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Before Busing: A History of Boston's Long Black Freedom Struggle
In many histories of Boston, African Americans have remained almost invisible. Partly as a result, when the 1972 crisis over school desegregation and busing erupted, many observers professed shock at the overt racism on display in the "cradle of liberty." Yet the city has long been divided over matters of race, and it was also home to a far older Black organizing tradition than many realize. A community of Black activists had fought segregated education since the origins of public schooling and racial inequality since the end of northern slavery.
Before Busing tells the story of the men and women who struggled and demonstrated to make school desegregation a reality in Boston. It reveals the legal efforts and battles over tactics that played out locally and influenced the national Black freedom struggle. And the book gives credit to the Black organizers, parents, and children who fought long and hard battles for justice that have been left out of the standard narratives of the civil rights movement. What emerges is a clear picture of the long and hard-fought campaigns to break the back of Jim Crow education in the North and make Boston into a better, more democratic city—a fight that continues to this day.
Before Busing tells the story of the men and women who struggled and demonstrated to make school desegregation a reality in Boston. It reveals the legal efforts and battles over tactics that played out locally and influenced the national Black freedom struggle. And the book gives credit to the Black organizers, parents, and children who fought long and hard battles for justice that have been left out of the standard narratives of the civil rights movement. What emerges is a clear picture of the long and hard-fought campaigns to break the back of Jim Crow education in the North and make Boston into a better, more democratic city—a fight that continues to this day.
- GenresHistory
280 pages, Paperback
Published December 6, 2022
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About the author
Zebulon Vance Miletsky
2 booksDr. Zebulon Vance Miletsky is a historian specializing in recent African-American History, Civil Rights and Black Power, Urban History, Mixed Race and Biracial identity, and Hip-Hop Studies. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Stony Brook University.
Miletsky has published articles, reviews, essays and book chapters. His first book, "Before Busing: A History of Boston’s Long Black Freedom Struggle," was published in 2022.
Miletsky has published articles, reviews, essays and book chapters. His first book, "Before Busing: A History of Boston’s Long Black Freedom Struggle," was published in 2022.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 3, 2024
The busing crisis that erupted in Boston in the 1970s in response to a court order to desegregate public schools forever challenged the city's reputation as progressive and the "cradle of liberty." In this book, Miletsky attempts to fill the vacuum in the historical record with the stories of Black Americans throughout Boston's history who fought for equality and civil rights. Figures covered in this book include Prince Hall who founded the first public school for Black students in Boston in 1798, influential abolitionist David Walker, publisher and activist William Monroe Trotter who advocated for a more radical approach than Booker T. Washington's accommodationism, as well as organizations such as the NAACP, Freedom House, and the Boston Black Panther Party.
The last few chapters focus on the community organization in Black neighborhoods around better schools for Black students and the strident resistance of the Boston School Committee to even admitting there was a problem. Miletsky also debunks some myths. One is that a James Brown concert prevented rioting in Boston after Martin Luther King's assassination, when in reality the rioting was contained within Black neighborhoods. The other is that the book Common Ground has become the key history of the busing crisis, but it focuses on the white communities of Boston with the Black activists and organizations hardly mentioned at all.
This book is a general history of Black Boston and leaves me with a desire to find out more. In the early chapters, especially, I found there is a "great person" approach to history as it focuses on individuals more than the larger community. I also found the writing style repetitious. That being said it is a good place to start on the part of Boston's history that has been hidden for too long.
Favorite Passages:
"Every day, Sarah Roberts, the daughter of Benjamin Roberts, had to walk past five white public schools in order to attend the densely populated all-Black Smith School. This was, in his view, a clear violation of an 1845 Boston statute that held that “any child, unlawfully excluded from public school instruction, in this Commonwealth, shall recover damages therefor, [sic] … against the city or town by which such public school instruction is supported.”88 Roberts, like many of Nell’s petitioners, appealed relentlessly to the school committee to allow his daughter to attend the school closest to her home, as mandated by the 1845 law. At one point, Roberts even went beyond appeals and enrolled Sarah in the school, but she was asked to leave—removed in fact. Roberts was so incensed that his daughter had been turned away that he decided to sue the City of Boston on her behalf."
"Roberts v. City of Boston left a lasting impact on American history. The 1850 opinion of Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court made Boston the legal origin of the “separate but equal” doctrine. Southern jurists would soon come to cite the Roberts case to expand the legal justification for Jim Crow. Yet the case also serves as evidence that the Black community was active very early in the struggle for racial justice in Boston."
"Although we often think of Du Bois as the chief architect of the movement against Washington’s accommodationist strategy, Trotter attacked Washington most ardently, doing so three years before the more celebrated Du Bois joined in the fray with the publication of The Souls of Black Folk in 1903."
"Boston has pride of place as the site of the first branch of the NAACP in 1911. A significant force in the race for power in Boston, the esteemed civil rights organization was the oldest in the nation. Bostonian involvement in the organization was significant from the beginning, including among those who participated in the earlier Niagara Movement. In 1910, the Boston Committee to Advance the Cause of the Negro, which grew significantly in terms of membership and activity that year, chose Boston as the site for the first annual conference of the NAACP. The ad hoc committee became the first branch of the NAACP when the second annual conference was held at the Park Street Church in Boston in 1911."
"In a strong show of solidarity in tribute to the slain Reeb was an NAACP float, which was included for the first time in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in South Boston on March 17, 1964. Reeb died of injuries received when he was beaten while leaving a restaurant in Selma, Alabama, only a week before. The inclusion of the NAACP and the larger symbolism of the float was criticized by many. Members of the Roman Catholic Interracial Council marched with a sign reading “Beidh an buadh ‘inn,” the words in Gaelic for “We shall overcome.” They were spat on and insulted by rowdy members of the crowd watching the parade."
"Perhaps it is not that much of a stretch to consider that when one group is looked down on—indeed, seen as less than Black in many ways in the strange hierarchy of whiteness—said group will become the most racist toward Black Americans."
"Had Boston dealt with its Jim Crow patterns itself, the federal court order that created school desegregation might not have been needed, but no one seized the opportunity. Boston, in essence, failed to begin the process of Reconstruction until the mid-twentieth century, in part because of its ingrained myths of progressivism."
The last few chapters focus on the community organization in Black neighborhoods around better schools for Black students and the strident resistance of the Boston School Committee to even admitting there was a problem. Miletsky also debunks some myths. One is that a James Brown concert prevented rioting in Boston after Martin Luther King's assassination, when in reality the rioting was contained within Black neighborhoods. The other is that the book Common Ground has become the key history of the busing crisis, but it focuses on the white communities of Boston with the Black activists and organizations hardly mentioned at all.
This book is a general history of Black Boston and leaves me with a desire to find out more. In the early chapters, especially, I found there is a "great person" approach to history as it focuses on individuals more than the larger community. I also found the writing style repetitious. That being said it is a good place to start on the part of Boston's history that has been hidden for too long.
Favorite Passages:
"Every day, Sarah Roberts, the daughter of Benjamin Roberts, had to walk past five white public schools in order to attend the densely populated all-Black Smith School. This was, in his view, a clear violation of an 1845 Boston statute that held that “any child, unlawfully excluded from public school instruction, in this Commonwealth, shall recover damages therefor, [sic] … against the city or town by which such public school instruction is supported.”88 Roberts, like many of Nell’s petitioners, appealed relentlessly to the school committee to allow his daughter to attend the school closest to her home, as mandated by the 1845 law. At one point, Roberts even went beyond appeals and enrolled Sarah in the school, but she was asked to leave—removed in fact. Roberts was so incensed that his daughter had been turned away that he decided to sue the City of Boston on her behalf."
"Roberts v. City of Boston left a lasting impact on American history. The 1850 opinion of Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court made Boston the legal origin of the “separate but equal” doctrine. Southern jurists would soon come to cite the Roberts case to expand the legal justification for Jim Crow. Yet the case also serves as evidence that the Black community was active very early in the struggle for racial justice in Boston."
"Although we often think of Du Bois as the chief architect of the movement against Washington’s accommodationist strategy, Trotter attacked Washington most ardently, doing so three years before the more celebrated Du Bois joined in the fray with the publication of The Souls of Black Folk in 1903."
"Boston has pride of place as the site of the first branch of the NAACP in 1911. A significant force in the race for power in Boston, the esteemed civil rights organization was the oldest in the nation. Bostonian involvement in the organization was significant from the beginning, including among those who participated in the earlier Niagara Movement. In 1910, the Boston Committee to Advance the Cause of the Negro, which grew significantly in terms of membership and activity that year, chose Boston as the site for the first annual conference of the NAACP. The ad hoc committee became the first branch of the NAACP when the second annual conference was held at the Park Street Church in Boston in 1911."
"In a strong show of solidarity in tribute to the slain Reeb was an NAACP float, which was included for the first time in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in South Boston on March 17, 1964. Reeb died of injuries received when he was beaten while leaving a restaurant in Selma, Alabama, only a week before. The inclusion of the NAACP and the larger symbolism of the float was criticized by many. Members of the Roman Catholic Interracial Council marched with a sign reading “Beidh an buadh ‘inn,” the words in Gaelic for “We shall overcome.” They were spat on and insulted by rowdy members of the crowd watching the parade."
"Perhaps it is not that much of a stretch to consider that when one group is looked down on—indeed, seen as less than Black in many ways in the strange hierarchy of whiteness—said group will become the most racist toward Black Americans."
"Had Boston dealt with its Jim Crow patterns itself, the federal court order that created school desegregation might not have been needed, but no one seized the opportunity. Boston, in essence, failed to begin the process of Reconstruction until the mid-twentieth century, in part because of its ingrained myths of progressivism."
September 22, 2024
I’m glad to have read this book. I am looking forward to an upcoming book club discussion, and it led to interesting conversations with my parents, who were teaching in Boston during the 1970s. However, as a book, it was poorly organized and in need of major editing. Editorial conclusions were sprinkled throughout with no anchoring in factual analysis. Quotations were meandering and did not serve to support the ideas of the text. Events would be mentioned multiple times in slightly different wording, so much so that I would have to reread to make sure this was the same school strike the author had been discussing for the past several pages. The author would list the school history or resume of a particular person in detail … then never mention them again. Conversely, the author seemed to forget he had already introduced other people - he gave a parenthetical explanation of who Ruth Batson was in the last 20 pages of the book, after extensively covering her activities for the previous two chapters. An interesting place and time in history, but one that deserves a much better written and edited piece of work.
March 23, 2023
As a lifelong Bostonian, I was really looking forward to this and hoping someone would build on the writings of Jeanne Theoharis about Boston Black education activism. Alas, a very disappointing read. The writing is disorganized and the author is poor at doling out information (sometimes he fails to give needed info, sometimes he is redundant to the point of absurdity). The really disappointing part is that solid editing could have brought better shape to the narrative and corrected the clumsiness--I never figured UNC Press, which has put out so many books I've enjoyed, would let something go out that still needs so much revision.
May 3, 2023
Deconstructs the myth of Boston exceptionalism
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews