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

ByChristine Dall

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.

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