In this recording, Jared Tetreau interviews John Canty, a former teacher and administrator in the Boston Public Schools, working during the time of the busing crisis. John discusses his efforts prior to the busing plan to encourage the school system to integrate, and the resistance he faced in the process. John argues that the unwillingness of the School Committee to cooperate with integration was the driving force behind the intervention of the courts.
In this recording, community activist and former Boston schoolteacher and principal Suzanne Lee joins former Chinatown student Howard Wong in recounting the organization of Chinatown mothers dedicated to protecting their children during their transfer to schools in the North End and Charlestown. They also discuss the importance of community in achieving integration.
In this recording, Steve Maggs, a former Mattapan resident who was sent to Hyde Park High School in 1974, is interviewed by his life partner Barbara Lyon about his experience during the busing crisis. Steve describes the racial tension at Hyde Park High during his time there, and the sharp divisions that remained in spite of the student body’s diversity.
In this recording, former Boston Public School teachers and colleagues Lyda Peters and Ruth Rosner discuss their time teaching in Roxbury. Lyda recalls the relative ease of becoming a teacher at majority-Black schools - a major problem identified at the time by the NAACP - and Ruth describes her methods as a “radical”, devoted to providing quality education in defiance of the racism of other white teachers.
In this recording, former Boston student Sheila Wise Rowe speaks to her longtime friend Bill Mooney-McCoy about her memories of the transition from segregated to integrated public schools. Sheila recounts her involvement with the parent-led integration program Operation Exodus, which predated busing, and the consequences of educational inequity in society.
Twenty years after the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, most schools across the country hadn’t integrated. Then the courts stepped in, again.
In September 1974, Boston schools prepared to integrate via a court-mandated busing plan. The figures facing the moment - activists, agitators, politicians, and students - each had particular interests in mind, and were preparing for the worst.
On June 18, 1963, Boston Celtics star and Civil Rights activist Bill Russell addressed the thousands of students who gathered to protest educational inequality and segregation.
