thesis statement school desegregation in boston

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Desegregating Boston Public Schools

Forty years later it has been added to the Boston Public Schools curriculum.  Busing changed not just Boston's public school system, but its politics, demographics and culture.  Possibly nothing in Boston's twentieth century history had a greater affect on the city and its citizens.

W hile not exhaustive,  t he following contains lists of material  that chronicle, discuss and explain this still controversial era and its aftermath. 

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• Scholarly Works
• Dissertations and Theses
• Journalism and Media

• Desegregation: the Boston orders and their origin by Boston Bar Association Call Number: LB3062.B67x Publication Date: 1975

• Black Sisyphus: Boston schools and the Black community,1790-2000 by Bryn Upton Call Number: LA306 .B7U559 2003ax Publication Date: 2003 Photocopy of thesis. Also available through the Dissertations and Theses database.
• Court desengagement in the Boston public schools toward a theory of restorative law by Murninghan, Marsha Marie Call Number: LC214.23 .B67 1983x Publication Date: 1983 Thesis on microform. Also available through the Dissertations and Theses database.
• The effects of court-ordered school desegregation on the public school system of Boston, Massachusetts by O'Donnell, Mark D. Call Number: LC214.23.B67 O36 1996ax Publication Date: 1996 Photocopy of thesis. Also available through the Dissertations and Theses database.
• Nothing will stop us: the climax of racial segregation in the Boston public schools, 1963-1974 by Howard John Chislett Call Number: LC212.23.B67 C48 1979ax Publication Date: 1979 Thesis on microform
• The organization of anti-busing protest in Boston, 1973-1976 by Begley, Thomas M. Call Number: LC214.523.B67 B43 1981ax Publication Date: 1981 Thesis on microform.
• Social conflict and social movements an exploratory study of the black community of Boston attempting to change the Boston public schools by Mottl, Tahi Lani, 1945- Call Number: LC214.23.B67 M68 1976ax Publication Date: 1976 Thesis on microform. Also available through the Dissertations and Theses database.
• Farah Stockman's Boston Globe commentary This page contains links to Farah Stockman's commentary on the legacy of busing published in the Boston Globe, for which she won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

Find a wealth of material--including film, audio files, photographs, letters, archival material from local organizations, and more, on the Digital Commonwealth website. This link shows all the available material digitized in Digital Commonwealth related to the busing era in Boston. 

Government Publications

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• Report on Racial Imbalance in the Boston Public Schools by United States Commission on Civil Rights, Massachusetts Advisory Committee Call Number: CR1.2:SCH6/10B Publication Date: 1965 Looks at the organization and racial composition of the schools; effect of discrimination in public housing; consideration of the policy of the Boston School Committee; comparison of student performance and teacher qualifications in predominately white, non-white and integrated schools and an examination of compensatory programs.
• Hearing Before the United States Commission on Civil Rights; Hearing Held in Boston, Massachusetts, June 16-20, 1975. This resource includes the text of the 1975 hearing before the United States Commission on Civil Rights held to examine the program and plans for the desegregation of Boston's schools. Developments surrounding the implementation of Phase I as ordered by the Federal district court in 1974. Also included are the plans for the implementation of Phase II as ordered by the same court in June 1975. Statements by State and national officials, as well as testimony from politicians, students, school administrators, educators, and representatives of public and private agencies are included.
• Student desegregation plan by US District Court. District of Massachusetts Call Number: GOVDOC/LB3062.U66X Publication Date: 1975 ..."Phase 2 plan"; shows number of minority and bilingual students in each school district; indicates which colleges and universities will work with each district; gives guidelines for assigning students, transportation considerations, timetables for implementation, etc....
• Fastcase This link opens in a new window Fastcase’s libraries include primary law from all 50 states, as well as deep federal coverage going back to 1 U.S. 1, 1 F.2d 1, 1 F.Supp. 1, and 1 B.R. 1. The Fastcase collection includes cases, statutes, regulations, court rules, and constitutions. Fastcase also provides access to a newspaper archive, legal forms, and a one-stop PACER search of federal filings.

• The desegregation packet by Massachusetts Research Center Call Number: GOVDOC/LB3062.M365/1974BX Publication Date: 1974 This packet is a compilation of reports giving a chronology of events in Boston, the constitutional background, financial prespectives, information on the use of the school bus in the US and brief factual material on desegregation in other US cities.

• A statement of policy and recommendations on the subject of racial imbalance and education in Boston public schools by Boston (Mass.). Superintendent of Public Schools Call Number: LB3062 .B66 Publication Date: 1965
• Student desegregation plan, December 16, 1974 in accordance with the order of October 31, 1974 of the u. S. District court, district of Massachusetts establishing filing date and general contents of a student desegregation plan by Boston Public Schools Call Number: GOVDOC/LB3062.S87X Publication Date: 1974 This report includes description and maps showing proposed zones and districts; discussion of the philosophy underlying new educational programs; lengthy description of the magnet school concept; explores the problem of racial balance in Boston as it relates to the surrounging suburbs; indicates statistics on the enrollment of various minority students in the communities within the Boston standard metropolitan area; emphasizes the need for the suburbs to take responsibility for integrating schools and describes the aims of various regional groups that are working to that end.

Media and More

The resources listed below do not fit neatly in the boxes above.  The Boston Globe and the Boston Public Schools have created websites tracking the history of desegregation in Boston.  The City of Boston Archives has pre-selected collections of official records so you do not need to search a catalog.  The ERIC database includes scholarly articles and government reports, many full-text.  The Boston TV News Digital Library website returns 150 videos when Boston busing is searched.

• An alternative plan for the integration of Boston's public schools by Mel King Call Number: MK/75.1 Publication Date: 1975 An alternative plan submitted by then Massachusetts State Representative Mel King to Judge Arthur Garrity.
• Beyond Busing : Boston School Desegregation Archival Resources at Northeastern University A place for educators, students, activists, researchers, and anyone with a general interest to begin investigating primary sources related to 35 plus years of work around school desegregation in the city. These sources explore the history of desegregation in Boston beginning with the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 through to the Morgan v. Hennigan case in 1974.
• Boston Public Library Microtext Collection A 2-reel collection of articles from the Boston Globe entitled Boston Busing, 1969-1975. These are arranged chronologically. The call number is LC214.53.B67B38x.
• Busing: 40 years later The Boston Globe's 40th anniversary report on busing in Boston. This website includes oral histories, photographs, video and in-depth articles.
• City of Boston Archives A collection of various city records from the Segregation Era, including those from the Citywide Parents Council, the Law Department, School Committee Secretary and Louise Day Hicks.
• Digital Commonwealth This links leads to photos found after searching the terms, Busing - School Integration.
• History of Boston Busing and Desegregation An online, interactive project of the Boston Public Schools intended for students, educators and average citizens.
• Moakley Archive and Institute Digital Collections at Suffolk University Recordings and transcripts for a selection of the interviews available through the Moakley Oral History Project.
• Moakley Oral History Project at Suffolk University The Moakley Archive Oral History Project includes transcripts of taped interfiews with Congressman John Joseph (Joe) Moakley's family, friends, staff, colleagues, political opponents, and constituents on issues pertinent to his career. Under Interviews by Topic, interviews addressing busing are listed under the "Garrity Decision". These interviews may include other topics, so check the table of contents to see where the busing discussion occurs. See below for a link to audio for select interviews.
• Boston Globe (1872-1992) via Proquest This link opens in a new window Searchable full-page and article reproductions back to the first issue on March 4, 1872. Coverage:  Morning Edition only.
• Boston Globe (1980-Present) This link opens in a new window Provides full-text articles for staff-written news items, feature stories, columns, and editorials for the Boston Globe . Coverage: 1980-present
• Boston TV News Digital Library This link opens in a new window This collaboration between the Boston Public Library, Cambridge Community television, Northeast Historic Film and WGBH Educational Foundation aims to bring to life local news stories produced in and about Boston from the early 1960’s to 2000. Coverage: Boston Public Library WHDH film collection (1960- mid-1970s) Cambridge Community Television (1988 to 1999) Northeast Historic Film’s WCVB film collection (1970-1979) WGBH The Reporters (1970-1973) Evening Compass (1973-1975) Ten O’Clock News (1976-1991)
• ERIC This link opens in a new window The Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, provides access to some 14,000 documents and over 20,000 journal articles from Resources in Education (RIE) and Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE). In addition, ERIC provides coverage of conferences, meetings, government documents, theses, dissertations, reports, audiovisual media, bibliographies, directories, books and monographs. Coverage: 1966-present
• Last Updated: Jan 9, 2024 11:36 AM
• URL: https://guides.bpl.org/bpshistory

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Created by graduate students in the History and American Studies departments at UMass Boston, this site showcases letters, photographs, legal documents, artifacts, and interviews that explore de facto segregation in Boston and the federally-mandated desegregation of Boston public schools. Students unearthed materials from various collections in separate Boston archives, selected a representative sampling, and presented them here, together, in new collaborative context.

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‘The practice was nowhere near the policy.’ History of segregation in Boston schools examined

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Lindsa McIntyre, high school superintendent of Boston, describes the first high school she attended as an “annex.”

“The cafeteria served as the gymnasium. The windows were cracked, broken or peeling,” she said. “The books were old, the room was cold.”

McIntyre spoke about her experiences attending both segregated and desegregated Boston schools during a panel talk, “Racial Inequality and Struggle for Equity in the Boston Public School System,” on Wednesday at Blackman Auditorium on Northeastern’s Boston campus. 

Part of the university’s Myra Kraft Open Classroom series, the panelists discussed school segregation and the fight for racial equality in the school system from the 19th century to the present. The panel talked about issues that Boston still faces today, issues that can be applied anywhere else. 

“What we have experienced in Boston takes place everywhere else in the world,” Northeastern distinguished professor and panel moderator Ted Landsmark said. “And as often as not it took place around who has access to education, and who doesn’t.”

Panelist Rev. Stephen Kendrick kicked things off with a little-known but consequential story from the 19th century.

He told the audience about Sarah, a 4-year-old Boston girl who in 1847 became the subject of a court case around school segregation. Sarah had to walk past several white schools to get to a Black school each morning. So her father, a printer named Benjamin Roberts, sued the city of Boston on her behalf. 

Roberts v. City of Boston made it to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, where the family ultimately lost—Sarah was denied access to white schools in 1850. The case would set the precedent for “separate but equal” in the United States, established by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).

The case had other implications for the future, however: Attorney Charles Sumner’s argument that segregation had to end anticipated the Brown v. Board of Education decision. “He warned the whole nation that segregation had to be ended, or there was a dark future for all of us, together,” Kendrick said. 

The case was part of a larger abolitionist movement in Boston, one that led to the peaceful desegregation of Boston schools in 1854. But, Kendrick warned, “The story is not over … in many ways, we have ground to make up.”

Over 100 years later, Boston would face another challenge in the form of the busing crisis. Those who watched the news at the time may remember images of violent encounters on the street. But, as Jim Vrabel, author of “A People’s History of the New Boston,” said, there was far more to it than that. 

“History is more than images, as powerful as they are, and sometimes as accurate as they are,” he said. “History is also about decisions and details.”

By detailing the policy decisions that went into establishing court-mandated busing in Boston in 1974, Vrabel said, he illustrates that history could have taken a very different course. 

“It’s not inevitable that desegregation and busing failed in Boston,” he said. “It might have succeeded, if individuals in positions of authority at the time … had done a better job. It might have worked. And instead of dividing the city and its people, it might have brought them together.”

“All of what we heard, I’ve experienced,” said McIntyre as she rounded out the panel. “The policy said, ‘desegregate.’ But the practice was nowhere near the policy, and it hurt. It hurt to raise your hand to want to answer a question that was asked by your teacher and to be invisible. It hurt to be ignored.”

McIntyre ended up going to a private high school, she said, but she returned to her local school for her final year and “found all my friends failing.” “They all had tremendous potential, but it was ignored or stifled,” she said.

She discussed how this experience informs how she approaches her current position as superintendent, from helping students to feel accepted, to making sure their needs and their safety is at the center, to making sure they are engaged in discourse, to bringing joy into the classroom.

“Our students have historically been marginalized, and traditionally been underserved,” she said. “Our mission around equity and action is to eliminate the achievement gap, to provide equitable and excellent student outcomes.”

In this way, history is informing the present and the future, something Vrabel emphasized in his talk.

“We still have trouble talking about it, but we must because we need to learn from history. Especially because history has a way of coming back around at us,” Vrabel said. “We need to learn from the lessons of the past mistakes of the past so we can confront the challenges of the present in the future.”

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Boston Public Schools, Re-Writing History: The Boston Busing Crisis : Getting Started

Welcome, scholars from the Boston Public Schools!

This guide introduces resources to support your research on activism for racial equity in and desegregation of Boston Public Schools. Use the tabs on the left to explore primary sources related to the lives and work of 5 activists; Ruth Batson, Paul Parks, Jean McGuire, Ellen S. Jackson, and Carmen Pola.

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Searching in Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections' Digital Collections

To get started viewing archival material, we recommend visiting your activist’s page first by clicking on their name in the menu to find archival records created by them, that mention their name, or that document something your activist was involved in. 

You can search and view all the digitized records related to Boston school desegregation here . 

If you would like to search all of the Archives and Special Collections' digitized records you can visit our Digital Repository here . 

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Click on your result to see a preview and some description about what your document is and is about. If your result is a document or has more than one page, scroll to the bottom and click “download” to see the full document: 

Primary Sources about Busing and School Desegregation in Boston

• Beyond Busing: Boston School Desegregation Archival Resources This site is an entry-point for Boston school desegregation archival resources. These sources explore the history of desegregation in Boston beginning with the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 through to the Morgan v. Hennigan case in 1974.
• Boston Desegregation Project Explore digitized materials related to Boston desegregation from the Northeastern University Archives.
• (Digital Public Library of America) Busing & Beyond: School Desegregation in Boston An overview and primary sources related to the story of busing and desegregation in Boston.
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Busing & Beyond: School Desegregation in Boston

The story of busing and desegregation in Boston begins much earlier than most people imagine. In 1847, a young black girl named Sarah Roberts sued the city of Boston for having to walk past five schools in order to attend an inferior black-only school in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of the city. The courts found against her in the landmark Roberts v. Boston case, but it turned the tide of public opinion sufficiently to have the state legislature outlaw school assignment by race in 1855. Massachusetts thus became one of the first states with legally mandated school integration, long before the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.

However, the schools of the City of Boston gradually resegregated during the mid 1930s through the early 1970s. The reasons for this are many, but center on the city itself becoming far more racially segregated by neighborhood due to redlining (racially biased mortgage lending), discriminatory homeowners insurance practices, and, most notably, the construction of public housing that was allocated by race in the post-World-War-II era. Community and judicial efforts to push the City of Boston to voluntarily desegregate its schools failed, and in 1974, a federal judge imposed court-ordered desegregation via busing between neighborhoods in the landmark Morgan v. Hennigan decision. The court-ordered busing was implemented during the 1974-1975 school year, and assigned many students to schools in neighborhoods far from where they lived in an effort to racially balance school assignment. There was a hostile backlash by many white residents of Boston, and many city residents of all races had questions about the busing method for implementing desegregation as well as the efficacy of desegregation. The topic remains an issue in Boston, where despite the 1974 decision and continuing efforts to integrate its schools, many schools remain racially imbalanced today.

• Kerry Dunne, Weston Public Schools, Massachusetts

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• Postwar United States (1945 to early 1970s)
• African Americans

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Resources Documenting School Desegregation

Introduction, background on desegregation.

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Spring 1981 issue of Mosaic, a publication by the students of South Boston High School. Image Source: SC-0045 Mosaic Records, 1980-1990.

The University of Massachusetts Boston's University Archives and Special Collections has many resources that expound the controversy that surrounded the school desegregation movement in Boston. The citywide crisis was ignited with Judge Arthur Garrity's ruling in the case of Tallulah Morgan et al. v. James Hennigan et al. in 1974 where Garrity ruled that the Boston School Committee had purposefully  maintained racial segregation in Boston Public Schools. Judge Garrity went on to implement a plan that bused students to various schools to achieve racial balance.

School desegregation became a significant issue after the United States Supreme Court decision in the 1954 case of Oliver Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al.  The Brown decision espoused that separate educational facilities for black and white students were inherently unequal and public schools must be integrated.  However, Boston Public Schools remained unbalanced in the 1970s despite the Brown decision and the enactment of the Racial Balance Act of 1965.

Because of this inaction, on March 15, 1972, a group of Black parents filed suit against the Boston School Committee led by James W. Hennigan, in the case of Tallulah Morgan et al. v. James Hennigan et al, which claimed that the Boston Public Schools were deliberately kept segregated. On September 21, 1971, the Boston School Committee met and voted against using busing as a method to racially balance a new school opening in Boston, a clear violation of the Racial Imbalance Act of 1965, and sparked the lawsuit.

On June 21, 1974, Judge Arthur W. Garrity ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered the Boston School Committee to submit a plan to desegregate the public schools. Garrity began to enforce the State Board of Education's plan for reducing racial imbalance that dictated that the "racial balance in all citywide schools shall be reflective of the total student population in the Boston Public School system."  This became known as Phase I of Garrity's plan and began on September 12, 1974, the first day of the school year.  The plan involved redistricting, student transportation, and the formation of parent committees. This phase affected only the neighborhoods in which black and whites lived near each other and therefore Charlestown, East Boston, and the North End were excluded for this first phase.

Phase II began in September 1975 and included all areas of Boston, except East Boston.  Also referred to as "The Master's Plan," this phase required the revision of attendance zones and grade structures as well as the construction of new schools, and a controlled transfer policy. Students could either attend a school in their community district schools where the enrollment was determined by the school committee or attend a citywide school where they could list a preferred schools in order of preference. This phase also linked local universities, colleges, and community groups to the schools.

In September 1977, Phase III began and established the Department of Implementation which oversaw desegregation and the compiling of racial statistics of the Boston Public Schools.

As the plan continued despite strong opposition in the 1970s, students and parents gradually accepted forced busing and racial tensions eventually lessened. Judge Garrity continued to oversee much of the administrative functions of the Boston School Committee and to make decisions regarding schooling and desegregation. Although Garrity's involvement ended in September 1985, the battle over schools and race continued in the federal courts into the 1990s.

Research guide created by Corinne Zaczek Bermon, Archives Assistant, August 2016.

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• URL: https://umb.libguides.com/desegregation

Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism                    at Brandeis University​ ​

i n v e s t i g a t i o n s

Schuster Institute-WGBH News partnership

Brown v. board, north & south, remembering  boston's busing 40 years later, wgbh news,  in partnership with the schuster institute, launched on september 8, 2014, a yearlong multimedia news series that chronicles the impact of busing and desegregation on boston over the past 40 years. the series kicks off with historical documents newly discovered in mayor kevin white's papers, and will include new reporting across radio, tv, and digital..

Research assistance has been provided by the  Boston Busing and Desegregation Project.  Original content was produced in conjunction with Brandeis Sociology Professor David Cunningham and Brandeis students in the Civil Rights and Educational Equity in the U.S. Justice Brandeis Semester.  

The Battle over Desegregating Schools

What was it like to go to school during desegregation in two cities that were prominent in that fight: Boston, Massachusetts and Jackson, Mississippi, one in the north, one in the south? Both cities violently resisted one of the most important Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century: Brown v. Board of Education,* which declared that keeping the races separated in school violated the Constitution’s promise of equal protection under the law.

Both gave us painfully iconic images: from Boston, a 1976 photograph by Stanley Forman of a white man nearly spearing a black lawyer with an American flag on City Hall Plaza; from Jackson, a 1965 photograph by Matt Heron of a white police officer wresting an American flag from a five-year-old African American boy’s hands. In Boston, white adults rioted and threw rocks at schoolbuses bearing black children. In Jackson, four years earlier, white adults had pulled their children from the public schools and enrolled them in new “private” all-white academies that hijacked public land, school materials, and funds.  

All that is public record. But what was happening inside the schools, away from the news cameras?

What was the more intimate, more daily experience of students, teachers, principals, guidance counselors, and others who lived through desegregation?

Schuster Institute Senior Fellow and WGBH Senior Investigative Reporter Phillip Martin interviews Dorchester students for some of the answers, here in three parts:

In "Dorchester Students' Essays Echo Boston's Busing Crisis, 40 Years Later," Senior Fellow Phillip Martin interviews former students from the Oliver Wendell Holmes School in Dorchester, who in 1975 wrote class essays about their experiences with desegregation. Listen  here>    

"What Happened To The Sixth Graders Who Wrote Essays About Busing?" Listen here>

Echoes of Boston's Busing Crisis

Why desegregate?

Civil rights activists and academic researchers remind us that mixing the races was never the goal; rather, equal funding and equal opportunity were. As long as black and white students were in separate schools, black schools were starved for funds, materials, teachers, and building repairs. By putting white and black students in the same classrooms, activists hoped to make that that funding discrepancy impossible.

In the end, in both cities, segregation triumphed -- in practice, if not in law. In Boston, “white flight” accelerated: many families moved to the suburbs (with black families denied mortgages at a much higher rate than white families). Others moved their children into parochial schools, leaving Boston’s schools overwhelmingly black, Hispanic and poor. In Jackson, Mississippi, public schools today are overwhelmingly black.

Boston, Massachusetts

Boston’s busing riots shocked the nation. On national television, Americans watched adults in two of Boston’s poor white neighborhoods throwing stones at buses full of terrified black children as they were bused into previously all-white schools under federal court order. "Liberal" Boston was exposed as a hotbed of racial hatred as virulent as what had been seen in the South.

But the sixth graders at the Oliver Wendell Holmes school--based in a black section of Dorchester and integrated without violence--wrote essays about their year inside this social experiment. These essays have never before been publicly seen in their entirerity. We post them in full here:

     Essays 1-17 | Essays 18-31 (PDFs)

Schuster Institute Senior Contributing Editor and New York Times bestselling author, Michael Patrick MacDonald, grew up in South Boston during the era of forced busing. Home was the Old Colony Housing Project just across the street from James "Whitey" Bulger's alleged liquor-store headquarters on Old Colony Ave. 

"Busing was the best thing that ever happened to Whitey Bulger," writes MacDonald in  "Whitey Bulger, Boston's Busing, and Southie's Lost Generation,"  an original essay for our website.

Police show of force as busing begins in Boston.

Images from the video clip "Pam Bullard reviews the events of school desegregation in 1974," WGBH Media Library & Archives.

In the face of racial unrest, police escorted some school buses.

Not So Black and White: Busing in Boston

Why desegregate?  

Boston, Massachusetts  

Brown v. Board of Education  

Sixth-graders’ essays on integration,  with  hightlights  

Social history and context  

Selected resources for

learning more

WGBH News' reporting by Phillip Martin

Dorchester Students' Essays Echo Boston's Busing Crisis, 40 Years Later  

What Happened To The Sixth Graders Who Wrote Essays About Busing?  

Michael Patrick MacDonald  

Whitey Bulger, Boston Busing, and Southie's Lost Generation

A Schuster Institute-WGBH News partnership

In the summer of 2014, the Schuster Institute brought never-before-seen archival material and selected reporting to our Senior Fellow and WGBH Senior Investigative Reporter Phillip Martin. The result is a Schuster Institute partnership with Martin and WGBH Boston Public Radio-TV-Digital and a yearlong multimedia examination of the impact of busing and desegregation in Boston over the past 40 years. 

This website offers more detail, context, and history.

The Schuster Institute reporting team included former Associate Editor Neena Pathak and Senior Fellow Maria Stenzel.

Other contributors are acknowledged here.

"THE AFRICAN AMERICAN STRUGGLE for desegregation," observes Gary Orfield, co-director at the Harvard Civil Rights Project and among the nation's leading experts on desegregation, "did not arise because anyone believed that there was something magical about sitting next to whites in a classroom. It was, however, based on a belief that the dominant group would keep control of the most successful schools and that the only way to get full range of opportunities for a minority child was to get access to those schools."

--from The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education, Civil Rights 101: School Desegregation and Civil Rights Opportunity

"Southie," Center of Boston's Busing Resistance

Schuster Institute Senior Fellow Phillip Martin and NPR remembered forced busing in South Boston in the "reality check" broadcast:

Author reads from his book "All Souls: A Family Story

From southie".

Author and Schuster Institute Consulting Editor Michael Patrick MacDonald reads from his book  "All Souls: A Family Story from Southie."  In this chapter, a grade-school-age MacDonald encounters South Boston's outraged sense of his Irish American enclave being occupied, like Belfast, by "the rich English."

IN THE BREAKTHROUGH 1954 DECISION  Brown vs. Board of Education, the United States Supreme Court declared that there is no such thing as “separate but equal,” and that therefore legally segregated schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed equality under law. Brown was the first major crack in the Jim Crow laws that, for a century after slavery, continued to enforce the subordination of black people, especially in the former Confederate states.

While Brown was decided in the 1950s, actually dismantling the laws and rules that kept black students out of previously all-white schools throughout the legally segregated South took another fifteen years--and not until 1974 did a federal judge apply it to schools in the North, in Boston’s Morgan v. Hennigan.

Sixth grade students from the class of 1974, Oliver Wendell Holmes Middle School in Boston, recounted their experiences of the school year in 31 essays that, until now, were filed away in archives. Read their essays  here.  (In cases where permission to publish has not been granted, names have been redacted for privacy.)

In 1974, kids in the Boston Public Schools were facing forced busing and desegregation. Pictured above are a few students from the sixth grade class of 1974 from Oliver Wendell Holmes Elementary School. Their entire class photo can be seen  below,  with essays about their school experiences that year. 

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HIS 200 - Applied History

Primary sources.

Consider using search terms like school desegregation, children, education, discrimination, "separate but equal," Boston, busing, etc. as you explore the library's subscription databases and the selected outside websites with quality digitized primary source collections. If you can identify any key figures in the movement, or any landmark events, you can use their names as keywords as well. Keep in mind that many databases and websites will also have a date filter that you can use to ensure that you are looking at the right time period in history.

Databases with Primary Sources

Websites with Primary Sources

• Digital Public Library of America: Busing & Beyond: School Desegregation in Boston This link opens in a new The sources in this primary source set, including letters, photographs, maps, reports, and more, provide further insight into the context of school desegregation in Boston.
• Library of Congress: Brown v. Board at Fifty: "With an Even Hand" This link opens in a new window This exhibit displays a number of primary source documents, including images, letters, legal statements, and more, highlighting the history of desegregation efforts in schools.
• Northeastern University: Beyond Busing - Boston School Desegregation Archival Resources The Boston Public Schools Desegregation Collection is a digital library of scanned archival materials documenting the desegregation of Boston’s public schools. The collection brings together materials from numerous Boston-area institutions and covers the time period beginning with the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and focusing on the Morgan v. Hennigan case (1974) and the court-ordered plan to desegregate the Boston Public Schools (BPS).
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