Massachusetts Viewpoint; Boston School Boycott: An Evaluation

Good evening. Welcome again to Massachusetts viewpoint. Tonight our topic for discussion is the Boston school stay out and evaluation. It is something like a week now since the school stay out in the Boston city schools occurred on February 26. Tonight our discussion will aim at looking back a week on that event and seeking to evaluate what its consequences have been. We have with us tonight as panelists to consider an evaluation of the school stay out of last week. John D O'Reilly Jr. who is professor of constitutional law at the Boston College Law School. Mrs. Dean Oxley who is a mother and citizen of Roxbury a teacher in the ongoing Freedom Schools. Mr. Bryant Rollins who is a reporter for The Boston Globe. And Mr. Richard Neff who is a staff writer for The Christian Science Monitor just a little over a week ago the Boston Globe on its editorial page Tuesday February 25th had a an editorial called after Wednesday

written as you know by Uncle Dudley. That editorial looked ahead one day to consider what the boycott or the school stay out might mean. Uncle Dudley had this to say looking ahead. It would be a mistake to treat the Boston school boycott scheduled for Wednesday as merely a case of mass hockey by youngsters and to insist that the usual rules on truancy be invoked. The boycott when seen in perspective could be seen as a symbol of the stress and despair a warning of a serious social sickness that goes beyond dirty old schools and ghettos and slums. Thousands of Negro pupils said the globe backed by groups from dozens of suburban communities plus an impressive roster of adults who are moved by genuine conviction and compassion will display their feelings that the education being received by the Negro in Boston is less than what it should be. Uncle Dudley went on to say one can assume and hope that all concerned will handle themselves with restraint and good taste just as the hundreds of thousands did in the historic

WASHINGTON March just six months ago. One can also hope fervently said the globe that it will spur some real action not just more words on the part of the city and state elected officials. The editorial continued in the vicious circle of sub par employed sub par employment housing and education and which unfortunately most Negroes are trapped. The key to a real breakout is education. A boycott cannot solve anything in the literal and legal sense but it can save the globe dramatize a situation or a deeply felt attitude. If official tempers are kept in check and no additional unwise or rash statements are forthcoming from either side of the globe there could be hope that Wednesday's happening will produce a net game. But with these words I think we will now look back on the school stay out of February 26 and try to assess whether a net gain is resulting from that event and to begin our discussion I'm going to turn to Mr. Bryant

Ron's reporter for The Boston Globe who has a deep interest in this question Mr. Rollins. Well I think in terms of attempting to assess what happened last Wednesday I think that you have to decide what you're going to use. I think you have to know whether you're talking about the effect that the boycott might have had on changing the situation in the schools whether you're talking about the effect on the Negro community on the white community and the community as a whole. Last night which was Monday night the Boston School Committee voted again that it would not consider a plan to establish a commission to study de facto segregation. I'm sure this was no surprise to the Negro community as a whole to the boycott leaders. They did not. I think they did not expect the boycott to have any direct effect on how Mrs. Louise day Hicks or any of the others would feel in regards to de facto segregation. So I think we have to look somewhere else for our

index I think we have to try to find out what the boycott leaders expected to accomplish. And I think we have to look in this direction as far as the effect on the Negro community. It was pointed out by a negro psychologist Dr. Pindar Hughes that the boycott had several beneficial effects. First of all it acted as a kind of safety valve in within the community. I think that it's hard for a person who doesn't live in Roxbury to know about the frustration and the desperation of the young negroes there about the growth during the daytime is. There are congregated negroes who have dropped out from school and who can't get jobs and the pool rooms pool rooms and crowded I think there's a degree of frustration which is growing and if nothing else the boycott act as a safety valve for this. Another thing that he pointed out was that the boycott allowed the community to express itself in terms of community unity. There have been in the past two factions within the Negro community in terms of negroes

versus the negroes factions within the economic scales factions within the national national origin. By that I mean West Indians vs. American born negroes and so forth. This is the first time that I can remember I've lived here for 26 years it's been this great a show of community unity. Dr. Pindar also pointed out that in broad terms this was a healthy thing for the community to be doing. It was nonviolent and it was a direct action and it was in that terms healthy and I think if we think in terms of the white community it's probable that the boycott did alienate some whites. But I think that Negro leaders would say that that's the price that has to be paid. Eventually we're going to have to find out where people stand. Now to some degree the NAACP felt that it found out in the balloting for the school committee last November when people from Pan and West plane and other sections of the city overwhelmingly reelected Mrs. Hicks. But I

think that they the NAACP wants to force people to take a stand on the issue of de facto segregation of Negro rights and of civil rights. And in terms of the community as a whole I think we have to think in these terms how can we expect people to live together as adults if they haven't lived together when they're young. And the boycott did it produce that effect that in that White came in from Arlington and Wellesley and and Lincoln and Sabri who wouldn't normally come into Roxbury I mean very often you see bus loads of children going to going into the suburbs negro to go into the suburbs but very rarely do they suburbia and youngsters come into Roxbury to see the conditions of the schools then to meet the negro youngsters and their so to speak on their own ground. Thanks very much Mr. Rollins for helpful introduction of our evaluation of last week's stay out. I'd like to turn now to Professor John O'Reilly of the Boston College Law School to see what his evaluation is what your first approximation.

I'm hopeful that. There has been one good impact one useful impact. Namely for the first time there seems to be a prospect of getting some official attention paid to the nasty problems of racial discrimination in our society and specifically of course on our educational system never to official treatment of other subjects. And in terms of petty legal isms and semantics but it seems to me that there is hope in the immediate reaction of the State Board of Education to the episode. They've at least named a beginning of an examination into what are the facts behind the racial allocation of

students in schools in Boston and perhaps elsewhere. And I think where the. Look forward just as I hope we can go though the state board pursuing a factual study and following up the implications of whatever rather factual study reveals. And then we have some hope of an official approach to all the underlying problems being based on something more than the semantics and the glittering meaningless meaningless generalities that has hitherto I think characterize the official consideration of race in the school. Thanks very much Professor O'REILLY I. I think you've made an important point. Indicating the official reaction to the school stay out.

One of the things that we felt very very strongly in the period before the stay out was the almost complete breakdown of communication between officials of the schools in Boston and the negro leadership of the Boston community. And we'll come back and re-examine this question as we proceed. I'd like to turn now for a first reaction to the school stay out to a young woman who has been deeply involved in all of the issues that are concerned in this case. I'd like to turn to Mrs. Jean Oxley who has children in the schools of Boston and who knows the schools of Boston and Roxbury very well and was served as a teacher in the freedom schools that have been going on all this past year. Mrs. Oxley thank you. Perhaps my most immediate concern is the effect that the stay out has had upon the young people that I am acquainted with in freedom

schools and Sundays. Many of these young people were not interested in any public issue whatsoever. They were the kind of children who might hang out in the streets be interested only in dancing and dates. Many had dropped out of school. I would say a majority of them were doing rather poorly in school. And yet here we have children who have rallied around for once in their lives an issue which they know about even if they don't know why it came about. The younger the children are the less they seem to be aware that this is a real issue and. If if it meant alienating people I wonder if people were really your friends in the first place you can't alienate a true friend. I feel that most people have been led to believe that. The Supreme Court decision was meant only for the self and perhaps the time that's what the Supreme Court had in mind but I took the trouble to read it over again. It took a little bit of reading of the summary yes 1954

took a little bit of reading. But if the implications. Are read very carefully you can see that this can affect any situation where segregation. Is in effect. Doesn't matter whether it's de facto segregation and jury segregation segregation comes about for many reasons. If it's legal then it's just means that people's opinions about a certain segment of the population have been legalized. The opinions are here in the north and we see the effect. Nevertheless I really feel that for once the young people community felt there were children elsewhere who cared about them that maybe they had moved away because it's their parent's wish. But the children that I've talked to said they would like to visit the schools out of town. They'd like to make friends with these children and when you have a friend that you grew up with if he's going to be appear later on and he may be the man who hires you he may be the man who lives next to you. Children have much less of a wall than adults have. They may have fears that they've heard from adults about other children they they may think in terms of white and colored because this is

what they hear at home and let's face it they hear it. But when they meet white children when white children meet colored children they finally realize well these are just children like ourselves. All right thank you very much Mrs. Oxley. I'd like to turn now if we may for our first round with regard to evaluating Lee school stay out of last week to Mr. Richard Nath of the Christian Science Monitor Mr. Nath. Yes Dr. Patterson I have three points. First of all I believe the white community was mobilized in support of the negro cause as it never was before. Mr. Rollins mentioned very well how the Negro community was mobilized. I would go on and point out how in the white suburbs among the white religious community on the predominantly white college campuses there was a significant number of citizens who rallied to the negro cause. Now I think this is significant because no longer is this a negro versus white issue as it was to

a much larger extent last summer last June and so on. This has become a community issue on which whites and negroes are on one side and whites are on the other. So in a sense the racial conflict is to a certain extent withdraw. Now the second point about impact of the stay on is in the realm of official action. Mr. Riley has mentioned the State Board of Education's move to set up a blue ribbon commission to study the issue. I would point out also the fact that pressure of the imminent boycott. Also cause the Boston School Committee for the first time in nine months of dispute to sit down with new leadership and listen to what they had to say. Now I think this is significant it didn't lead again to specific school committee action but nevertheless they did. The nigger leadership did have its say. Another significant point here is that for the first time in all these long months expert

opinion was brought in Dr. Thomas Pettigrew and Dr. look Gera Loesser of Harvard psychologists social psychologists came and presented their points of view on how the negro youngster is damaged by racial imbalance. So I believe the the whole community discussion moved a great step forward as a result of this action. Now thirdly my last point is that. The community was in being confronted with this issue saw a lot of questions clarified can define I think these questions are still unanswered but nevertheless we know more what the issues are. Now I just like to point out what I feel are some of the some of these unanswered questions which have been clarified by the by the boycott. First of all the word redistricting is BS is hurled to and fro in this whole debate. But what specifically does it mean for Boston.

No one to my knowledge has answered this question. We hear often of busing both both sides of particularly Mr. O'Connor and the school committee have much of what we don't want to bust our youngsters. But how much busing is really necessary. No one has answered this question. We hear often of open enrollment. The committee the school committee has a present plan of open enrollment. Your leadership says it's a farce. Why is it a farce. How can it be made to work better. How much of it how much is it a solution to the to the general problem. Now thirdly another question that's raised I think by the boycott is how much school integration does the Negro community really want. Should no school have more than 30 percent Negro or 40 percent or 60 percent. We have we don't have yet an answer to this question. Finally how many Negro parents and we have no

way of knowing this without some sort of Gallup poll. How many Negro parents really in the final analysis would want their youngsters to leave the neighborhood school now. The impression that we have as a result of the boycott is that many of them would. Well we but we have no specific answer the question. I think that's going to come to me. Well you've done a good job it seems to me. Mr. Nath of raising for further examination some of the unanswered questions as you call them that still are with us even though they stay out of last week as a matter of history from here on what we're going to do is to proceed in any way you see fit to question each other and react to each other. And I'm ready at this point to hear Mr. Rollins who has a question or comment. Yes electorates point to Mr. Neff just a couple of the points that he made. I think there we talk in terms of steps forward. Result of the boycott I think that probably it's true that the dialogue has been

expanded now. But I think that essentially the kernel of dispute is still there and will remain because the Boston School Committee as all of Massachusetts 309 school boards and committees is an autonomy body and the state board has absolutely no control and no say so over what it does. The state board can recommend it can prepare all of the plans for desegregation that that its desires. But when it comes right down to implementing the plan the Boston School Committee is going to have to do it. And if the school committee last night again reaffirmed its position that they facto segregation does not exist and that it will do nothing it will not establish its own commission even to study into de facto segregation that the arguments presented by Dr. Pettigrew And Dr. Lester. No consequence to it as a body and they voted that 4 to 1. I can see where in September or in July when the state board brings forth its power its program for this desegregating the schools that the Boston School Committee is going to be moved.

A second point I would make is that the whites who participated in the boycott were from Lincoln and Wellesley in Sudbury and they had no there was nothing risked. The people the whites with who would have risked something with the whites from South Boston in Jamaica Plain and so forth into which the negroes would theoretically be integrated. I think that the people from out of town that you know showed some good faith in all of that. But I still think that there was no risk involved in sending the children and passes into Roxbury to participate for five hours of classes and you know and bussing them back and I know there was a great degree of safety the kids when they got off the buses were hurried right into the schools one negro stood on the outside the sidewalks waiting to get in and that kind of thing. Another point I would make in this is in response to some of the questions as to the programs that is being proposed Boston is undoubtedly And at this point you know Brian Fisher is one of the most segregated cities in the country. There are approximately 75000 negroes and all but 15000 live in Roxbury and Roxbury is shaped like a banana. It's shaped like a banana and

the redistricting would be a very simple matter. As it stands now the district lines if you can think of a banana standing on its end. The District line drawn up and down so that most Negro children end up in negro schools. Now if you just took those district lines and turned and they ran across Roxbury would be split up and negroes would be going into schools that would be integrated. It's a very simple matter. That's perhaps an explanation of redistricting that's essentially the plan for redistricting which piece of metal glass. That's right. I second the second issue is that you mention was bussing. Now on the same basis no child in Roxbury would have passed more than a mile and a half at the most to get into an integrated school. There are children already being bussed now from Columbia Point project where the schools are overcrowded other schools accessible to schools in Dorchester. So and this is been you know this has been the the red flag that I think and others have have waived and the NAACP never mentioned busing as a matter of fact. This was this

was one of the issues brought up by the school committee. And I mention this only in response to you and I by no means advocating it. But if we're going to talk about bussing then we have to talk in terms of short shuttle shuttle bussing in very short distances and very easily accomplished I think in terms of open enrollment. The NAACP position is that it's been ineffectual because parents who are earning $60 a week $50 a week parents who earn approximately 60 percent of what a white family or white parents and that's with both the mother and father working cannot afford the cafe or just in terms of copier you know talking about lunches and and things like that cannot afford the coffee to send their kids to Hyde Park in Jamaica Plain. And the NAACP feels that this is this burden is on the shoulders of the school committee in terms of percentage of integration. The NAACP position has been that New York's superintendent Allen in his decision. He declared that an impact racially imbalance school was that which had 50 percent or more Negroes. And I think that the NAACP. It has it's gone along with that that assessment

of imbalance as far as the number of parents who would want be willing for the negroes to their children a parent to be willing for the children to go outside of the area to go to school. I think this is you have to look at this in two ways. There are many who would agree to that now and there are many others who would agree to it if they were fully aware of the facts. And this is just a question of education and and this is another thing that the boycott accomplishes it makes more parents aware into it makes more people take a look at the conditions of the schools and compare compare them with the schools for instance in Wellesley in Jamaica Plain and Hyde Park and so forth. That's an excellent set of reactions you're offering. Mr. Nath I wonder if you'd like to comment on any one or all of the things that Mr. Rollins I just said I'd be very interested to hear what some of your reactions would be. Yes. First of all I'm very happy to have had the comments on the percentage of. The end of the piece. Figure of what constitutes an integrated school and the

redistricting plan of last June and so on. Secondly on the point about how the white support came from the suburbs and from the religious community and so on I quite agree that the white support that came this time to the support of the negro cause is still on the periphery of the problem. At the core of resistance to Negro claims is as you mention in South Boston Jamaica Plain and this is where the white support must now be to be built. Thirdly and lastly I'm more optimistic than Mr. Rollins that the State Board ruling our findings in June will have more impact on this on the school committee than Mr. Owens seems to expect. First of all Mr. O'Connor told me last Friday that he welcomes this study that he feels a racial imbalance and these were his words. Is most a study of racial imbalance is most necessary. Well this is a large confession on his part because racial imbalance has not existed for him up to this time. Tom Eisenstadt is a repeater that

this thing must be studied. Julie has said the same. So I think once the facts are on the table public opinion will be even more swayed far more sway toward the side of the of the negro cause. Now it seems to me incredible that even after commission findings in June the school committee will still find it possible politically possible in terms of hard cold politics to resist legal claims any further. At least partial. Let's let's look at that one a little bit more if we may Mr. Neff. This was indeed I guess the first point that that Mr. Owens made that he did not see any particular hope and current developments for example the actions of the State Board of Education for getting at the real crux of the problem as you see it which is to open up the picture on the part of the smart and school committee to really consider what can be done. You've reacted to this Mr. Neff I wonder if Professor O'Reilly or

Mrs. Oxley has a reaction and really I see a question here of what political influences or. Effects can be exercised to the end of the school committee's position might become more open to the possibilities which the Negro community wants to have considered. If I understand Mr. Rollins right he's saying that the school stay out did not accomplish that and neither does the current action of the state board as he sees it. Hopefully it lead to that. What would be your feeling Professor Riley. Yeah I want to go I I'm hopeful. It was all of the state board's action. You know fact the cutest things. Are Stubborn. And I operate sometimes in mysterious ways in which my eye was caught by someone about

the session of their Supreme Court and brown against the Board of Education. Now that's not something that came about overnight. Back in 1896. Of course the Supreme Court handed down its separate but equal decision and Plessy against Ferguson. Now a departure from that 1954 is nothing like it was brought about by a sudden inspiration. There was a whole series of cases voting cases where university attendance cases and various other cases in which research stubborn facts came out and showed didn't convince the Supreme Court that when the Fourteenth Amendment recites uses the word persons It means negroes as well as white people in the present context I

would be very hopeful that. Once. There was an official undertaking by the time I realize that the local school committees or otherwise would be the governing of the local schools but I would hope that with the undertaking of some of the actual inquiry into the factual set up surrounding the school situation people would upon being exposed to the facts get away from. Going to take time perhaps and maybe you've got to get a tremendous mass of facts but I would be hopeful that the presentation of the facts would be very effective in overcoming. Age old prejudices and dependence on

semantics and formalize course for basically I think what needs to be developed is. What a fixation of community attitudes. I don't think we're going to solve many problems by setting up a quota of 35 percent 50 percent 51 percent or 48 percent. Members of a particular race in particular school. I don't think that this mechanical. Target is going to. Overcome my basic difficulties and these I'm sure are. Rounded and prejudicial it's a product of ignorance and if the facts can be brought out and brought home to the community as a whole they're in they're going to find a solution.

I think it's it's natural to expect a professor professor of constitutional law to argue for the facts and I think we all would around the table. QUESTION The hard question that I see is that I can't imagine that we are going to have the time that. Went between the decision in Plessy vs. Ferguson to the case in 1054 in which to mobilize sufficient facts to acquire a new kind of public official position in this regard or regard to the schools of Boston. I suppose that may be part of Mr. Rollins. Skepticism here lies in the fact that he feels that time is going to be too too short for the kind of development that you have in mind. This brings me to another question which I like or someone talk about which has to do with what alternatives are there of different Yeah but it's let's go back to the serious just man how to balance in the area again of political facts. There is and this is the these are the things these kind of crude facts of the

things that discourage me when I'm thinking in terms of the Boston School Committee acting this Boston School last twice last summer there were crises in the area of civil rights in the school committee here once was in June and the other time was in August. Both of those during at both those times President Kennedy was pressing in Washington for his civil rights bill and during both of those times senators from the south were very gleefully pointing the fingers at Boston and saying President Kennedy's own backyard. There are civil rights troubles. How do you why do you want us to vote for the Civil Rights Bill how can you expect any support both of those times President Kennedy got on the phone and there were three way conversations between the president. This is Louise day Hicks. And and Governor Peabody and this both times where a day on the eve before a proposed mass demonstration both times the president attempted to convince Mrs. Hicks that politically just from a kind of political basis she should do anything she can to prevent these

demonstrations. And in both cases occasions this is Hickson refused this. President of United States with his imposing political power and all of that rejected his appeals. I have no With that as a base I have no reason for thinking that I want to come back to the issue that resides in your present comment Rollins in just a moment I need to reintroduce the program this evening before we get much further. This is Massachusetts viewpoint being broadcast to you from the Lincoln filing center at Tufts University. Our topic this evening is the Boston school stay out of February 26 and evaluation of that event. And our panelists include Mr. Bryant Rollins whose voice you were just hearing a reporter of The Boston Globe Professor John D O'Reilly Jr. of the Boston College Law School. Mrs. Jean Oxley a mother and citizen in Roxbury a teacher in the ongoing Freedom Schools which is continued through the past year. And Mr. Richard Neff who is a staff writer for The Christian Science Monitor.

And we're just now discussing the effects and possible consequences and future possibilities resulting from the school stay out of last week. Mr. Rollins and other panelist as well I would appreciate any comment you have on what other what are the alternatives that exist to the kind of official reaction that is being taken now. Let me continue Mr. Rollins point just for a moment. If it if it is true that the Boston School Committee can in a sense be independent and is constitutionally allowed to be independent of other authorities including state and national authorities and is indeed responsible to the electorate of Boston and is indeed re-elected heavily as it was this last November. I am wondering what kind of procedure it is possible for the negro leadership of Boston to take a relatively small part of the populace of

Boston and what white friends they have in both the city and in the suburban area in order to come at a further solution of the problem. It seems to me that direct confrontation in terms of the kind of thing we had in the stay out reaches a point of diminishing returns. Unless there are other solutions proposed with the hard facts are that politically speaking the Negro citizens of Boston are in a very distinct minority and purely and political on political grounds that is by electing officials and so on they cannot operate alone can they operate through other means. Or can other alternatives of action be developed which will assist in solving some of the problems of education and race relations that exist and which we we know exist. Mr. GRAEF you have a comment on that. Oh yes one very interesting proposal it's been it's kind I've seen come out since the boycott

is that every person who publicly endorsed a boycott all the religious leaders educational leaders and so on helped a Negro family to move into their neighborhood suburban or elsewhere and Boston helped them find a home which would be in a predominately white neighborhood and thus will have a predominantly white school. It would be a natural extension of their endorsement of the boycott. Many people feel this is one very practical way which would help in a small. Small measure. Well this is a this is an interesting possibility and I'd like to hear comment on it it strikes me just on first hearing it but it might it might operate if successful to remove the middle class Negro population of Roxbury from the inner city because they would be the only people who could tend to afford some of the homes that exist in the white suburban areas that you speak of Mr. Rollins. Yes I think that you won't see that happen. I think that it's one for one thing for a man to

sign his name on the paper. But it but a very different thing for a person to act. And another in another area we're talking about are just just let me cut in with Rollins about my own ad for a second it is true I think in defense of Mr Neff's point that there is a stronger fair housing practices movement in the greater Boston area than then and it is the case in terms of any other city in the United States that I know there are whites in the suburban areas who would be willing to try and try hard to do that kind of thing that's enough speaks in one case that I know very directly a great deal of the of the problem of securing the kind of result Mr. Neff speaks of is a strictly financial problem. That is one of getting enough mortgage money to buy the kind of house that a person would want. Go ahead Mr Rowland. There are two aspects of that but first I just didn't want to mention one other point. I'm thinking of the mayor of Trenton New Jersey. It seems to me what's happening is that it's

a fleeing from the Negro. You know this is the great the great gargantuan The great fear negroes are moving from the south into the center city. And whites you know shaking and moving out. And it seems to me that the mayor did a very wise thing and he moved back in and I think that now there is every new going on in Roxbury and there are other very you know there are other areas that whites could move into Roxbury is not that great. It's not the great slum we make it out to be sometimes are very nice places to live in. Spring right. I think that there are places that any white person you know would be glad to live in and that's a possibility for one thing I'm sure. So I don't think we have to always think in terms of negroes moving integrated into white I think that the reverse is true. But also in terms of the Fair Housing movement now it's very active in Wellesley and Concord and Sudbury it's not very active in Jamaica Plain and Hyde Park. I think that you can be very selective about who moves Negro which negro moves into into separate you know you can almost scream. To move into Sudbury you have to have like $20000 a year. But you

can't be very selective or you may not be able to be very selective about who is next to you in a gym in Jamaica Plain if you if you have initiated a fair housing movement so I think again it's a question of how much how much you're going to risk. And I question again and I'm sure that this is what people like Noel day in Jim Braden and Tom Atkins who are the boycott and can't get to the boycott leaders I thinking of when they when they think it's not so much in terms of of getting negroes who can move out into the suburbs but in terms of working in Roxbury and working with a boycott to help negroes lift themselves up and give a kind of rebirth of spirit because there is a dirty you know to walk the streets of Roxbury. It's an experience that you know I do it daily but to walk the streets of Roxbury and see the light on the one hand is there is a possibility for good life and claim kindness and so forth. But on the other hand there is there is an awful lot of unemployment dropouts a lot of people you know just hanging around. So. And to see that I think that you too would agree that the first thing we have to do is to get some spirit some life into this community

to get people breathing in and roaring. And actually that's what the boycott is for people who have for so long been silent. It was a roar and for people whose hands have been shackled for so long it was it was just a flailing out and I think if you think in terms of that you almost without accomplishing anything else you almost have justified that this is a very valid outcome. I do hope we can come back to the point we were discussing as a result of your suggestion Mr. Rollins concerning the possible alternatives that exist for mobilizing official and public leadership and public opinion toward the direction of a larger and long term as well as short term solutions. In view of the political realities of the city of Boston have you had some thoughts on the some of the socks like I'm thinking in terms of mass media right now. Right. Part of the trouble is that people have been extremely misled and in the past there is a lot missing in the daily paper you have to buy almost 10 papers and not just from around this era to get a pretty good picture of what's going on not only in New England but in America.

There are things going on in Danville Virginia and in Louisiana in Washington and in New York which are very closely related to the situation in Boston which is trying to do things themselves try they they know they're a minority they know they're not a political power. They can't put someone in they can keep somebody out type of thing. But they hope that they can be a moral force this is why you have this city and freedom my type of thing where you're going to confront it right where it is wrong. This is what I've tried to get children to see what's wrong right here. Can you see most people just can't see. I I had a young man ask me Well suppose we go to other schools. Well in terms of redistricting what's going to stop those parents from running because this business of Why Johnny Can't Read is also related to why Johnny's parents run. When are we going to stop this. He was with us from the city of further exodus.

Yes the exs city isn't just from new it took place before negroes became a force in the inner city this has been going on since just the force of numbers and decent living quarters became a tight thing in Boston and every other city and people ran for decent living. I want what I'm doing what can be done and I go three months or 90 days I gather. Mr. Oliver right I grant that the time is very short very short what Rackley is possible to do that will affect public opinion enough to make a change. We've heard people talk about housing. Mrs. Hicks is always saying Why don't they move where there are better schools and better housing. But. You try to move and see how difficult it is now. The day there's a rent strike in Boston you're going to hear the same voices saying that this is an invasion of property rights and it's illegal and all the other answers that go when people decide we've had it. I think people are going to hit back at wrong where it is. I don't think

people have too much faith in the courts they know who runs the courts they know controls the courts you know who's on the ward committees. They knew that he see in the police force they know teaching in their schools is no allusion even on people who haven't been educated as to what the score is as far as they are concerned. So they feel that perhaps by once for sticking together if it's only for the schools it means something to them. It's going to be very difficult to get a good education. And face the college boards or what have you on the other end. For whites as well as Negroes and I think most negro parents have probably been overwhelmed with getting your child into college even though this isn't going to answer for many of them. And so perhaps they're pushing very hard in the One Direction they know how. How the school is going to educate my child. And when I say my child I'm I'm going to follow Miss Hicks talking about our children what are our children learning in terms of attitudes toward fellow Americans. How are they going to face differences. I think children will if you shoulder what I want I'm puzzled though Mrs. Oxley

is and I'm going to stop playing this chord in a moment. I can fully accept what you say about the validity of demonstrations and actions and so on for the people who are themselves involved this is an important thing to do and then absolutely basic. But the larger question of how you affect public policy if you do not trust the courts if you do not have power in the electorate enough to affect the school committee. If you do not have power enough in the city electorally to affect the mayor and the council. If you do not have any of these kinds of power. I'm asking what hope is there in consequence of this experience on May on February 26. What hope is there beyond simply the pleasure let's say of continuing demonstrations are the saddest I know it's not a pleasure but I mean the satisfaction of at least saying I don't like this. What what what are the alternatives Mr. Rollins.

Well I think here we're actually we're talking about now is political pressure. And I think this many people this is an national level many of the people involved in the Civil Rights Movement see it not so much as a Negro movement but as a movement of the those who have you know in those who have not. And what they're hoping for is a coalition. Amongst the lower class people I think this is can be seen very well in Boston because what the NAACP leaders hope for eventually is that the people in South Boston and Jamaica Plain and High Park will realize that the Boston school system is something like forty fourth of major cities across the country and will join the NAACP in its fight. And this I think will have more educational obligation a quality per se and because that's actually what the fight is about. You know on a larger scale that's what we're talking about we're talking about the quality of the schools and I think when when there's been so much of the race involved it's been hard to get across this point that the schools are bad. The schools in

Boston are bad. And so I think that we're talking about that but also. In another area I think that Tom Eisenstadt who's a member of the school committee represents a very interesting study because his position on this has changed from last summer from one of adamant they factor segregation does not exist to non adamant. They fact the second segregation does not exist as defined which means and he told me privately you know that this means that when he shifted his field a bit. And the reason I think is this that it's pretty generally well-known in political circles is that his name is has his eyes on a bigger pie than the Boston School Committee. He politically I think he wants to run for statewide office. I don't know what that what support he gets from the Democratic Party having been one of the four to have to have voted out de facto segregation and by the way as a kind of silent I had a letter in the mail the other day from a high school student in Boston who said that the school committee is active voting for

want that they factor segregation does not exist as it is is like a group of people getting together and voting for the one that Sonny Liston beat Cassius Clay. You know just. But in any case I think that that there are political pressures that can be brought to bear. But I think the next step. What's going to happen next I think is that the NAACP is going to have to compare appealed to the community as a whole and make this kind of grassroots movement by the community for better schools. So I think in terms of what can happen next I think that that can happen. Mr. Knopf I'm going to make a comment that will probably make two at least two members of this panel jump right out of their chairs jump out of anxiety fear anger and anger anger and that is that we don't really know yet the racial imbalances that. Now it's accepted as an article of faith in the civil rights movement that racial imbalance in schools is bad. However there is no clear scholarly proof yet that racial imbalance of schools is what causes

educational deprivation of Negro children. My thinking quite frankly has been heavily affected by a long conversation I had with Dr. Kenneth Clark right here at Tufts. Several several weeks ago just within the last several weeks and also by Father Dryden's article in America magazine the February 1st. Both men point out that no scholar has yet clearly proved that a racially imbalance school is persay educationally bad. Right here in Boston the garrison school predominately Negro has a higher I understand scholastic average than the rest of the city. I don't know where people live. I'd like to know what will happen. Pick up my socks one question a moment there. So in other words we don't have enough evidence yet whether it's the racial makeup of the school or whether it's the special program geared for the youngsters in the school and this is why I think Operation counterpoise and this will make again the panelists jump operation counterpoise in its intent and is possibly

the Major answered problem. Mrs. Moxley is expressing my view not anger but at least dismay What do you have to say most likely. The garrison school is not exactly a good example to use for the simple reason the district where the garrison originally was that is taking its school children from was the area of most of your negro intellectuals and professionals. This is there most of them lived. It is very overcrowded and I am I am rather sad that teaches in the past in terms of conditions in the schools in general haven't made a stronger. Statement themselves to the public. Because if you look at the teacher turnover in Boston if you look at what you're facing in the classroom you know there are problems and some very serious ones. But teaches. Teachers don't speak out very well the union is new in Boston it's trying to get collective bargaining. I don't know whether you can convince me that racial imbalance is bad. I'm not a product of

racially imbalanced schools as such I'm a part of product of the school which wasn't really a neighborhood school. I was bus to school in the rural areas. Everyone went to a common school. What I feel is this. Negroes know the one in school becomes predominately Negro community just might write it off. In terms of enough teachers in terms of strings of substitutes in terms of quality of materials. Well it was hard another time. Community Action. This is another type of community education but I often wonder how are you going to get young people to accept people who are very visibly different. No matter where they go. Except them as adults. If they don't know them as children this is this is a very important thing all you have to do is read the 960 census report. Professor Riley I'd like to ask you if I made a comment if you wish on Mr. nafs point. It was my impression that plea one of the main features of the 1954 Supreme Court decision was

the decision that separate but equal is not equal. That is in terms of education. Is that true and would this apply only to subjugate its role in the south or where. No I don't. Clearly it doesn't. And of course I don't know the answer I don't support be able to pontificate or question Mr. Nye phrase but seems to me that we've got something more running here than the abstract question of imbalance in the school to get to the question of racial imbalance in the schools in Boston. And this is not simply and I've seen it suggested by some people newspapers the same sort of thing as a concentration of children of Italian ancestry and boisterous children of Irish descent in South Boston

Jewish children and someplace else. There is this big important difference. In the head of the Italian family in East Boston can move into Jamaica Plain old Boston West Roxboro head of the Jewish family can do the same thing only Irish family can move out of South Boston and so on. But a negro has in the main precious little alternative to staying in Iraq for a year and hand in the air. He will not be received. You know only other Greater Boston communities by and large I know that there are. Individual instances where they're you know spinning skate from from the ghetto but by and large Negro

family and unfortunately the children of that family I hammed in and like you know they hand in this and you don't have to. Go what the supreme court mistakenly I've always thought. So I got a moodle. It just plain common sense dictates that circumstances breed. Feeling of superiority and brave on the other side of they get old was an ungrounded feeling of inherent superiority on account of race. The awful thing is I don't think that this picture is generally seen in perspective in the community of a trumpet sounding on the drum beating.

Has sent it then recent months. The Boston area about the schools or schools. Somewhere when I vacuum only jesting by themselves entirely out of any other context. And while I'm not advocating education as a remedy and ignorance of the fact that it's been a hundred years since the Emancipation Proclamation and I don't think that we. Can damn shelves to tell another hundred years. And while the educational process goes on I do think that an important contribution towards solution would be made if a picture could be depicted so that the community at large in its whole perspective and not for slogans. First would include what Mr. Ron said about a broader appeal in terms of educational quality as a community as a whole. We have time just for a quick round up all the way around Mr.

Rollins. You can get a word in here if you'd like to and we can get others to us. Dr. Clark I think that there are two problems of these dealing with first of all this is a theoretical problem of a negro who moves into the suburbs and takes on all of the the traditional American you know things like the neuroses the divorce rate the suicides and the like the liquor problem the drinking problem the apathy and so forth versus the negro who can be brought up in this in the slum but healthily and I think that they're finding now that the negro freedom fighters are very healthy. Well-rounded group because many of them were brought up as Negroes in the slum and they have a real identity and a purpose in life and I think that's what his conflict in why he is and why he's changed his position on the other hand we're not dealing with the problem in a vacuum. We're dealing with one issue which is a school issue and that's part of a big problem and it's a can contributory problem I think that you can't really on a theoretical basis fine but on a practical basis the quite the point is that segregated schools. I'm

not I'm not equal schools as teachers is good. The money as much money is there is much money spent the kids don't have chalk and so forth pages are torn out of the books. Those are practical matters and that I think that's why the NAACP is stumping for four integrated schools not so much for you know the fact they want to integrate per se. All right Mr. naff. It was very interesting. That integration of schools is not the central goal but rather a higher quality of school. Therefore maybe what is going on in the Higginson district I mean operation carboys is precisely what is needed to Mrs. actually is point that the garrison school a more intellectual class and go send their youngsters there. This again indicates that perhaps social economic environment is more important for the youngsters education than the racial makeup of the school. All right Mrs. Oxley the lady here you're going to have the last word if it's a short one. I feel Americans attesting whether democracy can really work. Compean centaury education is always a problem in any school system anywhere. But the problem of racial

imbalance the problem of not accepting differences blindly the problem of accepting other Americans on face value is still a problem of education. All right thank you very much the C evening Massachusetts viewpoint has dealt with an evaluation of the February 26 school stay out in the city of Boston. And in terms of the discussion this evening we have noted in the comments made by the panel a number of consequences that can be identified. Mr. Rollins pointed out that as far as he could see there had been no consequences in terms of the change of possible change in the position of the school committee. He did feel however that there were some real effects of the school stay out on the Negro community including the health effects of providing a safety valve for pent up feelings. Helping us stablish a sense of unity in the Negro community and in general providing a healthy outlet for deep feelings of Negro citizens. He also felt that in terms of the white community while the school stay out did alienate some. It was some of the white

parts of the community that for the community as a whole it has helped to formulate a stand with regard to the issues represented by the school stay out. He felt that the community as a whole had become involved including some of the suburbs. Professor O'Reilly called attention to one consequence of the school stay out in that he feels that there has been a for the first time now developed a prospect of official attention at a fairly high level to the issues and that this is a healthy change Mrs. Oxley commented on the effect of the school stay out had on children feeling that it had been a very positive thing in terms of the lives of children and their outlook. And Mr. Neff called attention to several things. One that the white community was mobilized in this case as it had not been in earlier instances of race relations difficulties in Boston that the realm of official action had been opened up not only at the State Board of Education level but some reopening of discussion on the part of the Boston School Committee.

And he pointed out that it the school stay out had help to clarify to bring into sharp relief some serious unanswered questions including questions of redistricting busing open enrollment. How much integration really means racial balance and how many Negro parents would want their children to go away from the neighborhood to other schools. We have identified other consequences during our discussion and we hope this has been an interesting Massachusetts viewpoint for you tonight.