Boston Against Busing; Race, Class, and Ethnicity
by Ronald P. Formisano
A Book Review by Natalee Steffen
March 2009
Is Boston a Racist City?
The 1954 Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
declared racial segregation a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment – ultimately stating
that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”. As a result of this decision,
schools across the nation were to integrate – and in the particular case of the Boston
Public School System during the 1970s, schools subsequently were to integrate by
court ordered busing. Ronald P. Fomisano deals with the Boston public’s candid
response to court ordered busing in his book titled, Boston Against Busing: Race, Class,
and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s. Unexpectedly, Formisano does not directly
sympathize with the black community of Boston throughout the turmoil of this time, but
instead argues that those politics which hope to defeat racism do not necessarily
consider the social issues of reality. Although unexpected, Formisano provides an
interesting look into the emergence of public displays of racism – that which are
developed when the traditional lines of social status and ethnic community are crossed.
A major concern to consider while examining the outcome of Brown v. Board is
de facto segregation due to ethnically divided neighborhoods. The author uses tables
and neighborhood maps to illustrate the extent of Boston’s ethnic enclaves throughout
the 1960s and 1970s. In 1965 the Boston legislature passed the Racial Imbalance Act
to combat this problem. This law defined a racially imbalanced school as one with over
50 percent nonwhite students, and stated that any imbalanced school system could lose
state funds. Formisano argues that the theory backing this law coincides well with the
Civil Rights Movement at the time, “In focusing on racial imbalance rather than on how
schools got that way, the law actually went further than the Brown decision”. (35-36)
Nevertheless, the Boston School Committee responsible for carrying out this law
intentionally avoided and delayed their obligation to desegregate schools. Formisano
states, “For nine years after the passage of the Racial Imbalance Act, the Boston
School Committee… refused to takes steps to bring about any significant school
integration” (44). In fact, the Boston School Committee passed orders to encourage
integration such as an open enrollment policy, but then refused transfers from black
students. (37) It is in such cases as these that ultimately drove Judge W. Arthur Garrity,
Jr. to his historic resolution holding the Boston School Committee guilty of maintaining a
segregated school system. On June 21, 1974 Judge Garrity ordered a busing plan to
go into effect that September. (64)
It is the reaction to Judge Garrity’s decision that initiates Boston Against Busing’s
discussion on race, class, and ethnicity. Formisano labels the outcome of court ordered
busing as “Reactionary Populism”. He states, “‘Reactionary Populism’ describes the
whole of a movement that included the organized and unorganized, militants and
moderates, terrorists as well as middle-class reformists respectful of democratic norms
of civility.” (172) The author illustrates the massive amount of organization,
demonstration, and protest through the use of photographs. These illustrations of
human reaction attest to the idea that populism is traditionally referred to as an uprising
of the masses – the lower-class, the working-class, the grassroots of society.
Effectively, Formisano refers to “Reactionary Populism” as Boston’s white working-class
pitted against those that threatened their traditional social norms – Boston’s collegiate,
suburban residing politicians. Through this claim, Boston Against Busing focuses
heavily on the politics of the Anti-busing Movement. One significant player was the
ROAR (Restore Our Alienated Rights) organization, led by Loiuse Hicks of South
Boston. ROAR’s membership consisted primarily of working-class citizens of Boston’s
lower to middle-class areas. They began organizing immediately, and on the night of
Judge Garrity’s decision, called for a boycott of the schools for the first two weeks in
September in protest to the court’s decision. Even though Formisano makes note that
ROAR did not encompass all anti-busing activities, I believe that the organization came
to be the symbol of “Reactionary Populism”.
Additionally, throughout much of his book, Formisano claims a major fault to
Judge Garrity’s decision that, as a result, amplified the Anti-busing Movement. Within
the first year of the busing plan, the schools ordered to integrate were from two of the
neighborhoods most forcefully opposed to busing. These were the Southie and
Roxbury neighborhoods of Boston – a white, Irish Catholic working class ghetto and an
impoverished black ghetto, respectively. “The state plan that Judge Garrity decided to
put into operation in September 1974, requiring the busing of some seventeen to
eighteen thousand students…was nonetheless a political and social disaster” (69-70).
One can say that the error made by integrating these neighborhoods gave anti-busers
grounds to commit violence within the Boston School System.
Although everyone expected trouble, most officials trying to keep peace
believed that after an initial period of protest the schools – and streets –
would settle down. These expectations underestimated the ensuing
turmoil – its scope, intensity, and duration. Fights, riots, and protests, in
and out of schools, broke out all year long. Racial tensions increased –
certainly most Bostonians thought them worse than ever – and violence of
white on black and vice versa flared up frequently as a spillover from
reactions to desegregation. Throughout the year and beyond a small
minority of antibusers conducted what amounted to terrorism against
blacks and often whites trying to cooperate, including their own neighbors.
(75)
Placing no holds on their efforts parents, students, and militants organized to reverse
the busing plan within its first year. Consequently, the hate that ran through these
neighborhoods eventually became the face of the Anti-busing Movement.
Nevertheless, according to Formisano’s argument, the Roxbury and Southie
neighborhoods opposed busing not solely because of race, but because someone from
the outside was telling them how to live. One thing to consider here is that even though
the Racial Imbalance Act served desegregating schools, it never once addressed
desegregating neighborhoods. These two neighborhoods disagreed with decisions
made by suburban residing politicians, while the Racial Imbalance Act did not extend
outside of the city’s limits. Why would a parent want to bus their child across town,
when there was a school right near their home? Likewise, we can find a similar
approach made in Brown v. Board. Due to Jim Crow Laws, Linda Brown was forced to
walk passed her neighborhood school to go to an all black school. How is forced
segregation any different than forced integration? When any outsider makes changes
on your way of life, it is human nature to place defense barriers up. Furthermore, with
the protest era of the 1960s just coming to a close, antibusers were now able to justify
their arguments and take action without feeling prohibited to do so. In fact, most
parents of Southie were former graduates of South High School themselves, had lived
their whole lives within that neighborhood, had great relationships with their old high
school friends, continued to wear their letterman jackets, and cherished their high
school memories more so than any other. (17) It is not that these anti-busers were
outright racist, but were extremely loyal to their neighborhood. These ordinary people
felt targeted, which ultimately drove them to defend all they had.
With nearly 100 pages of notes, the use of both primary and secondary sources,
Formisano solidly presents his argument within Boston Against Busing. One feature I
especially think both effective and compelling is the author’s use of sources as an
introduction the book’s chapters. In quite a few instances, Formisano sets up his
argument with a segment from one or more sources. These segments are sometimes
primary and sometimes secondary, sometimes in alignment with the author’s line of
reasoning and sometimes not, but whatever the case, they give the people of Boston a
voice. This technique allows the reader a chance to preview the author’s sources, and
at the same time gives the reader the opportunity to build their own case.
Overall, Boston Against Busing was entirely enlightening. I would never have
imagined that a city so rooted within the founding ideals of our nation would have had
the reaction to integration as it did. I suppose that because I did not grow up in the
1960s or 1970s and did not witness these events first hand I have always assumed that
America’s civil rights “problems” primarily took place in the south, and if any did find
their way up north they were not significant enough to place any weight on.
Furthermore, I’ve presumed that Brown v. Board was the turning point in educational
equality between blacks and whites – never realizing that twenty to thirty years later the
problem was as strong as ever. This book and its contents would be a wonderful tool to
use in the Social Studies classroom – one that I plan to use and one that I recommend
to others. Boston Against Busing addresses issues of issues of governance and
deviance, issues of class and social structure, issues of education and family life, and
most importantly issues involving racial and ethnic conflict in the United States from
Reconstruction through contemporary American society. What’s more is that Boston’s
Anti-busing Movement proves that these issues took place throughout the nation and
not in one single isolated area of our country. Everything considered, Formisano
argues that Boston was not a racist city, and that in order to understand the Anti-busing
Movement, one must look past racism when examining the resistance to court ordered
busing. Judge Garrity and his supporters were attempting to create a peacefully diverse
and equally educated society, but the politics that hope to defeat racism do not
necessarily consider the social issues of reality.