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Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s
Perhaps the most spectacular reaction to court-ordered busing in the 1970s occurred in Boston, where there was intense and protracted protest. Ron Formisano explores the sources of white opposition to school desegregation. Racism was a key factor, Formisano argues, but racial prejudice alone cannot explain the movement. Class resentment, ethnic rivalries, and the defense of neighborhood turf all played powerful roles in the protest.
In a new epilogue, Formisano brings the story up to the present day, describing the end of desegregation orders in Boston and other cities. He also examines the nationwide trend toward the resegregation of schools, which he explains is the result of Supreme Court decisions, attacks on affirmative action, white flight, and other factors. He closes with a brief look at the few school districts that have attempted to base school assignment policies on class or economic status.
In a new epilogue, Formisano brings the story up to the present day, describing the end of desegregation orders in Boston and other cities. He also examines the nationwide trend toward the resegregation of schools, which he explains is the result of Supreme Court decisions, attacks on affirmative action, white flight, and other factors. He closes with a brief look at the few school districts that have attempted to base school assignment policies on class or economic status.
376 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1991
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About the author
Ronald P. Formisano
10 books2 followersA specialist in the field of United States political culture and politics in the nineteenth and twentieth century and a founder of the “ethnocultural school” of US political history, Ron Formisano was the William T. Bryan Chair of American History at the University of Kentucky, where he taught from 2001 until his retirement in 2014. He earned a BA at Brown University and an MA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison before receiving his PhD from Wayne State University. Formisano also taught at the University of Florida (1990-2001), Clark University (1973-1990), and the University of Rochester (1968-1973).
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 26, 2017
Interesting but definitely problematic. I'm debating whether this deserves 2 or 3 stars. I really want to give it 2.5.
Quick and dirty explanation of why it's problematic: The author is essentially trying to "clear" Boston of the accusation of racism by pointing out the other factors besides race (class, ethnicity, and place) which all played a part in Boston's violent protests against school integration in the 1970s. And pointing out these complicating factors IS definitely important work; but at the same time, when you have white mobs doing violent and racist things like throwing stones at buses full of terrified black schoolchildren, you have to recognize that this IS racist violence and this IS wrong. Boston doesn't get a "free pass" from the charge of racism just because it's a Northern city and not a Southern one.
Quick and dirty explanation of why it's problematic: The author is essentially trying to "clear" Boston of the accusation of racism by pointing out the other factors besides race (class, ethnicity, and place) which all played a part in Boston's violent protests against school integration in the 1970s. And pointing out these complicating factors IS definitely important work; but at the same time, when you have white mobs doing violent and racist things like throwing stones at buses full of terrified black schoolchildren, you have to recognize that this IS racist violence and this IS wrong. Boston doesn't get a "free pass" from the charge of racism just because it's a Northern city and not a Southern one.
January 26, 2025
I feel very grateful that I read this book now, in 2025. I see a lot of parallels between the mothers in this book and the moms who I find a little annoying right now; anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-education-by-public-schools, etc. It's a movement I admit I haven't given a lot of credence too because I find it too exasperating. But this book definitely gave me some insight!
Formisano is very thorough in examining all perspectives to this movement. I did chuckle a little because he was pretty tough on the Irish Catholic, but in this instance they were deserving of criticism. I appreciated the final chapter on impacts, white flight, and the hollowing out of school districts. While there is no excuse for their behavior, I can see how lower class people would feel helpless when faced with these challenges; and they were the only ones being asked to do the actual work of desegregation.
Formisano is very thorough in examining all perspectives to this movement. I did chuckle a little because he was pretty tough on the Irish Catholic, but in this instance they were deserving of criticism. I appreciated the final chapter on impacts, white flight, and the hollowing out of school districts. While there is no excuse for their behavior, I can see how lower class people would feel helpless when faced with these challenges; and they were the only ones being asked to do the actual work of desegregation.
December 24, 2022
4.5/5.
This is a well-written text that calls for nuance in understanding school busing in Boston and how folks responded to it. To be clear: nuance does not mean ignoring the fact that antibusers often were motivated by racial animus, or, regardless of their motivations, manifested their opposition to busing in racist actions. And this text is clear about that. Nuance does mean understanding how desegregation impacted folks through a lens that encompasses not just race, but also class and ethnicity (gender too, but this text doesn’t do that). This is important because it allows you to better understand the nature of backlash and the specific forms it takes across time and space. Present memories of historical events flatten nuance and contradictions so we can have tidy narratives; this text is useful to push against that.
To that end, some questions that are important for understanding busing:
What does desegregation mean? What was its purpose?
This is not an easy question to answer. Different sets of Black folks would likely give different answers because of competing priorities. At one level, desegregation is about the reordering of power and resources so that Black folks got more of them. Note that this is a different objective than having schools or jobs with a mix of Black and white people. Indeed, Black folks who were worried about white school administrators disciplining their children, etc., would likely have preferred having more resources invested in community schools that were Black.
A different understanding of desegregation is that it means having a “diverse” racial mix within various institutions across society. Note that this can be achieved without meaningfully changing the distribution of power and resources between Black and white folks. Note too that this can and did mean destroying Black community institutions and organizations because they, too, were racially imbalanced.
Who benefitted from busing? Who lost out?
Black folks likely had a positive level effect (i.e., the average effect is positive) but also had substantial distributional effects. It is telling that busing was not the first choice solution for Black folks, including in Boston. After a decade of white intransigence starting in the 1960s to Black demands for non-discrimination in hiring, more resources for black schools and students, etc., the only solution left was busing. The effects of busing were different for Black folks of different classes. The more affluent used private schools or METCO, which was a volunteer suburban busing program, and so avoided the within-Boston busing plan. But this has negative peer effects on those who remain: the families most concerned with education and upward mobility sort into different schooling systems and focus their energy their; those who are left are more disconnected and do not benefit from peers who advocate for them. This is in line with the distributional effects of the end of residential segregation on the Black community.
White people living in suburbs (and the suburbs were all white at this time) benefitted. They had no busing happen to them because there was no metropolitan desegregation plan (and, indeed, the Supreme Court ruled that courts/governments could not impose metropolitan plans in 1974). These folks benefitted from the amenities of the city, but did not pay taxes to the city, did not send their children to city schools, and were not impacted by desegregation except in an abstract way. They were able to set themselves morally and rhetorically apart from the “ethnics” in their poorer Boston neighborhoods.
The white “ethnics”, more working class living in distinct neighborhoods, certainly perceived that they lost out due to desegregation. This is both about the loss of status they perceived they were experiencing relative to a more subordinate group (Black folks) as well as perceptions that they were the subjects of a social experiment they did not consent to imposed by rich elites who lived outside the city, and perceptions that Black folks constituted an “underclass” that were prone to crime, promiscuity, and social disorder. These final perceptions were wrong, but that didn’t really matter when White Bostonians acted upon them with violence, provoking retaliatory violence that ultimately became self fulfilling.
What is the purpose of partial desegregation? Who does that serve?
By partial desegregation I mean that folks could opt out of the process by moving to suburbs or enrolling their children in private (including religious) schools. In such an environment, any public perceptions of disorder or violence around busing/desegregation will prompt negative selection where higher income/better educated families, which tend to prize order, opt out. These negative selection effects then undermine the very goals of desegregation. The end result is a system that is more segregated, by both race and class, but one where different working class groups bear greater resentment and animosity towards one another.
This is a well-written text that calls for nuance in understanding school busing in Boston and how folks responded to it. To be clear: nuance does not mean ignoring the fact that antibusers often were motivated by racial animus, or, regardless of their motivations, manifested their opposition to busing in racist actions. And this text is clear about that. Nuance does mean understanding how desegregation impacted folks through a lens that encompasses not just race, but also class and ethnicity (gender too, but this text doesn’t do that). This is important because it allows you to better understand the nature of backlash and the specific forms it takes across time and space. Present memories of historical events flatten nuance and contradictions so we can have tidy narratives; this text is useful to push against that.
To that end, some questions that are important for understanding busing:
What does desegregation mean? What was its purpose?
This is not an easy question to answer. Different sets of Black folks would likely give different answers because of competing priorities. At one level, desegregation is about the reordering of power and resources so that Black folks got more of them. Note that this is a different objective than having schools or jobs with a mix of Black and white people. Indeed, Black folks who were worried about white school administrators disciplining their children, etc., would likely have preferred having more resources invested in community schools that were Black.
A different understanding of desegregation is that it means having a “diverse” racial mix within various institutions across society. Note that this can be achieved without meaningfully changing the distribution of power and resources between Black and white folks. Note too that this can and did mean destroying Black community institutions and organizations because they, too, were racially imbalanced.
Who benefitted from busing? Who lost out?
Black folks likely had a positive level effect (i.e., the average effect is positive) but also had substantial distributional effects. It is telling that busing was not the first choice solution for Black folks, including in Boston. After a decade of white intransigence starting in the 1960s to Black demands for non-discrimination in hiring, more resources for black schools and students, etc., the only solution left was busing. The effects of busing were different for Black folks of different classes. The more affluent used private schools or METCO, which was a volunteer suburban busing program, and so avoided the within-Boston busing plan. But this has negative peer effects on those who remain: the families most concerned with education and upward mobility sort into different schooling systems and focus their energy their; those who are left are more disconnected and do not benefit from peers who advocate for them. This is in line with the distributional effects of the end of residential segregation on the Black community.
White people living in suburbs (and the suburbs were all white at this time) benefitted. They had no busing happen to them because there was no metropolitan desegregation plan (and, indeed, the Supreme Court ruled that courts/governments could not impose metropolitan plans in 1974). These folks benefitted from the amenities of the city, but did not pay taxes to the city, did not send their children to city schools, and were not impacted by desegregation except in an abstract way. They were able to set themselves morally and rhetorically apart from the “ethnics” in their poorer Boston neighborhoods.
The white “ethnics”, more working class living in distinct neighborhoods, certainly perceived that they lost out due to desegregation. This is both about the loss of status they perceived they were experiencing relative to a more subordinate group (Black folks) as well as perceptions that they were the subjects of a social experiment they did not consent to imposed by rich elites who lived outside the city, and perceptions that Black folks constituted an “underclass” that were prone to crime, promiscuity, and social disorder. These final perceptions were wrong, but that didn’t really matter when White Bostonians acted upon them with violence, provoking retaliatory violence that ultimately became self fulfilling.
What is the purpose of partial desegregation? Who does that serve?
By partial desegregation I mean that folks could opt out of the process by moving to suburbs or enrolling their children in private (including religious) schools. In such an environment, any public perceptions of disorder or violence around busing/desegregation will prompt negative selection where higher income/better educated families, which tend to prize order, opt out. These negative selection effects then undermine the very goals of desegregation. The end result is a system that is more segregated, by both race and class, but one where different working class groups bear greater resentment and animosity towards one another.
April 22, 2021
If I had to recommend one book about Boston and school integration, this would be the one.
June 4, 2008
Amazing intellectual analysis of struggles of the 60s and 70s
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews