South Boston High School was a public school in South Boston. Amid the Boston busing crisis and public school desegregation in the 70s, many incidents involving racism took place. On the first day of school in 1974, only around 120 of the expected 1300 enrolled students showed up. Multiple fights broke out in the school, primarily white students mistreating black students.
The violence continually escalated until Michael Faith, a 17 year old white student, was stabbed by another black student in the corridor. The local schools were shut down as hundreds of whites gathered at the school, fighting against police forces. About 135 black students were trapped in the building for hours. Police were attacked with rocks and cans as they tried to keep the mob out, resulting in 7 residents and 3 policemen being sent to the hospital. Three white students were arrested and charged for assault on police with deadly weapons. Meanwhile, more police managed to evacuate the students through the side whilst distracting the mob with three decoy school buses, which were eventually destroyed.In hindsight, many commented that it was big mistake to have bused students from Roxbury to South Boston right off the bat, as there was too much enmity between the two. Furthermore, it was a major policy failure to implement public policy without first consulting the communities. Further mistakes of the incident was due to the misjudgment of Judge Garrity, the local judge who carried out the court order despite rising complaints.
Sources:
https://archive.org/details/southbostonmyhom00ocon/page/220
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/12/12/archives/south-boston-schools-shut-in-clashes-over-stabbing-south-boston.html
https://www.excelhighsb.org/our-history
I think this post is a great demonstration of how even after the Supreme Court ruling of Brown vs. Board of Education, it was still hard to change people's minds about desegregating schools. In this case, the busing of African-American students to public schools brought much chaos and was unsuccessful. However, after the ruling, school integration in Charlotte was considered a success. Research shows that the majority of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools students attended racially desegregated schools.
ReplyDeleteSource:
https://www.history.com/news/desegregation-busing-schools
I think this post is crucial for understanding how discrimination in education didn't end the second school segregation became illegal. Many people think of discrimination as being "solved" by landmark rulings and laws in the 60s but the reality was that discrimination continued into the 70s and beyond. Los Angeles actually tried to have a mandatory bussing system but it was ruled to be unfair and didn't end up happening.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://www.usedulaw.com/236-crawford-v-board-of-education-of-the-city-of-los-angeles.html