Discovering Boston’s Civil Rights Story! What were the conditions in Boston Public Schools in 1963 for African American families?! What were the concerns of Boston’s families of color?Materials:Excerpts from the June 11, 1963 Boston Public School Committee meeting.Student Activities:1. As a preview to the issues of desegregation of Boston Public schools students should consider thefollowing questions:! Is there liberty and justice for all?! What happens to a dream deferred?! What are the conditions in Boston Public Schools, or any schools today, that need to beaddressed?2. Reading the statement read by Ruth Batson and the testimony of Mrs. Loon, students can analyze thesedocuments to answer the questions:! What were the conditions in Boston Public Schools in 1963 for African American families?! What were the concerns of Boston’s families of color?3. Students may write an op-ed piece that considers the question posed over forty years ago by Noel Day:“Why are our schools in Boston segregated?”50101 Walnut Street, Watertown, MA 02472 * 617.923.9933 * www.primarysource.org
Discovering Boston’s Civil Rights StoryLesson 4: Student Handout_________________________________________________________________________Excerpts from the transcript of June 11, 1963 Boston School Committee meeting" Questions posed by Mr. Noel Day executive director of St. Mark’s Social Center in Roxbury at theJune 11, 1963 School Committee meeting:“Why are our schools in Boston segregated?Why do we have 7,000 children attending segregated schools nine years and a monthafter the Supreme Court of the United States indicated that segregated schooling in theUnited States provided unequal education for Whites and for Negroes?Why must we appear here tonight to plead for integrated schools when in other citiesthroughout the North it had been found by courts that de facto segregation is asinherently evil as segregation under the law?” 1" Statement made by Mrs. Loon, a parent“You will have to bear with me because all this is new to me.I live in Dorchester, and my kiddos—I have two—go to the Sarah Greenwood School. I had aboy who misbehaved. He was talking in line. He got a rattan, which, in my opinion, he deserved. He wasexpelled from school. I went to school and I spoke with the teacher. I spoke to the teacher who called himout of line. This was his class. They were two men teachers; one of them gave him the rattan. I went upthere to see why he got it. Before I could find out why he got it, the teachers, the two men, were so busyexplaining to me that this was not a racial issue that when I get through finally, after I told them what Icame up for—because at the time I was eight months pregnant; I wasn’t there for any row—I wanted tofind out what my son did. I did not send him to school to misbehave, I sent him to school to mind.When we got all through that this was not a racial issue, the teacher couldn’t remember what hewas rattaned for. This is very true. So, after it was all over, I spoke to him. I brought him home. In fact, Igave him a spanking. I still did not get him back into school. I had to call one of the SchoolCommitteemen that took care of the Dorchester area, and they put him back into school. They had to callthe teacher that give him the rattan and his home classroom teacher.This is not conducive to any kind of school administration. This is wrong. I am not supposed tofeel that I have a child in school because of color. You are not supposed to feel that it is color. You aresupposed to feel what he is in school for: He is and I am. [check original?]This is all.The classroom is overcrowded. The Sarah Greenwood School, the William Endicott School—infact, like the teacher told me, there are 47 in one class. This is wrong. This is too many in one classroom,and the mothers, the housewives, in Dorchester, would like something done about it.This is all, and thank you very much.” 2" Excerpts from prepared statement delivered by Ruth Batson, chair of the Education Committee of thecity’s branch of the NAACP and a longtime parent-critic of the conditions in many of the city’spredominantly black schools.Madame Chairman, Members of the Boston School Committee:The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is an organization dedicated tothe elimination of discrimination and prejudice from all phases of American life. Our goal is First Class1 Transcript of Boston School Committee Meeting , June 11, 1963, p. 60.2 Transcript of Boston School Committee Meeting, June 11, 1963, p. 26-2751101 Walnut Street, Watertown, MA 02472 * 617.923.9933 * www.primarysource.org
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