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| Parents protesting against busing |
The racial riots started with the "Racial Imbalance Act", passed in 1965 which made segregations in school illegal in the state of Massachusetts. 55 schools were deemed "unbalanced" and had to go through the process of desegregating, which meant that both white students and black students will learn together under the same roof.
For many white parents, this was not the problem of education. Rather, it was a racial problem.
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| The Soiling of Old Glory, 1976. Although it looks like he is trying to stab him with the flag, the boy claimed that he was trying to hit him with it, where he nearly missed. |
Much violence and protests emerged during this campaign. One notable protesting organization was ROAR, or Restore Our Alienated Rights, which was an anti-desegregation group composed of many men and women who wanted to "protect the 'vanishing rights' of white citizens". Their protests were mostly peaceful but sometimes violent. In some incidents, the group burned down a wooden bus, children of parents throwing things at buses from African American areas, and promoting with racial slurs.
In another incident when a black student stabbed a white student in defense, white parents surrounded the school trapping all black students inside the school, and the school closed down for one month. As a result of these riots, attendance in the Boston area fell from 60,000 to 40,000 in the span of a few years.
The busing system was not completely replaced until 2013. Today, it is replaced with the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, which is a voluntary school desegregation program.
Today, the school demographics are more vast, consisting of 40% Hispanic, 35% black, 13% white, 9% Asian-American students in public schools. The metropolitan areas of Boston consist of 64% white, 17% Hispanic, 9% black, and 7% Asian students.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_busing_desegregation#Violence
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/07/busing-boston-desegregation-schools-gentrification-civil-rights
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restore_Our_Alienated_Rights
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/soiling-old-glory-1976/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/METCO
It's really sad that this happened. It closely relates to a certain mindset that Americans still carry today, that somehow racism is over just because legislation says that it is. Boston was legally against segregation. But when the effort was actually made to desegregate, there was violent backlash. Granted, this was a very controversial way to do it, but regardless the mindset is the same.
ReplyDeleteWe often think of the South as being intrinsically more racist and segregated than the North, when in reality the segregation in the North and South are just different kinds. In the South, school segregation was de jure (or "by law"), while in the North it was de facto (which means in reality).
DeleteObviously, both the North and South had many people with racist sentiments, but the steps for Civil Rights activists to take to lessen discrimination were much more obvious in the South. In the South, segregation could be ended by changing the laws, but in the North, segregation could only be changed by drastic measures, like busing black children into white schools, or creating mixed race neighborhoods. Policies like these are so difficult to enforce (without committing political suicide) that de facto segregation is still starkly noticeable today, in Boston and elsewhere in the US.
Don't believe me? Look at the demographics for Los Altos High School. (http://public-schools.startclass.com/l/11224/Los-Altos-High-in-California#Demographics&s=2iahF)
Source: http://bosdesca.omeka.net/background
This was a very interesting article since it really made me examine how Boston had a different attitude toward desegregation than other parts of the country. The actions of ROAR against the bus integration highlight this very prominently. This stance was widespread at the time in Boston, shown by how they were able to organize a 20,000 person march at Boston City Plaza to push their cause. The massive resistance shows how despite the work of the Civil Rights Movement, people were still very opposed to the changes occurring, especially in places like Boston.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wsc.mass.edu/mhj/pdfs/militant%20mothers.pdf