This weekend in Boston is cram-jammed with activity and celebration.
Monday April 21 is the running of the 129th annual Boston Marathon, which takes place on the 3rd Monday in April. Our own blogger Alison is running Boston this year. I imagine she’ll have some things to say about the race, so stay tuned for her report.
It’s also a holiday for the city of Boston– Patriot’s Day, to commemorate the battles of Lexington and Concord, as well as the midnight ride of Paul Revere, which took place on “the eighteenth of April in Seventy Five”. That’s 1775, for those of you who live outside the Boston area.
And this year– 2025– is the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of those events which signaled the start of the move toward representative democracy in then-American colonies and now-United States of America. One writer called it the “semiquincentennial” of those April 1775 events (get it? half of five hundred?) I was skeptical about this word, but some sites say it’s legit. But I think I prefer “sestercentennial”, which is a more formal term.
Finally, today is Easter Sunday and Orthodox Easter Sunday, arguably the most important holiday (personally, I think it edges out Christmas) in the Christian liturgical calendar. Boston is a big Easter town, with both religious and secular celebrations of the cycles of rebirth and renewal.
And this year, those cycles include resolve and response. Resolve to protect rights that we fought for, and response to those who would infringe upon, or rather, stomp all over those rights. Old North Church itself says it best:
On Friday April 18, there was a service to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the lighting of two lanterns in the steeple of Old North Church. American historian Heather Cox Richardson gave the keynote address. You can read her talk here at her substack Letters from an American (which I and more than one million of my friends follow)
Okay, I have to say it: I WAS THERE! With my friend Norah. I was able to get tickets way back in February as soon as they went on sale because a)I subscribe to way too many newsletters; and b) I stubbornly try to read as many of them as I can, at the cost of more practical tasks (like cleaning and grading). Here are a few pictures from the event:
Top: Old North Church Visitor Experience Center Director Julius Hobert introducing Richardson. Yes, those candles are real. Middle: the plaque inside the Revere Pew, where Norah and I sat (OMG– such random but delightful luck!) Bottom: Historian Heather Cox Richardson, speaking from the raised pulpit.
Yes, Norah and I took selfies from the Revere pew, but I’m trying to write a more classy post this week, so I’ll save those for other social media.
Richardson, in her account of the events of April 18-19. 1775, noted all the work done by so many people– people who rode hard, climbed high, carried messages and armaments, beat drums of alert, marched, fought, wrote, organized, fed, housed, and spoke in favor of the rights of the people to govern themselves.
Two hundred and fifty years later, people all over the US and Canada and all over the world are doing the same. We don’t know what effects our actions will have. As Richardson pointed out, neither did those folks:
Paul Revere didn’t wake up on the morning of April 18, 1775, and decide to change the world. That morning began like many of the other tense days of the past year, and there was little reason to think the next two days would end as they did. Like his neighbors, Revere simply offered what he could to the cause: engraving skills, information, knowledge of a church steeple, longstanding friendships that helped to create a network. And on April 18, he and his friends set out to protect the men who were leading the fight to establish a representative government.
The work of Newman (sexton of Old North) and Pulling (sea captain and friend of Paul Revere) to light the lanterns exactly 250 years ago tonight sounds even less heroic. They agreed to cross through town to light two lanterns in a church steeple. It sounds like such a very little thing to do, and yet by doing it, they risked imprisonment or even death. It was such a little thing…but it was everything. And what they did, as with so many of the little steps that lead to profound change, was largely forgotten until Henry Wadsworth Longfellow used their story to inspire a later generation to work to stop tyranny in his own time.
What Newman and Pulling did was simply to honor their friendships and their principles and to do the next right thing, even if it risked their lives, even if no one ever knew. And that is all anyone can do as we work to preserve the concept of human self-determination. In that heroic struggle, most of us will be lost to history, but we will, nonetheless, move the story forward, even if just a little bit.
And once in a great while, someone will light a lantern—or even two—that will shine forth for democratic principles that are under siege, and set the world ablaze.
This day is Easter Sunday. It’s, for many of us, a time of renewal. I’m renewing my commitment to protecting all of those in my small, medium and large communities.
Easter is also a time of resolve. I resolve not to forget those who have sacrificed much for justice and to join them with my own efforts. I resolve to keep moving, marching, writing, speaking, supporting, feeding, donating, and maintaining our communities.
This Easter, I’m adding in respond. Those responses include physical and mental and emotional and financial and political actions, all aimed at restoring and protecting the democratic rights of everyone in this country.
What does this Easter mean to you at this time in our history? Feel free to share what you’re thinking, feeling, and doing.
