A group of about 100 marchers wearing khaki pants, navy shirts, and white face masks descended on Boston on Saturday, and identified themselves as Patriot Front by the flyers distributed through the heart of downtown.
The group unloaded a number of shields and flags from a U-Haul truck, many of the flags showing 13 stars in a circle, as well as flags with a version of the symbol of Mussolini’s National Fascist Party.
The group had marched down Commonwealth Avenue and turned toward Dartmouth Street toward Boylston before stopping in the area of the Boston Public Library, where flyers were found identifying the group.
“The party system murdered the American Republic and replaced it with a fake democracy ruled by lobbyists, bankers, and unelected bureaucrats,” the flyer says in part. “The true rulers of the State never receive any votes. Elections are now only mass illusions of popular sovereignty.”
The group is described by the Anti-Defamation League as a “white supremacist group whose members maintain that their ancestors conquered America and bequeathed it to them, and no one else.” The group is also known for conducting flash demonstrations, in which group members appear and protest quickly, then leave.
There was one reported altercation with a Black man who was surrounded and pushed to the ground when he took out his cell phone. The 34-year-old man suffered lacerations on a finger, head, and left eyebrow.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu denounced the group.
