HIS 200 Project 1 Writing Plan
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School
Southern New Hampshire University *
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Course
200
Subject
History
Date
Feb 20, 2024
Type
docx
Pages
2
Uploaded by GrandRose11410
Project 1
Southern New Hampshire University
HIS 200: Applied History
Instructor Aubrey Underwood, Eidson
May 28, 2023
The topic I chose is school desegregation in Boston. In 1974, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts court ordered the Boston Public Schools to desegregate the city’s schools through busing. The desegregation plan lasted for over a decade from 1974-1988. It changed Boston politics and demographic shifts in the population. The court order was placed in response to the Boston School Committee doing nothing to implement needed changes to comply with the Racial Imbalance Act that was passed by the Massachusetts General Court in 1965 that outlawed segregation in schools. Leaders decided to bus students across town to try and desegregate schools in Boston. In some ways this was an effective strategy but ultimately fell short of the goal. During this period most of the school funding had been going to white schools causing black schools to be understaffed and overcrowded. With the order in place, white
children started attending black schools and the funding amount was raised for those schools.
The first primary source I plan to use is the 1974 letter from the Massachusetts Black Caucus of the Massachusetts House of Representatives to Judge W. Arthur Garrity. In this letter the black caucus requested National Guard protection for students, citations for those exciting riots, and to name Boston city council members as defendants in the Morgan vs Hennigan suit. My second primary source is the Desegregation in the Boston public schools: interviews with parents. This source has first-hand information from the parents of the students’ attending Boston
schools at that time on how the desegregation process affected the schools. Whether it hurt or harmed the system. A secondary source I found is the journal Beyond Boundaries: Envisioning Metropolitan School Desegregation in Boston, Detroit, and Philadelphia, 1963-1974. This journal is helpful because it references the desegregation laws put into place and has detailed information on the groups that formed to protest the implementation. These groups were significant in promoting the violence of that time. Another secondary resource I plan to use is “Why Busing Failed : Race,
Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation” by Matthew Delmont. It elaborates
on the busing system becoming a crisis beyond the issue of school desegregation because of the forced feeling it gave the recipients.
The research question I plan to explore is how economic, political, and social factors affected the school and bus desegregation movement in Boston from 1965-1980. The Racial Imbalance Act passed in 1965, outlawed segregation in public schools. The outrage in desegregating the schools and bus systems caused public school enrollment decline, school attendance dropped for those that were enrolled and riots ensued. The desegregation order increased racial diversity in public schools and was opposed by both white and black citizens.
The audience for my research is my peers. I would tailor my writing to be understood by the audience of fellow peers and the community in general. The audience is expected to be at a certain educational level so most historical terms will not need definition.
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