Boston Tea Party recreation to throw ice into Harbor in protest

In honor of the Boston Tea Party’s 252nd anniversary next week, local activist groups are calling for Bostonians to recreate the historic protest as an act of resistance against immigration arrests and what they describe as tyranny. 

“The crisis we’re having has a lot of similarities to the crisis that was happening over 250 years ago,” Katy Dirks, a member of Boston Indivisible’s leadership council, said in an interview. “Families are afraid to go out of their homes. We’re outraged right now, and we’re standing up for our neighbors.”

On Dec. 16, Boston Indivisible and Mass 50501, another activist group, will join forces to host the “Boston ICE Tea Party,” where attendees plan to dump ice into the Boston Harbor and denounce the Trump administration’s “destruction of our democratic norms,” Mass 50501 said in a statement. 

The event will start out with a rally, beginning at 7:15 p.m. at the Irish Famine Memorial Plaza, where attendees will march to the Waterfront Plaza. At 7:50 p.m., attendees will congregate near the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum and hurl ice into Boston Harbor. 

“Today, a President who behaves like a king occupies the White House. He has sent ICE to harass our city and kidnap our friends, families, and neighbors,” Indivisible Boston, a chapter of a national group that strives to defend democracy and resist authoritarianism, said on its RSVP page. “Let us rise once more to take down tyranny!”

Those interested in attending should not bring their own ice, organizers said. There will be “clean” ice — adhering to Boston Conservation Commission and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection guidelines — for participants to throw into the water, according to Mass 50501. 

Mass 50501, which stands for “50 Protests, 50 States, 1 Movement,” is a nonpartisan group that aspires to combat authoritarianism and tyranny through nonviolent resistance. 

On Dec. 16, 1776, colonists flung tea into Boston Harbor in protest of King George’s regime. 

“Bostonians have always refused to bow down and have been a voice for the nation,” Dirks said. “We hope that this will be a chance to inspire them for their New Year’s resolutions to start advocating somehow.”

Event organizers expect the tea party to be nonviolent, and urge participants to “de-escalate” any confrontations.

“Courage is contagious, and we need everyone in this country to care about everyone in our community, whether they’re immigrants or whatever,” Dirks said. “All people deserve dignity and respect, and all people deserve to live under transparency and laws that are given out equally.”