Boston celebrates 1965 Freedom Rally led by MLK as advocates urge continued fight against injustice

BOSTON (AP) — As a Black teenager growing up in Boston, Wayne Lucas vividly remembers joining about 20,000 people to hear the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speak out against the city's segregated school system and the entrenched poverty in poor communities.

Sixty years on, Lucas was back on the Boston Common on Saturday to celebrate the anniversary of what became known as the 1965 Freedom Rally. He joined others in calling for continued activism against many of the same injustices and inequities that King fought against, and in criticizing President Donald Trump and his administration for current divisions and fears about race and immigration across the country.

“The message was ... that we still have work to do,” said Lucas, 75. “It was a lot of inspiration by every speaker out there.”

The gathering drew several hundred people on a rainy and windy day, conditions similar to those during the 1965 event. It was preceded by a march by a smaller group of people, mostly along the route taken to the Boston Common 60 years earlier. Up to 125 different organizations took part.

King's son, Martin Luther King III, gave a keynote speech, saying he never thought racism would still be around and on the rise like it is today.

“We must quadruple our efforts to create a more just and humane society,” he told the crowd. “We used to exhibit humanity and civility, but we have chosen temporarily to allow civility to be moved aside. And that is not sustainable, my friends.”

He added, “Today, we’ve got to find a way to move forward, when everything appears to be being dismantled, it seems to be attempting to break things up. Now, you do have to retreat sometimes. But dad showed us how to stay on the battlefield, and mom, throughout their lives. They showed us how to build community.”

The gathering was near the site of a 20-foot-high (6-meter-high) memorial to racial equity, which shows Martin Luther King Jr. embracing his wife, Coretta Scott King.

U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Massachusetts Democrat, said the work of 1960s civil rights leaders remains unfinished, with too many people still experiencing racism, poverty and injustice.

“We are living through perilous times,” she said. "Across the country, we are witnessing ... a dangerous resurgence of white supremacy, of state-sanctioned violence, of economic exploitation, of authoritarian rhetoric."

The original protest rally in 1965 brought the civil rights movement to the Northeast, a place Martin Luther King Jr. knew well from his time earning a doctorate in theology from Boston University and serving as assistant minister at the city’s Twelfth Baptist Church. It was also the place where he met his wife, who earned a degree in music education from the New England Conservatory.

In his speech, King told the crowd that he returned to Boston not to condemn the city but to encourage its leaders to do better at a time when Black leaders were fighting to desegregate the schools and housing and working to improve economic opportunities for Black residents. King also implored Boston to become a leader that other cities like New York and Chicago could follow in conducting “the creative experiments in the abolition of ghettos.”

“It would be demagogic and dishonest for me to say that Boston is a Birmingham, or to equate Massachusetts with Mississippi,” he said. “But it would be morally irresponsible were I to remain blind to the threat to liberty, the denial of opportunity, and the crippling poverty that we face in some sections of this community.”

The Boston rally happened after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and months ahead of the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 signed in August.

King and other civil rights movement leaders had just come off the Selma to Montgomery march in Alabama, also referred to as Bloody Sunday, weeks before the Boston rally. The civil rights icon also was successful in the 1963 Birmingham campaign prompting the end of legalized racial segregation in the Alabama city, and eventually throughout the nation.

Saturday's rally came as the Trump administration is waging war on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in government, schools and businesses around the country, including in Massachusetts.

Since his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump has banned diversity initiatives across the federal government. The administration has launched investigations of colleges — public and private — that it accuses of discriminating against white and Asian students with race-conscious admissions programs intended to address historic inequities in access for Black students.

The Defense Department at one point temporarily removed training videos recognizing the Tuskegee Airmen and an online biography of Jackie Robinson. In February, Trump fired Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr., a champion of racial diversity in the military, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Brown, in the wake of Floyd’s killing, had spoken publicly about his experiences as a Black man, and was only the second Black general to serve as chairman.

The administration has fired diversity officers across government, curtailed some agencies’ celebrations of Black History Month and terminated grants and contracts for projects ranging from planting trees in disadvantaged communities to studying achievement gaps in American schools.

Martin Luther King III told The Associated Press that the attacks on diversity make little sense, noting, “We cannot move forward without understanding what happened in the past."

“It doesn’t mean that it’s about blaming people. It’s not about collective guilt. It’s about collective responsibility,” he continued. “How do we become better? Well, we appreciate everything that helped us to get to where we are. Diversity hasn't hurt the country.”

King said opponents of diversity have floated an uninformed narrative that unqualified people of color are taking jobs from white people, when the reality is they have long been denied the opportunities they deserve.

“I don’t know if white people understand this, but Black people are tolerant,” he said. “From knee-high to a grasshopper, you have to be five times better than your white colleague. And that’s how we prepare ourselves. So it’s never a matter of unqualified. It’s a matter of being excluded.”

Imari Paris Jeffries, the president and CEO of Embrace Boston, which along with the city put on the rally, said the event was a chance to remind people that elements of the “promissory note” King referred to in his “I Have A Dream” speech remain "out of reach” for many people.

“We’re having a conversation about democracy. This is the promissory note — public education, public housing, public health, access to public art,” Paris Jeffries said. "All of these things are a part of democracy. Those are the things that are actually being threatened right now.”

Associated Press writer Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.

FILE - Civil rights marchers parade down Columbus Ave. in Boston led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., en route to historic Boston Common, April 25, 1965. (AP Photo, file)

Wayne Lucas, right, who sixty years ago participated at the Freedom Rally on Boston Common, talks with Imari Paris Jeffries, the president and CEO of Embrace Boston, at the "The Embrace" sculpture on the common, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Wayne Lucas, who sixty years ago participated at the Freedom Rally on Boston Common, is interviewed at the "The Embrace" sculpture on the common, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Wayne Lucas, who sixty years ago participated at the Freedom Rally on Boston Common, poses at the "The Embrace" sculpture on the common, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is completely surrounded as he leads a civil rights march in Boston, April 23, 1965, en route to historic Boston Common where he will address a crowd. (AP Photo, file)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.

Iran had no immediate reaction to the news, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.

Meanwhile Monday, Iran called for pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”

Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”

Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.

“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”

He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.”

Iran through country's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.

More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.

Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.

In Tehran, a witness told the AP that the streets of the capital empty at the sunset call to prayers each night. By the Isha, or nighttime prayer, the streets are deserted.

Part of that stems from the fear of getting caught in the crackdown. Police sent the public a text message that warned: “Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings last night and their plans to cause death, and the firm decision to not tolerate any appeasement and to deal decisively with the rioters, families are strongly advised to take care of their youth and teenagers.”

Another text, which claimed to come from the intelligence arm of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also directly warned people not to take part in demonstrations.

“Dear parents, in view of the enemy’s plan to increase the level of naked violence and the decision to kill people, ... refrain from being on the streets and gathering in places involved in violence, and inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country,” the text warned.

The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing crackdown.

The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.

Nikhinson reported from aboard Air Force One.

In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)