Cabot Park Village residents at the Declaration of Resistance rally on August 1 (photo: Chloe Yu)
Hundreds of Newton seniors have joined protests and lobbied state legislators over the past 18 months, organizing in local nonprofits to oppose policies of the Trump administration as well as state and local issues.
Meg Holland, 72, who has been a member of the First Unitarian Universalist Society in Newton (FUUSN) for almost 40 years and co-leads its Action for Democracy group, said many of the nonprofit’s members feel “devastated” by the current administration’s policies. Members of the organization have been active in protests supporting democracy, the environment, and LGBTQ+ rights.
“Ending racism is central in my life, and really ending all oppression is central to my life, so I feel like having a team of relatively like-minded people …makes it easier,” said Holland. “We can’t do this alone. We need each other.”
More recently, FUUSN members have been protesting outside an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) detention center in Burlington, Mass. The protests, which were started in April by Jared and Laurie Berezin, have become a weekly event, taking place every Wednesday from 11AM.
Many people are brought to the facility expecting to be processed that day, but are instead being held overnight, and in some cases for multiple weeks, according to Amelia LeClair, 74, a member of FUUSN who has participated in anti-I.C.E. protests.
“We’re doing whatever we can to make [I.C.E. employees] aware that what they’re doing is just so completely illegal and inhumane,” LeClair said.
Emily Levine is the chief of advocacy at 2Life Communities, an organization that operates retirement communities in Massachusetts.
“It’s hard to get older,” said Levine, “so while we view it as a team sport, it doesn’t mean…