Come to A Reverse Tea Party at Town’s Dec. 13th Tea Burning Reenactment

Learn your local resistance history and celebrate modern patriotic resistance while having fun and doing good work at Lexington’s Annual Reenactment of the town’s historic Dec. 13, 1773 Tea Burning. The Lexington Visitor’s Center, Lexington Historical Society and the Lexington Minute Men invite all to participate in activities beginning at 10:00 a.m. at the Visitor’s Center.

There’ll be recreations of a soldier encampment, musket drills,18th-century cooking demonstrations, parades and music, all culminating in the burning of tea at 1:30 p.m.

Lexington Alarm!’s Reverse Tea Party fundraising event to support local food banks will be happening from 12:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. We will be in Depot Square, a block down from the Visitor Center, with tables, signs, and information. We expect people to wander back and forth during the festivities.

What’s the Tea Burning History?

After days spent debating an act of rebellion against British tyranny, the people of Lexington built a bonfire and burned the town’s entire supply of English tea. It was a show of resistance and of support for Boston colonists who three days later dumped tea in Boston Harbor. All present at the Lexington Tea Burning resolved that anyone in town who continued to purchase or drink British tea would be treated “as an enemy of this town and this country.”

Refilling the Chests

LexingtonAlarm! will participate with a Reverse Tea Party to help alleviate the growing food insecurity being felt in our local communities. Symbolically reversing the 1773 emptying of English tea chests into Boston’s Harbor, we will fill the chests of three local organizations supporting those whose food insecurity has been increased by the Trump Administration.

The three groups are Minuteman Senior Services Meals on Wheels, the Lexington Food Pantry, and Food Link. Each has requested we ask for money donations rather than try and collect food items ourselves.

We will have handouts and describing the work of three charities that will benefit from the fundraiser, and information about resistance to tyranny in our times and how it relates to the same resistance celebrated during this historic re-enactment.

Raise Your Voice for Due Process

Other Information about Lexington Alarm’s current and ongoing actions will also be available. You can pick up a yard or window sign, participate in our campaign to halt ICE flights at Massport, and “Raise Your Voice For Due Process.”  All that’s needed is your phone to activate the QR code to tell our state representatives to support immigration bills pending in our state legislature and sign petitions that need your support.

For those who can’t make it to Lexington on Dec. 13, MA 50501 is holding a Boston ICE Tea Party on Dec. 16 at the site of the original Boston Tea Party.

Similar Posts

  • What Does Graham Platner’s Exit Mean for Our Movement?

    Graham Platner won Maine’s Democratic primary in a landslide, then quit after allegations he could not survive. His fall split the movement he built. We believe women, and violence against women is disqualifying, period. But his takedown was also coordinated Republican opposition research, and that is nothing to cheer. What does his exit mean for our movement?

  • ICE Supporters Try and Suppress Bearing Witness Demonstrations

    The weekly Bearing Witness protests at ICE headquarters on District Avenue have become a regional center of peaceful resistance, drawing 700–900 participants each week. Organized by a broad interfaith coalition, the demonstrations elevate the voices of those harmed by ICE while reaffirming a commitment to nonviolence. That very commitment has triggered escalating efforts to suppress the protests: parking bans, intimidation, and towing by powerful real estate interests and complicit local authorities. As businesses and police “bend the knee” to protect ICE, Bearing Witness remains resolute. Peaceful assembly is not a threat—it is a constitutional right, and it will continue to grow. See our Letter to National Development

  • Protecting Massachusetts Communities Campaign Launched at State House Rally

    A coalition of immigrant rights organizations, legislators, union leaders, and concerned citizens gathered outside Boston’s Statehouse on Oct. 22 to launch Protecting Massachusetts Communities (PMC) — a campaign to legally defend against the freedom of ICE agents to target, hunt down, arrest and deport the thousands of immigrants and refugees living and working in our communities.

    “Operation Patriot,” the federal government’s escalation of immigrant deportations from Massachusetts last spring netted 1,500 arrests in May alone, mostly in the Boston “sanctuary city” area.”Operation Patriot 2.0”, which began in September, has yielded another 1,500 arrests is ongoing.

    ICE’s growing use of violence in abducting immigrants spreads a constant fear in their homes and work places, not only in metropolitan Boston and its suburbs but also in Worcester, Lowell, Fall River, Framingham and Nantucket. Currently, the operations are reported to be moving into the Merrimack Valley region. Immigrants are afraid to take public transportation, go to work or send their children to school for fear of being trapped in a massive ICE dragnet based on racial profiling, now encouraged by the Supreme Court.

    Contrary to federal claims of targeting only hardcore criminals, up to 80% of those indiscriminately scooped up, detained, stripped of their rights and deported are found to have no criminal record.

  • 2 Ice Planes Land Same Day at Hanscom

    When Hanscom Airfield was first taken over by Massport, there was immense community opposition in Lexington, Concord, and surrounding towns because people did not want a major second Boston airport, as the infrastructure to support it was non-existent and it also would have changed the character of the Minuteman National Park, nearly an abutter.

    The result was a compromise for a small regional airfield, where jets of more than 60 seats would not be allowed. This agreement, limiting commercial airlines to 60 seats, was codified into law in the act enabling Massport to acquire the airport in 1980. The FAA sued, saying that FAA rules preempted local airport authorities from restricting operations in this way. Massachusetts won.