicit systems of racism are made explicit at the national level, residents engage in a struggle to define their community’s response to and alignment within the wider national moral and political debate. Local controversies reflect national contention. Conflict arises when there is a disconnect between various actors’ and institutions’ perceptions of a link between national events and local realities. Communities experience social conflict when there is a disagreement over the appropriateness of applying national social movement claims to local individuals and institutions, as well as whether and/or the extent to which the local community is obligated to respond to national events and conversations regarding systemic racism and police brutality.
Bolduc 80 Chapter 4: Discussion What Factors Shaped Suburban Protest Forms? Suburbanites’ desire to hold socially-distant protests outside of the major cities where such demonstrations would typically be held shaped the protest forms demonstrated in the case study communities. Concerns regarding the spread of Covid-19 and the potential for violence at larger protests in Boston motivated members of the Hingham Unity Council to organize a community vigil in honor of George Floyd at St. John the Evangelist Church. Katie Sutton, a member of the Hingham Unity Council and organizer of the vigil, explained that the event was planned to coincide with a larger protest in Boston, as a way of giving Hingham-area locals a means to safely “show support and solidarity, both for black people in our own community and beyond.”186 Hosting local, socially-distant vigils and demonstrations provided suburbanites with
the opportunity to publicly gather and reflect on system racism with their own neighbors. The
Covid-19 pandemic thus created a context wherein suburbanites had to organize their own local
protests if they wished to safely—in terms of public health—express their outrage at the murder
of George Floyd and show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Protest participation in suburban communities involved scores of first-time protesters.
This phenomenon of widespread first-time protest is an example of Tilly et al.’s model of
transgressive contention at work, in which “at least some of the parties to the conflict are newly
self-identified political actors.”187 The mobilization of political identities is a critical mechanism
within the claim-making process of contentious politics, and especially within the context of
transgressive contention; protesters navigated intersecting sociodemographic and political
186 Cooney, Audrey. “Hundreds Flock to Hingham Vigil to Say ‘Black Lives Matter.’” Wicked Local. Wicked Local, June 3, 2020. 187 Tilly, Charles. Regimes and Repertoires. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. ProQuest Ebook Central.
Bolduc 81 identities, and variations in age and institutional affiliation dictated the types of protest
repertoires that were employed.
Although this research project began with the hypothesis that different socioeconomic
settings would produce varying forms of contentious politics, the historical evidence gathered
from the case study communities demonstrates that different socioeconomic and racial
backgrounds instead dictated communities’ level of receptiveness to the Black Lives Matter
movement’s claims and goals. “Receptiveness,” as used in this theoretical discussion, can be
defined as the wider community’s expression that there was a local “obligation” to respond to the
national protest wave, either through policy change or public demonstrations of support and
alignment. Variations in receptiveness to movement claims and goals are indicative of the
relative effectiveness of Omar Wasow’s model of “agenda seeding” within differing local
community contexts.
In Hingham, an affluent and majority-white community, residents were sympathetic to
the Black Lives Matter movement’s claims and goals, but the town’s flag policy was only
equally enforced once a local controversy had garnered regional and national attention. In
Marlborough, an affluent and racially-diverse suburban city, residents were highly receptive to the agenda seeding process, as evidenced by the emergence of a local movement-aligned organization, One Marlborough. Local institutions, however, were mixed in their response to the protest wave, with the Marlborough Police Department expressing an explicit obligation to respond through policy change, while Mayor Vigeant refused to consider local policy changes in response to the national protests. In Everett, a lower-income and racially diverse suburban city, residents and institutional elites were both highly receptive to movement claims and goals, but differed on the question of how and who would get to dictate the community’s response to the
Bolduc 82 protest wave. In Wareham, a lower-income and majority-white town, community members were highly receptive to the movement’s agenda seeding process, but institutional elites—most notably Chief Walcek, of the Wareham Police Department—demonstrated a low obligation to respond to national events and movement claims with a change in local institutional policy.
The historical evidence compiled in this research project instead demonstrates that variations in forms of contentious politics practiced in suburban communities are more accurately explained by (a) the age of protesters and (b) the degree of institutional affiliation among involved actors and organizations. Protesters belonging to the younger generation (i.e., high school and college-aged individuals), and especially black and allied youth, engaged in a new protest repertoire of transgressive, contentious politics (this new protest repertoire is outlined in greater detail in the eponymous section below), wherein they make a connection between local events and institutional systems with national symbols and conversations. This is achieved via the use of consistent rhetorical frames that are aligned with wider movement claims and goals. Protesters belonging to older generations and well-established social movement
organizations engaged in either transgressive contention or non-contentious political action—
such as vigils, forming community groups, and organizing anti-racist workshop series—that
focused on expressing sympathy in response to the protest wave.
The degree of institutional affiliation that an actor or organization possessed was also a
predictor of variation in contentious politics displayed. Those aligned with or already working
with local institutional elites engaged in less or non-contentious politics, instead pursuing
collaborative institutional solutions that could create new or build on existing policies, such as
improving Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programming within school systems or
municipal government departments. Actors who were already elites themselves did not engage in
Bolduc 83 contentious politics, but instead responded with policy changes or expressions of solidarity with
the Black Lives Matter movement’s agenda.
What Did the Suburban Protests Accomplish?
Local Institutional Policy Change
The suburban protests did not accomplish much in terms of bringing about widespread local
institutional policy change. Most changes took the form of public schools committing themselves
to increasing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training for staff and developing anti-racist
curriculums. Municipal governments pledged to ramp up their DEI efforts with regards to
staffing, and also engaged in equal enforcement of existing local policies related to political
symbols. The majority of local police departments in the case study communities were not
willing to make policy changes in response to the national protest wave. Statements released by
departments in response to the murder of George Floyd, as well as completed policy change
questionnaires returned by the Police Chiefs of Everett and Wareham, expressed strict adherence
to state policies regarding police reform and personnel training.
Social movement actors seeking to pursue police reforms would thus be more effective if
addressing statewide legislative issues, such as the Massachusetts police reform bill that was
signed into law on December 31, 2020—An Act Relative to Justice, Equity and Accountability In
Law Enforcement in the Commonwealth—as local police departments look to state policy for
guidance.188 Local social movement actors could also more effectively pursue reform by inquiring as to whether departmental policies, practices, and training standards are in accordance with state guidelines.
188 “Chapter 253.” Session Law - Acts of 2020 Chapter 253, 2020. https://malegislature.gov/Laws/SessionLaws/Acts/2020/Chapter253.
Bolduc 84 Social Movement Organizing
An Increase in Social Movement Coalition-Building
Local social movement organizations were developed and strengthened as a result of the
suburban protests. However, when examined through the lens of McAdam’s political process
model, the strength and sustainability of these local movement organizations is lacking in
comparison to more established racial justice groups such as the NAACP and the Black Lives
Matter Global Network. Expanding political opportunities were present during the summer 2020,
when the entire country was swept up in a national wave of protests against police brutality and
structural racism, amplified by vast racial and socioeconomic inequality that was laid bare by the
Covid-19 pandemic. The widespread nature of the protests, as well as the diversity of
participants, was indicative of growing national acceptance of the movement’s claims and goals,
which contributed to the cognitive liberation of members of the aggrieved minority community
(i.e. black Americans).
Within the suburbs, the cognitive liberation and increased protest of non-black allies,
especially allied youth, was central to the emergence of local social movement action in these
more racially homogenous spaces where indigenous movement actors and organizations were
not already embedded in the community. Indigenous organizational strength was not repurposed
to aid the racial justice movement in the suburbs to the extent that, for example, black faith
institutions historically supported the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. While faith leaders did aid existing social movement organizations and local elites in organizing suburban protest events, they did not provide the same amount of resources, logistical support, and membership infrastructure at the magnitude demonstrated in the Civil Rights Movement.
Bolduc 85 Emergent local social movement organizations, including One Marlborough and Tri-
Town Against Racism, formed in direct response to the summer 2020 protests, are more aligned
with the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement’s frames and goals than well-established suburban organizations. These organizations have not, however, remained directly involved in the sustained claim-making protest dynamics of contentious politics. Throughout the summer, emergent organizations hosted in-person protests and demonstrations and have since shifted to a predominantly online presence, creating space for personal anti-racist educational opportunities,
community-building events, and discussion of state, local, and national politics, predominantly
via Facebook group pages and online websites. The focus on online organizing has shifted the
role of emergent movement groups to that of advocates, educators, and local institutional
watchdogs.
A marked increase in black and allied youth protest was not accompanied by an increase
in formal coalition-building among student organizers. However, justice-oriented organizations
founded prior to the summer 2020 protests, such as the club Empowering Young Black
Excellence, operated out of Everett High School, experienced a large increase and membership
and participation among students and families in surrounding communities following the wave of
protests.189
A New Protest Repertoire Among Black and Allied Youth Black and allied youth have developed a new protest repertoire in the suburban space.
This pattern of claim-making and protest action is an example Tilly’s contentious politics. After
well-established organizations and/or municipal or faith leaders hold a demonstration in
189 Quinn, Cristina. “'We Get To Celebrate Our Blackness': An Everett Teen's Club For Discussing Race Catches On” News. GBH, February 22, 2021.
Bolduc 86 solidarity with the national racial justice movement, student protesters hold their own protest, during which they bridge national themes with local realities. Youth protesters make direct claims and demands of local institutions and individuals through the use of aggressive and consistent rhetorical framing mechanisms that put the spotlight on local leaders, forcing targets to either respond to protesters’ claims and demands (with acknowledgment legitimizing claims and/or policy change) or face backlash (for the lack of a response, or for a response deemed disingenuous or ineffective, by protesters).
Future Implications
National Racial Justice Movement
The suburban protest phenomenon analyzed in this research project indicates a national
shift towards broader public acceptance of and support for the Black Lives Matter movement’s
claims and goals. Record first-time protest organizing and participation demonstrate an
unprecedented and widespread process of education and reflection at both the individual and
community levels. The large-scale nature of the protests, as well as the demographic and
socioeconomic diversity of participants, indicate that the Black Lives Matter movement is
gaining political legitimacy among a wider swath of Americans. A Civis Analysis survey
conducted in June 2020 found that support for Black Lives Matter increased by a 17-point
margin over the two week period after the initial protest wave began in late May, reflecting a
near doubling in support for the movement as a result of the protests.190 Weekly polling by the
Democracy Fund’s U.C.L.A/Nationscape survey also found that the protest wave was
accompanied by significant public opinion increases in unfavorable views of the police and in
190 Cohn, Nate, and Kevin Quealy. “How Public Opinion Has Moved on Black Lives Matter.” The New York Times. The New York Times, June 10, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/10/upshot/black-lives-matter-attitudes.html.
Bolduc 87 the belief that African-Americans face discrimination, both foundational claims of the Black
Lives Matter movement.191 Suburban protesters have applied a movement lens to conversations regarding local patterns of racism, and inequality.
A New Conception of the American Suburb The suburban protest phenomenon challenges traditional thinking about suburban sociopolitical behavior. Suburbs are no longer removed from issues of racial and socioeconomic inequality, as they were once designed to be through segregationist housing laws and zoning practices, such as redlining.192 Increasing racial diversity in suburban communities presents them
with issues of structural racism and inequality, which provides grounds for protest. A rapidly
expanding social media ecosystem is transcending geographic boundaries, especially as the
Covid-19 pandemic has shifted large portions of societal interaction online, disrupting the
psychological and political boundaries that Enos claims separate different sociodemographic
groups in America.
Wider Sociopolitical Shifts
The magnitude of protest participation among suburbanites is indicative of a potential
ideological and electoral shift in American politics. McPhee and Sprague note that local
community contexts shape citizens’ political preferences and establish norms of participation.193
194 Gillion notes that electoral districts with protest activity are more likely to see increased voter
191 Ibid 192 Rothstein, Richard. Essay. In The Color of Law: a Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, 93–99. New York, NY: Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, 2018. 193 McPhee, William N. 1963. Formal Theories of Mass Behavior. New York: Free Press. 194 Sprague, John. 1982. “Is There a Micro Theory Consistent with Contextual Analysis.” In Strategies of Political Inquiry, edited by Elinor Ostrom, 99-121. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Bolduc 88 turnout, asserting that “protest can act as a mobilizing force that draws passion from constituents, heightening their interest in a relevant topic and increasing the likelihood that they turn out on
Election Day.”195 Protest increases the salience of specific policy issues, and the framing mechanisms utilized by local actors encourage specific political action, including voting, that can help attain movement goals. Suburbanites who viewed the video of George Floyd’s murder and subsequent media coverage of nationwide protests were motivated enough to signal their opinion by engaging in protest. This is significant because protest participation is costly: it is a time- consuming, socially-polarizing activity that carries with it the potential risk of physical harm or arrest. The collective memory of George Floyd’s murder and of the subsequent widespread protest mobilization—both across the country and within specific local communities—now has the potential to be utilized by social movement actors and other political entrepreneurs as a future call to collective action through protest and electoral participation.
For Future Research The George Floyd protests of 2020 occurred at the confluence of extreme political circumstances. A sustained expression of national resistance to federal policy change and hyper- polarization throughout the Trump presidency, coupled with the Covid-19 pandemic to spur a period of unprecedented political participation and organizing. In order to gauge the long-term impact of the suburban George Floyd protests on sociopolitical behavior, it would be useful to conduct a longitudinal community study that examines electoral choice, partisan affiliation, and local institutional policies over the course of a decade. This study could take place in either the case study communities at question in this research project, or within other local communities in geographic regions outside of New England.
195 Daniel Q. Gillion. (2020). The Loud Minority (Vol. 20). Princeton University Press.
Bolduc 89 Such a study would provide political scientists with insight into whether the suburban sociopolitical behavior changes identified amidst the George Floyd protests will either continue to shift in the direction noted in this research or revert back to previous, pre-summer of 2020 levels of political engagement and protest participation over the next several years and election cycles. This study would also investigate the degree to which local social movement organizations have sustained membership and activity over the course of several years, as well as measure any changes in the diversity of participants in municipal government and politics.
Additionally, it would be useful for this longitudinal community study to examine what long-term impact, if any, the summer of 2020 protests have had on shaping the social and political consciousness of youth, and especially the students who were at the forefront of organizing and sustaining local social movement action in many communities. Changes in sociopolitical consciousness can be measured by levels of electoral participation, shifts in partisan affiliation, General Social Survey and American National Elections Study data on social and political attitudes, and counts of social movement organizing activities among this generation. This multi-pronged longitudinal study would therefore also investigate whether the suburban protest phenomenon of summer 2020 will become a collective memory that guides political behavior and can be appropriated to motivate future collective action.
Bolduc 90 Appendix Documents
Document 1: Policy Change Questionnaire Email Template (recipient name and email address redacted to protect privacy)
Bolduc 91
Document 2: Policy Change Questionnaire (Police)
Bolduc 92
Document 3 : Policy Change Questionnaire (Schools)
Bolduc 93 Timelines
Timeline 1 : Hingham Social Conflict Timeline
Bolduc 94
Timeline 2 : Marlborough Social Conflict Timeline
Bolduc 95
Timeline 3 : Everett Social Conflict Timeline
Bolduc 96
Timeline 4 : Wareham Social Conflict Timeline
Bolduc 97