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In 1973, when I was 21, I dropped out of college in New Jersey and moved to Boston. I didn鈥檛 have a clear plan or strong reason for the move. A girl I knew, on whom I was developing a huge crush, had relocated here; so had my boyfriend (life was complicated). The bookstores in Harvard Square stayed open until midnight鈥攊n contrast to the town I鈥檇 grown up in, which had no bookstores at all. It seemed like a cool place to be.

So I was new to the city, and living in my own world of discovering feminism and sharing collective apartments and working at odd jobs and coming out. I was not aware of ruling in 1974 ordering students to be bused from neighborhood to neighborhood in order to I may not even have been aware of the violence that greeted the first black students to attend South Boston High, who were abused and threatened and pelted with rocks. Gradually, I learned. I remember being at a party at which half of the guests suddenly grabbed their coats and rushed out, someone having received a call that a black family in the South End was being attacked and needed defenders. These same progressives and others organized marches against the racist violence, but their outcry didn鈥檛 make much of an impression, in a city whose politics were dominated by , the South Boston Marshals, and other antibusing groups.

I didn鈥檛 really understand what had happened in Boston until years later, after I did some reading about the city鈥檚 neighborhoods; the class, racial, and ethnic tensions that shaped them; and how they were changing because of redlining and gentrification鈥攊n particular, , by Hillel Levine; , by J. Anthony Lukas; and , by Michael Patrick MacDonald.

The contrast between then and last weekend鈥攚hen more than 40,000 people (from within the city, its suburbs, and beyond) turned out on a hot, humid August day to protest a so-called on Boston Common that threatened to give a platform to racists, Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members鈥攊s astounding. From my vantage point, my fellow marchers seemed to come from all walks of life: students, union members, elders, yuppies. Blacks, whites, Latino/as, Asians, Native Americans. Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists. LGBTQ folks and straights. Feminists, anarchists, socialists, Democrats, Libertarians, and Republicans. Most of the signs were home-made, and they, like the marchers who carried them, were both serious and joyful: 鈥淏lack Lives Matter,鈥� 鈥淛ewish Lesbian Against White Supremacy,鈥� 鈥淭he Only Thing We Hate is the Yankees,鈥� and 鈥淏oston Ain鈥檛 Nazi-Town.鈥� At one time, I wouldn鈥檛 have been so sure of that. Yet seemed to have no doubt that he was speaking for most of his constituents , 鈥淲e reject racism, we reject white supremacy, we reject anti-Semitism, we reject the KKK, we reject neo-Nazis, we reject domestic terrorism and we reject hatred, and we will do every single thing in our power to keep hate out of our city.鈥�

How did this turnaround happen? I鈥檓 glad of it, but I don鈥檛 know. Some of the people I talked to theorized about a better-educated population, a two-term black president, more understanding and acceptance of LGBTQ people and other nonmainstream folk鈥攁nd even the experience of the 1970s, from which at least some white people in Boston concluded that the anger, fear, and hatred that they directed toward people of color caused only misery and destruction鈥攏ot only to others but even to themselves.

Surely some of it has to do with demographic changes. Boston is no longer as white as it was in the 1970s, and its neighborhoods are not quite as segregated (although don鈥檛 get me wrong, they are segregated still). People with wildly different backgrounds, cultures, and values have more day-to-day interaction鈥攁t work, on their block, in stores, . Crime is down. Art, music, literary, and cultural events are not confined to Symphony Hall and the Museum of Fine Arts and the Hatch Shell on the Fourth of July鈥攖here are happenings throughout the neighborhoods that draw people out into the open, to enjoy them together.

Yet Boston remains a city of enormous economic inequality, institutional racism, struggling schools, and expensive housing and mass transit. The old fault lines could easily re-open, as people compete for scarce resources. After the march, some鈥攃ynics? realists?鈥攕aid, 鈥淣ice turnout鈥攏ow what?鈥� For August 19 to be meaningful, we have to keep it going. For some of us, the protest was just one of a life-long series of actions, while for others it was a first. For all of us鈥攃ertainly for me鈥攊t is an inspiration to keep marching in a positive direction, by remaining engaged and active, by working for justice and peace.

A writer, editor, and community activist, Amy Hoffman, M.F.A., is the editor-in-chief of Women鈥檚 Review of Books, published by the 妻友社区 and . Her most recent book is , a novel, forthcoming from the University of Wisconsin Press.