1 00:00:03,903 --> 00:00:09,943 ♪ ♪ 2 00:00:15,915 --> 00:00:18,184 PHYLLIS ELLISON-FEASTER: The first day of school, 3 00:00:18,184 --> 00:00:20,553 my brother and I had our bus assignments, 4 00:00:20,553 --> 00:00:24,257 and we collected students and other buses 5 00:00:24,257 --> 00:00:26,226 to drive up to South Boston High School. 6 00:00:26,226 --> 00:00:29,763 L Street Annex, right over here-- first two buses, please. 7 00:00:32,999 --> 00:00:35,969 BOB MONAHAN: I went up to Southie High. 8 00:00:35,969 --> 00:00:39,339 There was staging for the television cameras. 9 00:00:39,339 --> 00:00:43,109 And the first one I noticed was the BBC. 10 00:00:43,109 --> 00:00:47,013 We all knew something was going to happen. 11 00:00:47,013 --> 00:00:49,916 LEON ROCK: As the kids were getting out the buses, 12 00:00:49,916 --> 00:00:53,453 there was a line of police 13 00:00:53,453 --> 00:00:58,291 holding back residents from South Boston 14 00:00:58,291 --> 00:01:02,162 screaming at the Black students. 15 00:01:02,162 --> 00:01:04,564 We were fearful for our lives. 16 00:01:04,564 --> 00:01:09,035 RUTH BATSON: We were not pushing for desegregation 17 00:01:09,035 --> 00:01:12,439 because of the brotherhood of man concept. 18 00:01:12,439 --> 00:01:16,142 Where there were White students, that's where the money went. 19 00:01:16,142 --> 00:01:20,246 MONAHAN: How adults in Boston could not have come up with a better plan, 20 00:01:20,246 --> 00:01:22,816 it still baffles me. 21 00:01:22,816 --> 00:01:24,717 WOMAN: I'm not for this. 22 00:01:24,717 --> 00:01:26,820 I don't care, my one will not go to school. 23 00:01:26,820 --> 00:01:29,756 But it's tearing them apart. 24 00:01:29,756 --> 00:01:31,691 I wouldn't care if they were green or purple. 25 00:01:31,691 --> 00:01:33,793 It's the idea of putting my kid on a bus when I have a school 26 00:01:33,793 --> 00:01:35,395 right across the street from where they should go. 27 00:01:35,395 --> 00:01:38,198 JIM VRABEL: White families and even some Black families 28 00:01:38,198 --> 00:01:41,301 felt that the decision of where their children 29 00:01:41,301 --> 00:01:44,104 should go to school should be up to them. 30 00:01:44,104 --> 00:01:48,108 First of all, busing will never work in this city-- never. 31 00:01:48,108 --> 00:01:50,877 They will not take the rights away from these people. 32 00:01:50,877 --> 00:01:54,747 ROCK: Many Black parents were saying, "This is crazy. 33 00:01:54,747 --> 00:01:58,718 No, we can't send our kids into the lion's den." 34 00:01:58,718 --> 00:02:00,286 WOMAN: I don't want to bus my child 35 00:02:00,286 --> 00:02:01,821 to any school. 36 00:02:01,821 --> 00:02:04,023 I want to have a good school in my community where my child 37 00:02:04,023 --> 00:02:07,627 can go and get just as much good education as anybody else. 38 00:02:07,627 --> 00:02:10,330 MATTHEW DELMONT: The battle over busing in Boston 39 00:02:10,330 --> 00:02:11,764 exposed an important truth, 40 00:02:11,764 --> 00:02:13,566 that the majority of White Americans 41 00:02:13,566 --> 00:02:15,568 didn't actually support civil rights if it meant 42 00:02:15,568 --> 00:02:17,237 they had to actually address racial inequality 43 00:02:17,237 --> 00:02:18,705 in their own cities. 44 00:02:18,705 --> 00:02:21,040 The people of Boston elected people 45 00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:23,042 to public office who campaigned 46 00:02:23,042 --> 00:02:26,012 on deliberately racist platforms. 47 00:02:26,012 --> 00:02:27,480 LOUISE DAY HICKS: If you ask me, 48 00:02:27,480 --> 00:02:30,783 "Do you know where I stand?", you know where I stand. 49 00:02:30,783 --> 00:02:31,985 Shoot all the niggers. 50 00:02:31,985 --> 00:02:33,520 MAN: Why? 51 00:02:33,520 --> 00:02:35,555 Because why should they move over here and wreck this city? 52 00:02:35,555 --> 00:02:37,390 IRA JACKSON: It was the ugliest 53 00:02:37,390 --> 00:02:40,160 that I've ever experienced human nature, 54 00:02:40,160 --> 00:02:43,263 and the most fraught with danger 55 00:02:43,263 --> 00:02:47,033 and concern that we were at the precipice 56 00:02:47,033 --> 00:02:51,137 of anarchy, civil war-- a race riot. 57 00:02:51,137 --> 00:02:52,372 It's not a question 58 00:02:52,372 --> 00:02:57,143 of whether the Constitution can be enforced. 59 00:02:57,143 --> 00:02:59,479 It's only a question of at what cost. 60 00:02:59,479 --> 00:03:01,514 (people shouting) 61 00:03:05,351 --> 00:03:08,421 ♪ ♪ 62 00:03:08,421 --> 00:03:13,026 (people talking in background) 63 00:03:17,263 --> 00:03:22,468 (shutters clicking) 64 00:03:27,674 --> 00:03:30,877 (static crackling) 65 00:03:30,877 --> 00:03:33,446 Good evening, my fellow citizens. 66 00:03:33,446 --> 00:03:36,349 BRYANT ROLLINS: On June 11, 1963, 67 00:03:36,349 --> 00:03:40,220 President John Kennedy calls for a national press conference 68 00:03:40,220 --> 00:03:42,855 and all three networks broadcast it. 69 00:03:42,855 --> 00:03:45,925 It rivets the attention of the country. 70 00:03:45,925 --> 00:03:48,494 The Negro baby born in America today, 71 00:03:48,494 --> 00:03:52,165 regardless of the section or the state in which he is born, 72 00:03:52,165 --> 00:03:55,501 has about one-half as much chance 73 00:03:55,501 --> 00:03:57,804 of completing a high school as a White baby 74 00:03:57,804 --> 00:04:01,608 born in the same place on the same day. 75 00:04:01,608 --> 00:04:04,911 I was at home watching him on TV. 76 00:04:04,911 --> 00:04:06,946 And to hear a president of the United States 77 00:04:06,946 --> 00:04:11,017 acknowledge the depth of the racial challenges 78 00:04:11,017 --> 00:04:15,355 was just remarkable and uplifting. 79 00:04:15,355 --> 00:04:20,126 In the middle of the struggles that are going on in the South, 80 00:04:20,126 --> 00:04:22,562 to take a side like that, on our side, 81 00:04:22,562 --> 00:04:24,897 it was, like, revolutionary. 82 00:04:24,897 --> 00:04:26,966 There can be no submission to the theory 83 00:04:26,966 --> 00:04:28,201 that the central government... 84 00:04:28,201 --> 00:04:30,036 ROLLINS: Earlier in the day, 85 00:04:30,036 --> 00:04:32,405 Governor George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door and said, 86 00:04:32,405 --> 00:04:35,408 "In my tenure as governor here, 87 00:04:35,408 --> 00:04:40,480 Negroes will never attend the University of Alabama." 88 00:04:40,480 --> 00:04:44,217 I am asking from you an unequivocal assurance 89 00:04:44,217 --> 00:04:46,786 that you will not bar entry to these students, 90 00:04:46,786 --> 00:04:48,688 to Vivian Malone and to James Hood. 91 00:04:48,688 --> 00:04:52,525 ROLLINS: Kennedy finally saw how rigid 92 00:04:52,525 --> 00:04:56,863 and devastating the racism in the South had become, 93 00:04:56,863 --> 00:04:59,766 that it was no longer possible to stay on the sidelines. 94 00:04:59,766 --> 00:05:02,935 This is not a sectional issue. 95 00:05:02,935 --> 00:05:05,738 Difficulties over segregation and discrimination 96 00:05:05,738 --> 00:05:10,176 exist in every city in every state of the Union. 97 00:05:10,176 --> 00:05:12,945 Part of the irony of Kennedy's speech was that in Boston, 98 00:05:12,945 --> 00:05:17,850 the NAACP is appearing before the Boston School Committee, 99 00:05:17,850 --> 00:05:21,421 in an equally dramatic moment, at the same time. 100 00:05:21,421 --> 00:05:25,425 It was a very hot night, there was no air conditioning. 101 00:05:25,425 --> 00:05:29,128 The windows were wide open in search of air. 102 00:05:29,128 --> 00:05:31,297 PEOPLE (in distance): ♪ We shall overcome ♪ 103 00:05:31,297 --> 00:05:33,800 JONES: You could hear, downstairs, demonstrators 104 00:05:33,800 --> 00:05:38,271 chanting and singing freedom songs. 105 00:05:38,271 --> 00:05:42,108 Inside the school committee headquarters, 106 00:05:42,108 --> 00:05:44,544 Ruth Batson presented her case 107 00:05:44,544 --> 00:05:47,380 to the all-White school committee. 108 00:05:47,380 --> 00:05:49,682 FARAH STOCKMAN: Ruth Batson really is on a mission to get 109 00:05:49,682 --> 00:05:52,919 the Boston School Committee to admit 110 00:05:52,919 --> 00:05:57,290 that there was de facto segregation 111 00:05:57,290 --> 00:06:01,661 in the schools and to do something about it. 112 00:06:01,661 --> 00:06:05,565 JONES: Louise Day Hicks, South Boston lawyer, 113 00:06:05,565 --> 00:06:09,102 chairperson of the school committee, said to Mrs. Batson, 114 00:06:09,102 --> 00:06:14,273 "Mrs. Batson, we don't segregate the schools. 115 00:06:14,273 --> 00:06:16,743 "We only assign students to schools closest 116 00:06:16,743 --> 00:06:19,779 "to where they live, so we're not accepting this notion 117 00:06:19,779 --> 00:06:21,914 "and we are not going to do anything 118 00:06:21,914 --> 00:06:24,050 about what you're talking about." 119 00:06:24,050 --> 00:06:28,388 We made our presentation, and everything broke loose. 120 00:06:28,388 --> 00:06:32,759 We were completely rejected that night, 121 00:06:32,759 --> 00:06:36,195 and we left battle-scarred. 122 00:06:38,898 --> 00:06:42,368 If an American, because his skin is dark, 123 00:06:42,368 --> 00:06:46,305 cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, 124 00:06:46,305 --> 00:06:48,608 if he cannot send his children 125 00:06:48,608 --> 00:06:51,411 to the best public school available, 126 00:06:51,411 --> 00:06:53,713 if he cannot vote, 127 00:06:53,713 --> 00:06:56,048 who among us would then be content 128 00:06:56,048 --> 00:06:59,285 with the counsels of patience and delay? 129 00:06:59,285 --> 00:07:03,923 So here you've got President Kennedy making 130 00:07:03,923 --> 00:07:06,259 an impassioned speech to the nation, 131 00:07:06,259 --> 00:07:10,029 in this morally rich position that he's taking, 132 00:07:10,029 --> 00:07:13,132 juxtaposed with the Boston School Committee, 133 00:07:13,132 --> 00:07:15,568 which is presented with this opportunity, 134 00:07:15,568 --> 00:07:19,605 and it does exactly the opposite: dug its heels in. 135 00:07:19,605 --> 00:07:22,008 JONES: This meeting is a turning point. 136 00:07:22,008 --> 00:07:24,544 It ignited a movement. 137 00:07:24,544 --> 00:07:29,649 The Civil Rights Movement came to Boston 138 00:07:29,649 --> 00:07:33,753 on June 11, 1963. 139 00:07:33,753 --> 00:07:38,391 (crowd singing) 140 00:07:41,027 --> 00:07:46,833 ♪ ♪ 141 00:07:51,437 --> 00:07:54,207 VRABEL: In the 1960s, 142 00:07:54,207 --> 00:07:58,177 Boston was a rundown has-been of a city. 143 00:07:58,177 --> 00:08:02,815 The middle class was on its way out. 144 00:08:02,815 --> 00:08:07,620 It was left as a place for the poor and working class. 145 00:08:07,620 --> 00:08:11,958 It was a city of Waldorf and Hayes-Bickford cafeterias, 146 00:08:11,958 --> 00:08:13,960 and bookie joints, 147 00:08:13,960 --> 00:08:17,063 and newspapers blowing down the streets. 148 00:08:17,063 --> 00:08:18,531 BILL JOY: Boston is sort of like 149 00:08:18,531 --> 00:08:20,700 the palm of your hand. 150 00:08:20,700 --> 00:08:21,934 You have the little peninsulas 151 00:08:21,934 --> 00:08:23,536 going out into the harbor, 152 00:08:23,536 --> 00:08:28,007 whether it's Dorchester, South Boston, 153 00:08:28,007 --> 00:08:33,379 East Boston, North End, Charlestown. 154 00:08:33,379 --> 00:08:35,248 They go out into the harbor. 155 00:08:35,248 --> 00:08:38,351 And the Downtown area is sort of the back of your hand. 156 00:08:38,351 --> 00:08:40,720 So, you don't go through the neighborhoods. 157 00:08:40,720 --> 00:08:43,623 The neighborhoods are their own little sort of worlds. 158 00:08:43,623 --> 00:08:47,627 ROLLINS: East Boston was the Italian neighborhood. 159 00:08:47,627 --> 00:08:50,963 Mattapan was the Jewish neighborhood. 160 00:08:50,963 --> 00:08:54,333 South Boston was the Irish neighborhood. 161 00:08:54,333 --> 00:08:58,804 The South End was Hispanic, by and large. 162 00:08:58,804 --> 00:09:02,174 Right adjacent to the Downtown Boston 163 00:09:02,174 --> 00:09:03,809 was the Chinese community. 164 00:09:03,809 --> 00:09:06,646 ♪ ♪ 165 00:09:06,646 --> 00:09:10,750 Roxbury-- Lower Roxbury and Upper Roxbury-- 166 00:09:10,750 --> 00:09:12,585 were the Black communities: 167 00:09:12,585 --> 00:09:15,288 African Americans who had been there for some 200 years, 168 00:09:15,288 --> 00:09:20,393 and Caribbean Americans who came in the 1900s. 169 00:09:20,393 --> 00:09:22,428 STOCKMAN: Ten years earlier, 170 00:09:22,428 --> 00:09:24,797 Boston had been a very White city. 171 00:09:24,797 --> 00:09:28,868 In the 1950s, you're seeing people 172 00:09:28,868 --> 00:09:30,603 come up from the Deep South. 173 00:09:30,603 --> 00:09:32,638 They're crowding into these neighborhoods 174 00:09:32,638 --> 00:09:34,407 where Blacks are allowed to live-- 175 00:09:34,407 --> 00:09:35,775 the South End and Roxbury. 176 00:09:35,775 --> 00:09:40,379 They can't move out because of racial covenants 177 00:09:40,379 --> 00:09:42,315 written into the deeds. 178 00:09:42,315 --> 00:09:44,283 And outside of those Black neighborhoods, 179 00:09:44,283 --> 00:09:47,053 they faced tremendous discrimination. 180 00:09:47,053 --> 00:09:52,291 ROLLINS: The conditions were pretty bad, and they were deteriorating 181 00:09:52,291 --> 00:09:54,594 as more folks moved in. 182 00:09:54,594 --> 00:09:57,330 JONES: Boston was like up South. 183 00:09:57,330 --> 00:10:01,267 There were patterns of racial discrimination everywhere. 184 00:10:01,267 --> 00:10:04,870 Black folks were invisible. 185 00:10:04,870 --> 00:10:08,374 It was like they didn't live in the city. 186 00:10:08,374 --> 00:10:12,311 People from South Boston didn't come into Roxbury. 187 00:10:12,311 --> 00:10:14,847 People from Roxbury didn't go into South Boston. 188 00:10:14,847 --> 00:10:17,850 (crowd cheering, drums pounding) 189 00:10:17,850 --> 00:10:20,519 AL HOLLAND: We used to try to go 190 00:10:20,519 --> 00:10:22,622 to the St. Patrick Day parade. 191 00:10:24,624 --> 00:10:27,760 Once we got to the South Boston side, we realized that, 192 00:10:27,760 --> 00:10:29,829 "Hey, we'd better get out of here," 193 00:10:29,829 --> 00:10:31,664 because people started yelling at us, 194 00:10:31,664 --> 00:10:33,366 calling us all kinds of names. 195 00:10:34,900 --> 00:10:38,371 Then people started chasing us. 196 00:10:41,273 --> 00:10:43,776 JOE BURNIEIKA: The only time I ever saw a Black person 197 00:10:43,776 --> 00:10:46,112 when I was growing up was when the Black Jehovah Witnesses 198 00:10:46,112 --> 00:10:48,180 would come down the street. 199 00:10:48,180 --> 00:10:51,250 My grandmother, who was from County Cork in Ireland... 200 00:10:51,250 --> 00:10:53,219 (laughs): When she would see them coming down, 201 00:10:53,219 --> 00:10:54,620 she would say, "Close the blinds, 202 00:10:54,620 --> 00:10:55,688 don't answer the door!" 203 00:10:55,688 --> 00:10:57,123 And I could never understand 204 00:10:57,123 --> 00:10:58,557 what she was so upset about. 205 00:10:58,557 --> 00:11:02,695 But that was the environment that I grew up in.