The right had their Tea Party, we're claiming 'The Shot Heard Round the World'

No one knows who fired the first shot on Lexington Green on the morning of April 19, 1775, which began the American Revolution against a tyrannical British monarch.

Now the right had their astroturfed TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party to claim the legacy of the 1773 Boston Tea Party when members of the Sons of Liberty dumped tea into the harbor in a protest against taxation without representation .

We could just as easily form the Tariffed Enough Already Party to protest President Donald Trump's illegal and unconstitutional reckless imposition of tariffs without authorization from Congress.

But as Harold Mayerson wrote in an opinion piece titled "A Plan for the Resistance" in early February in The American Prospect, Saturday's 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord offers "a stellar opportunity" to begin "a mobilization that celebrates America's founding revolt against arbitrary authority ... to show how profoundly un-American Trump truly is" by exercising powers "that go well beyond those the Constitution allots to presidents."

On Saturday, the 50501 movement, which organized the nationwide protests on April 5 that drew several million people, is calling for events around the country to mark the anniversary. The April 5 slogan was "Hands Off!" This time it's "No Kings."

On the morning of April 19, 1775,on Lexington Green, a ragtag militia of less than 100 farmers, shopkeepers and craftsmen refused to disperse when ordered to by hundreds of battle-hardened British regular troops.

After that single shot was heard, British troops opened fire on the Minute Men, killing eight patriots and wounding 10 others. The Minutemen hastily retreated into the forest and the British continued their march to Concord, were they hoped to seize and destroy military supplies stored by the Massachusetts militia.

But the Minutemen had been tipped off in advance about the British attack and had removed most of the munitions. Founding Fathers Samuel Adams and John Hancock, leaders of the independence movement in Massachusetts, went into hiding to avoid arrest.

Later that day, on the Old North Bridge in Concord, hundreds of Minute Men had gathered and fired volleys of shots, killing a number of British soldiers. On their retreat to Boston, more British soldiers were killed by militiamen firing at them from behind trees and stone walls.

Here's a video originally aired on The History Channel describing the events that day.

One noteworthy moment in the video comes at the 4:25 mark when Gen. Colin Powell, the son of Jamaican immigrants who rose to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, spoke about the free African-Americans and slaves who fought that day.

"It is a unique experience that African Americans have had in the military in America. African Americans fought for the country even before it was a country," Powell said.

"African Americans like Prince Eastabrook. You give me training, you give me a weapon and I can perform as well as you can. Then there is no power on Earth that is going to hold me down forever."

Prince Estabrook, a slave, was wounded in the Battle of Lexington, fought in other Revolutionary War battles, and was freed after the war ended.

Trump's white supremacist defense secretary Pete Hegseth would probably have dumped Powell as a DEI hire as he did when he fired Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Gen. CQ Brown, an African American.

in 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a poem "Concord Hymn" to commemorate the dedication of a stone obelisk monument to the Battle of Concord. It's opening stanza included a phrase that would go down in history.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.

Mayerson referenced Emerson's poem in his opinion piece in The American Prospect:

This year, so far, all the shots have been coming from the White House, from the man who would be king. It’s time for small-d democrats to launch volleys of their own, so loudly, insistently, and in such numbers that they’re heard around the world, too. The world has been waiting impatiently to hear from them.

The anniversary of our revolution presents today’s small-d democrats, whose ranks are by no means limited to capital-D Democrats, with an opportunity to renew the fight against royalist presumption. Donald Trump was elected to be president, not an emperor who rules unchecked at home and seizes new retro-colonies abroad.

Mayerson emphasized that he was not suggesting violent resistance or an armed insurrection as occurred in 1775. Instead, he called for holding massive peaceful protests around the country on April 19 to denounce Trump's "increasingly autocratic rule."

On April 18, 1775, Boston's Old North Church hung two lanterns from its steeple to warn patriots that the British regulars were coming by sea to march on Concord. Paul Revere and two other patriots, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, set out on horseback to rouse the Minutemen.

On Friday evening, the Old North Church will ring its bells at 6 p.m. "to commemorate the day the American people rose up against tyranny and began the long struggle for freedom, liberty, and justice for all that continues today."

Boston College history professor Heather Cox Richardson was scheduled to deliver the keynote address at 7 p.m. at the church's 250th Lantern Service, which will be livestreamed on Vimeo.

The call has also gone out to houses of worship and others across the country to ring bells Friday evening in an inaugural Let Freedom Ring! event.

On Saturday, protests will be held in hundreds of cities nationwide, including all across Massachusetts. But only small-scale protests are planned for Lexington and Concord. That's because thousands of people are expected to attend the official ceremonies that include a battle reenactment, parade and concert.

Indivisible has called for protests in Lexington and Concord to be "subtle" with people walking through the crowds with "respectful" signs. A local group. Lexington Alarm, told Axios Boston that it expects hundreds of demonstrators to carry signs at the official dedication ceremony and then along the parade route. The Lexington Alarm refers to the dispatches sent to patriots in the 13 colonies to announce that the war against the British had begun and prepare to mobilize.

President Ulysses S. Grant attended a chaotic centennial celebration in the two Massachusetts towns in 1875. President Gerald R. Ford was jeered by thousands of youthful anti-Vietnam War protesters at the 1975 bicentennial celebration in Concord.

It's not known whether Trump or Vice President JD Vance will attend Saturday's anniversary observances in the two Boston suburbs.

But Trump did sign a proclamation declaring April 19, 2025, as "a day in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the beginning of the American Revolutionary War."

The proclamation read:

April 19, 1775, stands to this day as a seminal milestone in our Nation’s righteous crusade for liberty and independence.  On this day 250 years ago, with the fire of freedom blazing in their souls, an extraordinary army of American minutemen defeated one of the mightiest armies on the face of the earth and laid the foundation for America’s ultimate triumph over tyranny.

Two and a half centuries later, their fortitude remains our inheritance, their resolve remains our birthright, and their unwavering loyalty to God and country remains the duty of every American patriot.  As we approach the 250th anniversary of our Nation’s independence next year, we honor the valiant men who fought in defense of their sacred right to self-government, we renew our pledge to restore our republic to all of its greatness and glory, and we commit to rebuilding a country and a culture that inspires pride in our past and faith in our future.

It's pretty clear that Trump didn't actually write the proclamation because it gives a fairly accurate account of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. After all, Trump did say in a July 4, 2019 speech that the Continental Army "manned the air" and "took over the airports."

But it's important that we not allow Trump and his faux J6 "patriots" hijack the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. And we don't want the July 4, 2026, observances to turn into something befitting of Hitler's 1934 Nuremberg rally depicted in director Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda documentary "Triumph of the Will."

And so we must reclaim our patriotic heritage as we commemorate the anti-monarchial uprising that began on April 19, 1775, in Lexington and Concord.

Just read the text of the Declaration of Independence and you'll see how relevant it is to our present situation under Mad King Donald.

Our Founding Fathers wrote:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

And they went on to list their grievances against the British monarch. They include the following:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. (DOGE, anyone?)

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us. ..

In a follow up piece in The American Prospect published Thursday, Mayerson wrote that the comparisons to King George are even more appropos today than they were just a few weeks into Trump's term.

Today, he presides over the nation not just as Old George, but as Mad George, decreeing extrajudicial punishments on his critics, renaming pieces of geography, and using his tariffs to pressure world leaders, as he told a meeting of Republicans last week, to come before him “kissing my ass.”

So Saturday offers us an opportunity to celebrate the original patriots for their opposition to a mad monarch, for their belief, however fledgling and incomplete it may have been, in laws enacted democratically, by the consent of the governed. Following up on the thousands of local demonstrations of April 5th, building on the massive crowds that have turned out for the Bernie-AOC tour, it’s time for Americans to assemble again to resist the usurpations of power and the reign of not just a unitary, but also a monarchial, autocratic, and sociopathic executive.

And we should rally around the slogan: No kings then! No kings now!