Boston against busing: a historical analysis

Busing in Boston

In his book Boston Against Busing, Ronald P. Formisano details the history of a time in the 1970s when the courts mandated busing children away from their neighborhood schools to more distant locations as a way of addressing the racial imbalance in the schools and when many groups fought back against this practice. Boston was not the only place where busing was undertaken, but the battle in Boston was especially heated and was covered by the national media to make it more remembered and more the symbol, of busing across the country.

Racism was never only a Southern problem, though there was an attitude prevalent that it had been. With changes in the 1970s as the Civil Rights Movement and various laws I response to that movement changed the way minorities were to be treated, the racism in the North now emerged more and more clearly as blacks made advances and some whites became alarmed at the changes taking place. The busing of children to redress racial imbalance in the schools caused a great deal of dissension, especially in urban working-class neighborhoods, as poor whites and poor blacks were pushed into competition with one another for scarce educational resources. The movement of the black population into traditionally white neighborhoods came as employment situations improved, but this also caused a reaction from the poor and middle-class whites who felt threatened or who thought that their property values were threatened. The rich were seen as being able to remain aloof from the problem while the poor and middle-class bore the brunt of the changes. The idea that black children will learn more if they are seated next to white children was the rationale for most of the busing programs of the 1970s.

Black Americans only wanted an equal opportunity, and this was especially important in the education of their children. Education was and is a primary route to a better life for the next generation, and parents eek to assure that their children get an education that will enable them to improve their lot in life. As civil rights moved to the forefront in the 1960s, some of the continuing inequities became more apparent. Blacks might press first for an end to open segregation, but then they sought equal access to jobs, equal access to housing, and equality in education. Opposition to the original request of these groups for equity and justice produced a stronger counter-reaction from them. The busing controversy in Boston shows how the fears of one group could produce hardened resolution in another. The reaction of much of white Boston could only confirm black concerns that there would never be any change short of revolution and never any accommodation from a majority racist society:

The] backlash entrepreneurs, joined by neighborhood populists cast up from the grassroots, virtually created an antibusing movement before busing ever existed. They also caused racial fear and hostility to be much worse than it would have been. (Formisano 8)

Formisano notes the extent of this and also the degree to which much of America was surprised by the violence, especially given the image of Boston as "the Athens of America," an image that ignored the variety of people and neighborhoods in that city:

In 1974 the tough, mostly Irish, working-class neighborhood of South Boston became as much a symbol of white racism as Selma, Alabama had been in 1964. Wild, raging mobs of white men and women confronted armies of police, while youths in their teens and younger hurled rocks, bottles, and racial epithets at buses carrying terrified black youngsters to school. Clashes with police erupted frequently and schools in other white neighborhoods became armed camps. (Formisano 1)

The author also notes that the classroom remained relatively peaceful, while the protests outside and in front of the buses each day reached a fever pitch.

At the same time, Formisano recognizes that the anti-busing movement was not simply a racist movement, though racism may have played a role and certainly was one of the products. Opposition to busing as a solution to a real problem was widespread and related as much to fear about having children moved halfway across the city each day:

Eighty percent of white parents thought the court orders to be bad policy, and their responses ' varied greatly. Many moderates throughout the city agonized over the conflicting demands of conscience, duty, and the law and what they saw as potential danger to their children's welfare. (Formisano 2)

Formisano also finds that it is an error to see any one person as leading this charge, though Louise Day Hicks has been given that role by many.

Formisano examines many of the reasons given for the antibusing movement and many of the explanations offered as to what it meant. He fins that situation more varied and more meaningful across a broader spectrum than has been commonly assumed. He nots how some have depicted the movement as an expression of populism, but he sees this as an oversimplification. The movement was populist in that it emerged from the working and middle-class sections of the city in response to a perceived threat. He also notes how attitudes toward unelected judges, as conservatives like to call them, and their orders played a role. He also notes that the movement was not reformist, for the movement only wanted a return to the status quo in the school system:

It did not challenge established political and economic power, and militant activists too often expressed hostility, or at a minimum, insensitivity, to the just demands of black citizens for a full share of their rights. Fear of blacks, specifically of poor ghetto blacks, fed antibusers' feelings of being trodden on, while their outrage at injustice and feelings of powerlessness often fed their hostility to blacks. (Formisano 4).

Formisano does not treat this movement as if it developed out of whole cloth and instead places the events in Boston in the 1970s in the context of social change over the previous two or three decades. He offers a history of the Civil Rights Movement, for example, and of the battle against segregation in the fifties and sixties. He also notes the shifts in population taking place in the cities as the wealthy and middle-class moved to the suburbs and blacks moved into pars of the city previously denied to them. Formisano concentrates especially on the changes that had been taking place in Boston over this time. Certainly, the ascendance of Louise Day Hicks to a position of leadership dates back to the early 1960s as some elements in the city fought against desegregation in the schools long before busing was deemed a solution. Formisano also points out how studies show that elected school officials tended to be unwilling to promote segregation in the schools, perhaps because doing so would assure they were not reelected. Changes in the black population in Boston also brought changes in the way blacks fought for equity, and more black middle-class professionals would lead the fight over the schools. Part of the battle now was to get the school board to recognize and admit the reality of de facto segregation, and Hicks and her faction refused to do so. This would lead to the black citizenry seeking redress in federal court, which in turn would lead to the court order for the end of segregation. When the white school board refused to take action, the court did by mandating busing to achieve racial balance in the schools. Once this order was issued, the real battle would begin as white parents protested making their children responsible for solving this social problem.

The decision was handed down by Judge Garrity in 1974, and he sought to make certain that the order was followed immediately. The school board and its supporters were largely in denial that there was any segregation in Boston, but the court did not listen to this claim. The next argument was that segregation was beyond the ability of the school district to address, and the court rejected this idea as well. In fact, the judge found that the school system used a feeder method that assured that blacks and whites were deliberately separated into black and white schools. The system claimed that it allowed black students to enroll in schools of their choice, but the judge found that school policies were intended to discriminate on the basis of race. Formisano notes that the decision should not have been a surprise, though it was treated by opponents as if it were and as if there were no foundation or precedent for it. As Formisano notes,

Anyone who reads Garrity's opinion cannot avoid reaching the same conclusion as the judge. Thousands of moderate antibusers, and even some hard-liners, either agreed that the committee had been caught redhanded or tacitly conceded the point by offering no defense of the Committee's actions. But militant antibusers, as well as moderates, both reacted strongly against the desegregation plan that the judge imposed as a remedy. (Formisano 69)

Formisano analyzes the specific actions taken against busing by different groups and the response of the authorities to these actions. He also notes how similar actions occurred in other cities where integration was moving forward, including San Francisco and Chicago. Actions in these cities constituted the beginning of resegregation and increasing ghettoization. Boston became a symbol of what not to do. To assure that his order was followed, Garrity became more and more involved in the say-to-day details of the operation of the schools. In addition, more and more social scientists came to the conclusion that the costs of desegregation in these terms were not worth it. Studies have shown that busing did have many positive effects, though opponents still claim that busing was simply a failure. Formisano asks the key question, which is who paid the cost for busing. In some areas, blacks paid the price as all-black schools that actually worked were closed. Formisano also nots that during the desegregation era, the number of black principals, administrators, and teachers declined greatly.