Boston Mayor Michelle Wu rises to the moment again
She isn't afraid to show that her city will do the right thing for democracy, just as it has for centuries.
By Shalise Manza Young
There’s a moment I had years ago with retired NFL safety Rodney Harrison when he was with the New England Patriots. As part of a weekly feature to help readers learn about players beyond the field, I asked him for a favorite childhood memory.
His answer?
The day he punched the neighborhood bully in the mouth.
I’ve been thinking about that exchange a lot lately, as we watch corporations, law firms, universities, and too many others capitulate to the wanton declarations of the doddering old fool occupying the White House.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, they believe that if they appease him, he will leave them alone. They think that letting a racist regime keep an eye on who gets to attend your university will satisfy him. Or that giving him thousands of hours of free legal work might make him back off. Or that paying millions of dollars in ransom money will somehow make whatever made-up complaint he has with your organization just go away.
None of them seem to know what Rodney Harrison knew, and what Boston Mayor Michelle Wu clearly knows: The way to get a bully off your back is to punch him in the mouth—at least metaphorically speaking in Wu’s case.
Wu had her sparring gloves on again on Tuesday when she delivered her response to a letter from Attorney General Pam Bondi sent to her and the mayors of 31 other cities and a handful of governors last week. The letter demanded that they work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement goons to round up undocumented residents and threatened officials with criminal prosecution if they did not comply.
Standing on City Hall Plaza surrounded by dozens of residents, activists, union leaders, members of the City Council, and Sen. Ed Markey, Wu told Bondi what she thought of the letter.
“The U.S. attorney general asked for a response by today, so here it is,” she said, pausing as the crowd began whooping in anticipation of what was to follow. “Here is our response: stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures.
“Unlike the Trump administration, Boston follows the law. And Boston will not back down from who we are or what we stand for. We will not back away from our community that has made us the safest major city in the country.”
Enacted in 2014 and updated in 2019, Boston’s Trust Act allows city police to cooperate with federal immigration officials only on criminal cases, not for the civil violation of not having proper paperwork. Wu and other supporters of the act say it allows for everyone in Boston, regardless of immigration status, to feel safe reporting crimes and interacting with city officials. The Trust Act was unanimously reaffirmed by the city council in December, after Trump was re-elected.
Wu has already shown she is built for this fight. In March, when she and three other Democratic mayors were called to Washington to sit in front of the House Oversight Committee and answer for their humane approaches to immigration, she was calm and poised and sometimes even combative as she made it clear that Boston is and will continue to be a welcoming city.
Given the strong support she received from residents after acquitting herself so well on Capitol Hill, Wu seemed emboldened this week.
“Under the Trump administration, groceries are less affordable, housing is harder to build, cures for cancer are farther away, and good news on our economy has been as hard to find as the Epstein list,” she said.
Sheesh! Tell us how you really feel.
Wu isn’t alone in standing up to the Trump regime. Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson also made public his response to Bondi on Tuesday, saying, she “seeks to have Washington state bend the knee to a Trump administration that, day by day, drags us closer to authoritarianism. That’s not going to happen. I am not intimidated by Pam Bondi or the president.”
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha also recognized the best approach to take, saying, “This letter does not change my view: it’s the tactic of a bully. And the only way to deal with a bully is to let them know that they’re not going to intimidate you.”
Wu, the daughter of immigrants (her parents moved to Chicago from Taipei for her father’s education), came to Massachusetts in 2003 to attend Harvard and has called Boston home since 2009. She was elected to an at-large seat on the city council in 2013. In 2021, she was elected mayor, the first time a white man wasn’t elected to the post in the city’s nearly 400 years.
She is up for re-election this year. Her main opponent is Josh Kraft, the third son of billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Josh Kraft, who had largely eschewed the spotlight before deciding to run for mayor of a city he moved to in October 2023, put out a statement saying Bondi’s demand letter is “just another unhinged and bigoted attack targeting our nation’s immigrants.”
Not quite done with her adversary, Wu reminded Bondi that Boston has been at the forefront of history—on the right side of history—for centuries.
“Attorney General Bondi, we are gathered here today to show you who we are in Boston. More than 100 years before your home state [Florida] was founded, Bostonians were across the street in Faneuil Hall, setting the foundation for our democracy and rule of law,” Wu said. “One hundred years before that, Bostonians were founding the first public school and public park in the country.
“This has always been a city of revolution, of innovation, of standing up for the public good and never bowing down to tyranny.… Boston will never back down from being a beacon of freedom and a home for everyone.”
Wu keeps rising to this moment, refusing to be cowed into compliance, confident that she has her city’s residents backing her up, fighting to keep the bully off Boston’s back.
Shalise Manza Young was most recently a columnist at Yahoo Sports, focusing on the intersection of race, gender and culture in sports. The Associated Press Sports Editors named her one of the 10 best columnists in the country in 2020. She has also written for the Boston Globe and Providence Journal. Find her on Bluesky @shalisemyoung.
It has always been amazing to me how patriots, TRUE patriots, somehow appear out of nowhere at a time of greatest need.
Thank you, Ms. Wu! I welcome you with open arms!!
Mayor Wu has indeed demonstrated courage and leadership. Now the ball is in the court of Massachusetts citizens. No doubt Republican secret police and other thugs will be appearing in larger numbers in sanctuary cities across the Commonwealth. Citizens need to be out in large numbers to protest and resist. Mayor Wu has done her part, now it is time for ordinary citizens to show courage to the inevitable backlash from the Republican party.