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| White Bostonians attack a black man during one of many incidents. |
Angry white people — and not just in the South — used the second term to protest affirmative efforts to make the promise of Brown v. the Board a reality in school districts across the nation. The national debate was heated, ugly and sometimes violent, especially in Boston.
Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry about desegregation busing:
"The momentum (to desegregate schools) continued with two additional Supreme Court decisions aimed at implementation. In 1968, the Warren Court in Green v. County School Board rejected a freedom of choice plan. The Court ordered the county to desegregate immediately and eliminate racial discrimination 'root and branch.' Then in 1971, the Burger Court in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education ruled that the school district must achieve racial balance even if it meant redrawing school boundaries and the use of busing as a legal tool. The impact of Green and Swann served to end all remnants of de jure segregation in the South. However, the consequence of the Swann decision ushered in new forms of resistance in subsequent decades. The decision failed to address de facto segregation.
"Evidence of such de facto segregation motivated early proponents of plans to engage in conscious 'integration' of public schools, by busing schoolchildren to schools other than their neighborhood schools, with an objective to equalize racial imbalances. Proponents of such plans argued that with the schools integrated, minority students would have equal access to equipment, facilities and resources that the cities' white students had, thus giving all students in the city equal educational opportunities."
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| Several people, white and black, died in clashes in Boston. |
A sampling of events surrounding Swann:
Desegregation, or Forced, Busing
Boston busing violence
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| Aides to MLK point in the direction of the gun shots that killed him. |
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