6-3 Historical Analysis Essay Progress Check 2
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Southern New Hampshire University *
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Course
200
Subject
History
Date
Dec 6, 2023
Type
docx
Pages
5
Uploaded by GrandCrownGoat12
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Ismael Laboy
HIS 200: Q4867 Applied History
6-3 Historical Analysis Essay Progress Check 2
Southern New Hampshire University
April 9, 2022
2
Revised Thesis
The busing crisis significantly improved the city of Boston because it not only desegregated the
school system, however it also created unbelievable opportunities for minority students and led
to much progress that would be discouraged and prevented by a discriminatory education system
and political environment. This is what deemed the historical event a crisis.
Introduction
The desegregation of Boston public schools (1974-1988) took place during very lengthy legal
battles in Boston, where public schools tried to desegregate the busing for African American
students. The call for desegregation and its first years led to a series of racist public protests and
riots, specifically from 1974 to 1976. W. Arthur Garrity Jr. of the United States District Court for
the District of Massachusetts had drawn-out a plan to obligate students to bus between white and
black areas of the city in response to Massachusetts legislature’s ratification of the 1965 Racial
Imbalance Act, which ordered public schools to desegregate affording the black and white
student’s equal opportunities within the education system. In 2013, a busing system with
significantly reduced busing was implemented to replace the old, flawed busing system. It lasted
for over a decade for the hard control of the desegregation plan. It had an impact on Boston
politics and contributed to Boston’s population demographic shifts, causing a decrease in public-
school enrollment and a white flight into suburbs. In 1988, the Boston School Committee was
fully controlled by the desegregation plan. Also, twenty years after the Supreme Court of the
United States declared that “ Segregated schools are inherently unequal”, there were two cities in
Massachusetts implemented desegregation plans. On September 12, 1974, the Boston school
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system began operation under an interim federal court which specified the steps to be taken
toward desegregation. A week later, a state court order had a similar impact on the opening of the
Springfield schools. The entire communities of Boston and Springfield felt the impact of these
changes.
Body
Eventually, busing hurt Boston because it led to violent racial strife, contributed to white flight,
and damaged the quality of the public school system. The busing crisis was exactly that a crisis
that led to further damage and completely unnecessary division between 2 racial groups who
instead of processing towards total equality, it ended up completely destroying the public school
system, which yes, maybe intentions of those in positions of power were good, but hasty
decisions were made, violence broke out, and authorities lost control of the city as a whole.
Eventually, busing harmed Boston by inciting racial tensions, encouraging white migration, and
lowering the quality of public education. The white children were taken out of the publics school
and planted into private schools, taking most of the funding away from the public school system.
In response to the following thesis,
I believe Judge Garrity’s motivations were good and honest,
but the decision was made too quickly. The most obvious way that busing hurt the City of Boston
is the violence that broke out pitting the blacks and whites against each other even more. Many
white Bostonians were outraged by the busing crisis, which fueled racist violence and class
tensions throughout the city over the course of an incredibly tense decade. During these years,
anti-busing protests and imagery made national headlines, further solidifying Boston’s reputation
as a city riven by racial and socio-cultural conflict.
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The Racial Imbalance Act was passed in 1965 by the Massachusetts state legislature, which
eventually forced schools in the state to integrate. Ignoring the fact that every suburban legislator
endorsed the act, the Boston School Committee chose to function as if it did not even exist for
the next decade. Boston’s children suffered because of the ramifications of these decisions and
legislative acts. Reaching social, economic, and racial equality is always a goal that we as a
diverse group of citizens should work towards, there is a right way to reach that goal, and there is
obviously an incorrect way, example being the Boston busing crisis. More than 80% of black
elementary-school students in Boston attended majority-black schools, many of whom were
understaffed or staffed by less experienced teachers, and most of which did not encourage
progressive teaching within the education system, putting these children at a significant
disadvantage. Statistics of this nature had failed to persuade the Boston School Committee,
which has continuously denied the existence of school segregation in Boston. In 1974 Judge
Garrity’s ruling in the case of Morgan v. Hennigan stated, the segregation of Boston’s schools
was neither innocent nor unforeseen.
Complexity
The complex interactions which led to the implementation of these desegregation plans involved
not only the courts but many levels of government. The school departments, the school
committees, the mayors, the State Board of Education, the legislature, the governor and the
citizens of Massachusetts, all had varying perspectives, all exerted different degrees of influence.
The study was an attempt to sort out these perspectives and measure the influences.
With an examination of the forces leading to desegregation in Boston and Springfield must go
beyond local activities. It is important to place Massachusetts events in the context of the legal
and social developments in school desegregation which have occupied national attention for at
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least the last twenty years. With so many legal and committee fights and forces of the courts and
civil rights, gives , new significance to Boston and Springfield desegregation plans and the
controversies from which they have emerged.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the primary function of schooling is socialization, whether the school is viewed
from the perspective of the society, the community, the parents, or the child, and the primary
question underlying the present issue in education is socialization towards questions that can
help to establish the meaning of desegregation for the children in the Boston and Springfield
schools. With schooling process that makes ready of our children to live in our American society,
desegregation can help the process become more responsive to the needs of that society. Racial
tensions which plague America have their origins in such factors as economic disparities, lack of
communication, insensitivity to differing needs, feelings of guilt, feelings of inferiority.
School desegregation is approached as a means of improving educational achievement for all
students while promoting beneficial interactions between racial groups and increased awareness
of self-worth within groups, things may begin to happen. In Boston and Springfield the final
meaning of school desegregation depends on the response of educators to the challenge. The
lesson that can be learn is that we all have to work together no matter the color or race to have an
improve education in our schools and community.