Dozens of people affiliated with Boylston Students for Justice in Palestine rallied in front of the 2 Boylston Place Alleyway Friday evening after Emerson College shut down the public right-of-way in an attempt to disrupt the protest.
The action started along Boylston Street and moved into Boston Common after protesters were denied access to the alleyway. The Emerson College Police Department preemptively shut down the alley and installed a tap desk at the Boylston Street entrance to track students coming in and out of the area.
“They’ve intimidated everyone on this campus into ignoring the genocide that is intensifying in front of the whole world,” one speaker at the protest said. “They beat us and arrested 118 last year.”
An Instagram post made by Boylston SJP on April 23 publicized the protest in light of the one-year anniversary of the April 2024 “Popular University Encampment.” The “Popular University,” or the People’s University for Gaza, is a committee of the Palestinian Youth Group Movement that began as a student-run movement in Palestine that has since gained prevalence in the United States. Emerson’s four-day encampment, created in solidarity with the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, was swept on April 25, 2024, by over 100 police officers, and ended in the arrest of 118 protesters.
Wednesday’s post attempted to mobilize students in the “Walid Abu Daqqa Alley,” a designation protesters gave to the 2B Place alleyway in honor of Walid Daqqa, a Palestinian academic who died last April following 38 years of incarceration in an Israeli prison. Friday’s action is the latest in a series of Boylston SJP demonstrations calling for Palestinian liberation and against Zionism, the ideology calling for the existence and protection of a Jewish state in what is now present-day Israel.
A Boston police officer confirmed to The Beacon that the shutdown came at the request of the college, and that the alleyway is only open to 2 Boylston Place residents between 7 p.m. on Friday and 7 a.m. on Saturday. An earlier statement from the college on Thursday acknowledged the planned protest and discouraged the use of the alley, citing potential violations of Emerson’s interim expression policies.
The closure of the alleyway poses questions about its status as city property, which has been contested since the arrests occurred. The college had asserted during the encampment that the 2B Alleyway is not solely owned by Emerson and “has a public right-of-way requirement to access non-Emerson buildings.”
About 35 spectators watched from Boston Common as the crowd began to accumulate on the sidewalk in front of the alley. Some bystanders were seen recording chants.
“ECPD, KKK, IOF, they’re all the same,” and “Israel is a terrorist state” were among some of the chants, along with calling for a “free Palestine.”
Affirming honks by cars passing by were heard throughout the night. Minimal counter-protesters were present—multiple different people who repeatedly tried to take pictures had their attempts blocked by SJP protesters holding up keffiyehs. By the time the demonstration moved from in front of the alley down Boylston Street, 65 protesters made up the crowd.
“If you’re afraid and unwilling to speak, the media has taken what it wants from you, the power,” one speaker said.
“We took this matter of fighting scholasticide into our own hands, and they called the pigs on us,” one speaker said into the megaphone, referencing the systematic mass destruction of schools and education systems in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military. U.N. experts have expressed concern over the future of education in Gaza, where more than 90% of schools have been damaged or destroyed, according to Wafa, a Palestinian news agency headquartered in the region.
“No graduating class from Gaza in two years. No ceremonies. No diplomas. No future,” said the speaker.
As protesters reached Boston Common, they set up a projector casting images of the destruction in Gaza onto the Ansin Building on Tremont Street, where the college’s administrative offices, including President Jay Bernhardt’s, are located.
Shortly thereafter, demonstrators began spray painting, stickering, chalking, and splattering fake blood onto the side of Emerson’s UnCommon stage, a beer-garden space that the college leases from the city of Boston. Phrases on the side of the stage included “Emerson’s ‘leadership’ are fascists and cowards,” “long live the intifada,” and “stop using Jewish students as scapegoats for fascist policies.”
Three BPD officers arrived when the chalking started and were seen talking to protesters, though no actions were taken.
Several passersby were seen live streaming the demonstration, with some shouting “terrorists” at the protesters.
The protest dispersed after reaching the Chinatown T Stop at the corner of Boylston and Washington Street.
Margaret Ings, the associate vice president of government affairs, was present at the demonstration and took photos and videos of the protesters. She was later seen talking to ECPD after the crowd dissipated, working to identify the people in the photos.
