@civicwitness: The weekly Brookline Rally for Democracy at Coolidge Corner, Brookline, MA has now been running for about a year Protesters persevere through New England’s seasons with only very occasional cancellations due to extreme weather. It featured excellent live music, including a tenor horn player and a varied selection of songs. At one point, the band played what I immediately recognised as “God Save the King,” having come from a Commonwealth country. I found it a rather curious choice for an anti-Trump rally. Was it a roundabout suggestion that perhaps the United States would had been better off not severing ties with the British Crown? Someone explained that the words had been written near here by Samuel Francis Smith in 1831, which only deepened my confusion. It wasn’t until I looked it up later that I realized we had been talking about two different songs. The melody is indeed that of “God Save the King,” but the US patriotic song “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” uses the same tune. The US version was first performed publicly at Boston’s Park Street Church. A small cross-cultural misunderstanding on my part. Oops. Brookline, MA, August 1, 2026 #Brookline #ProtestPhotography #ICEProtests #PoliticalPhotography #Democracy

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Saturday 01 August 2026 21:15:49 GMT