Boston Oil Party: A Forgotten Protest of the People's Bicentennial of the American Revolution

In 1773 the Boston Tea Party was a major catalyst in launching the American Revolution. In 1973 the People's Bicentennial Commission celebrated the 200th anniversary of that event with a new revolutionary intent. Calling their bicentennial commemoration the "Boston Oil Party," over 10,000 angry Bostonians rallied at Boston's famed Faneuil Hall and then marched on Boston harbor. There they swarmed over a replica of the original Tea Party ship and, instead of tea chests, dumped oil barrels into Boston harbor. This was to protest the skyrocketing prices of oil and gasoline that gigantic oil companies were inflicting on the American people. The people demanded not only the impeachment of President Richard Nixon because of the Watergate scandal -- but the impeachment of Big Business, too. This was not only the largest impeachment protest of the entire Watergate era, it was also the largest protest against the giant oil companies of the entire decade of the Seventies. The bicentennial Boston Oil Party of 1973 should be remembered as one of the significant protests in American radical history.