Boston Holds Drive-Through Graduation Caravan for Pandemic Class of 2020

Uncategorized · Meeting of July 22, 2026

Boston honors its COVID-era Class of 2020 with a drive-through graduation caravan. Mayor Martin J. Walsh, describing it as his first public event since the onset of COVID-19, joined Superintendent Brenda Casillas, Boston Police Commissioner William Gross, MBTA Chief Kenny Green, City Councilor At-Large Julia Mejia, State Sen.

Sonia Chang-Diaz, and State Rep. Chyna Tyler at a parking lot staging area before a motorcade wound through Boston neighborhoods, organized in roughly three weeks by a parent-educator known only as Sharon, working through the Boston Black COVID-19 Coalition Education Committee. Walsh told graduates they were living through "the most turbulent time of any other graduating class in the history of Massachusetts, Boston, and possibly the world," while Casillas, who had just returned from Minneapolis, called on students to register to vote and return one day as teachers.

Mejia, who won her at-large council seat by a single vote, told the crowd: "Nothing about us without us is for us." Valedictorian Kedra Hopkins of Boston Arts Academy and the senior class president of East Boston High School, who noted his father attended the same school during the busing era, also addressed the gathering before the Buffalo Soldiers motorcycle club led the caravan into the neighborhoods.

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Source: the Uncategorized meeting of July 22, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.