Key People and Terms

Segregation: the action or state of setting someone or something apart from other things or people. The forced separation of different racial groups in a country, community, or establishment.

Integration: intermixing previous groups that had been previously separated.

Civil Rights: the rights of citizens to political and social freedom and equality.

Desegregation: to end a policy of racial segregation in schools. (carrying out the process of integration within the schools.)

Racial Imbalance Act of 1965: legislation passed by the Massachusetts General Court which made segregation in Massachusetts Public Schools illegal.

Mayor Kevin White: Mayor of Boston from 1968 to 1984, during the times of court ordered busing and desegregation of public schools.

Louise Day Hicks: was a politician and lawyer from Boston who is often best known for her opposition to desegregation on Boston Public Schools, especially court ordered busing in the 1960s and 1970s. She was elected to the Boston School Board committee in 1961, and ran for mayor in 1967. She eventually served one term in the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to 1973. She also served as President of the City Council in 1976.

Judge Arthur Garrity: was a United States Federal judge who became best known for issuing the 1974 order that Boston schools would carry out desegregation by means of forced busing.

METCO: Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity. METCO was founded in 1966 in Boston with the intent to “expand educational opportunities, increase diversity, and reduce racial isolation by permitting students in certain cities to attend public schools in other communities.”[1] This program is still in existence in Boston, and a model for other districts.

ROAR: Restore Our Alienated Rights was an anti-desegregation busing organization formed in Boston by Louise Day Hicks.[2]

Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka: a landmark court case for the United States Supreme Court where the court declared that state laws allowing segregated public schools for black and white students were unconstitutional. This overturned Plessy vs. Ferguson which allowed separate but equal schools.

Morgan vs. Hennigan: the court case that defined the forced busing controversy in Boston. In 1972, the NAACP filed a class action law suit against the Boston School Committee on behalf of 14 black parents and 44 black children saying the committee brought about and maintained segregation in Boston Public Schools. The case resulted in the school committee being charged with violating the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendment as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

[1] Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, “Metco Program.” Accessed July 27, 2016, http://www.doe.mass.edu/metco/.

[2] For more information regarding ROAR, please visit https://bosdesca.omeka.net/.