The Boston Busing Crisis

By Julia Carolan

Walking down the Hall of Hyde Park High, a young boy, probably sixteen, staggered forward with a white t shirt stained in bright red splotches. As he slumped against the lockers the sound of sneakers squeaking against the tiled floor sounded down the hall. A boy about the same age as the bloodied one ran away, a knife in his hand dripping a red dot trail on the floor behind him.

Trembling with fear and anger, it was then that Maureen Carter decided she would drop out of school. 

It had been a white boy that time. The crimes switched races between offender and victim every time something new came out. She was not planning on going to college, so why did she need to endure this warzone any longer? Things had been violent for some time now, and her high school wasn’t even seeing the worst of it. These acts were simply sparked out of retaliatory acts for things that were happening in more hostile high schools like South Boston. 

The busing crisis came out of a mandate to desegregate the schools. Segregation had been outlawed years before but a different type of segregation was still taking place by the fact that neighborhoods, and thus school districts, were segregated by where people lived. The Racial Imbalance Act was passed in 1965 but the school committee refused to comply by not developing a busing plan.

It wasn’t until 1972 when the NAACP filled a lawsuit against the Boston School Committee that action took place, and the impact was drastic.

People were being bused across the city, but essentially across racial lines which left everyone angry. The entire Junior class from South Boston High School, a poor white neighborhood, was bused to the Black neighborhood of Roxbury to attend Roxbury high, and parents were outraged, which in turn outraged students. 

“We’re the Roxy! The mighty mighty Roxy!” chanted the students from Roxbury high school as they marched through the Boston Commons. 

“Here we go Southie! Here we go!” screamed a student leader from South Boston High, followed by an army of white students.

Charlie Nelson was walking along Castle Island in South Boston.It was a cold day in November and the wind off the ocean water threatened to blow off his jacket.He heard a flapping sound like a large flag whipping around to the breeze.He wondered why someone would leave out their flag in this weather.When he turned towards the triple-decker houses lining the street instead of the American flag he was expecting, he saw a white sheet hanging from one of the balconies, and in black spray paint written on it: go home, followed by the n word.

Massachusetts State troops dressed in riot gear had to be assigned to South Boston High school as protests and riots broke out there nearly every day. Barely any of the students assigned to switch schools showed up, and more segregation was created out of the fury.White students and black students not only entered through separate doors, but broke out into frequent fights making the classroom more of a battleground. 

Maureen was not alone in deciding this warfare was not worth it. Boston School enrollment dropped from 60,000 students to 40,000. South Boston was known as “ground zero” for the riots.Parents who protested outside the school threw rocks and anything else they could get their hands on at the buses filled with black students from Roxbury high.

            John Carolan was in downtown Boston for the iconic photo taken of a man trying to spear a black teenager outside city hall. Friends of friends were involved in the anti-busing protests and he wanted to go for a bit of people watching. The group of white teenagers were riled up as they cheered against the busing policy. John watched as they noticed the black man come around the corner, and without hesitation one of the teens shoved him from behind. This rallying call sent the rest into a frenzy. Suddenly one of the boys, who held a large American flag in both hands started swinging it around like a baseball bat trying to hit his victim.John was shoved and practically carried away from the scene like a swept away leaf in the crowd. There were now violent screams amidst the protesting cheers. He called out for people to stop but he wasn’t sure who he was calling to.