The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 228 - Boston Busing 1974

Episode Date: December 19, 2016

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine the Boston busing riots of 1974. SOURCES TOUR DATES REDBUBBLE MERCH 

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My name is Dave Anthony. Each week I read a story from American history to my friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. You just collapsed yourself. No! I was I was I was on a cloud in the sky but happy and then your your response was so deadening. It was savage. Okay. Like an attack on my heart. All right okay all right we're good okay. I don't know if we are good. Oh gosh. Do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gareth. Dave okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun?

And this is not gonna become a tickly podcast. Okay. You are queen fakie of made-up town. All hail Queen Shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do a frame. Hi Gareth. Gareth this is a podcast. I don't know. I don't have anything. It's Christmas is coming up. Maybe spend some time with your your family your lovers. Spend some time in your lovers. Spend some time in your lovers. You know we we're gonna take a little break because it's the fucking holidays and you know daddy don't work. Daddy don't work during the holidays. You know because daddy's got a kid and you know that kid cries a lot.

The hell's going on. So you know I got to be there for the boy you know. It's still happening. Because the goddamn tears. You know the way they fucking lies. My wife begged me not to do this episode. Oh good. Because in it we're about to bust out an accent we've never busted out before. Okay. Boston. Okay. We've done but I've done a little like this. Oh gosh. Have we done Boston. A little bit I think from time to time there's been some sort of Boston moment. Full Boston. No I don't think we've gone. We haven't gone full Boston. So that'll be fun. And there's and there's

actually no like the Boston accent is it's like a squirrel. It's there's no that makes no sense. In a way. Shout out to all our Boston listeners. Thank you for all your support. No but like sometimes they do a hard R sometimes they don't do an R sometimes they drop it sometimes they don't like there's no actual there's no actual rules to a lot of the Boston accent words. You kind of have to live there to nail it. That's why in movies people never actually fucking nail it. That's why I said idea. Yeah. They just like go to a place for a week and they're like yeah you're good enough for now. Yeah you're okay. But you know we're gonna

try that's what we do. We do stupid accents. Okay. And mine will be terrible. Oh good. That's something to look forward to. Well that's what I do. That's what I'm known for. You're known for nailing it. Okay. I don't know. The way you're operating the iPad with the mic right now looks like Stephen Hawke. Um I can't feel my back. Late 1950s. Okay. Boston like many cities was subjected to urban renewal at the hands of city leaders. Okay. Urban renewal. Yeah. Okay. It's like gentrification. It's like you know getting rid of the yeah. Sure. In the case of Boston renewal efforts wiped out entire neighborhoods between 1957 and 1959

Boston's West End was bulldozed. 38 blocks full of homes where 9,000 people lived were just gone. Developers bought the now cleared of poor people's land. Literally bulldozed? Yeah. Oh wow. Bought the now cleared poor people's homes land for cheap and built high-rise luxury apartments. Okay great. Everybody wins. Everybody wins. Hooray. Discarded were the working class whites scattered. I said everybody wins. Fair enough. Luckily the discarded working whites were scattered all over the Boston area and forced to pay higher rents having to deal with the fact that the community generations had grown up in was now

obliterated. Okay. So right so then they then they just those people just have to go to other places in Boston and then everyone's rents go go up. It's just a fucked up. Right. The same thing happened to Boston's East End neighborhood bulldozed lost to Logan Airport. They were building what was being called New Boston. Okay. And the poor didn't really have a part in it. Okay. And every poor neighborhood knew that they could be next. All the urban renewal money went to the middle and upper classes. Right. So the neighborhood. So the idea is essentially to just out like out wealth the poor people who then won't be able

to live there. Sort of. I don't know what the overall plan is. I just know that's basically hook the rich up. Yeah. Hook the rich up. The developers are coming in. They want to do shit and then you go. Okay. We'll give you the East End. How's that? Right. So the poor found their neighborhoods growing worse and worse for many reasons. Housing shortages, gentrification, higher rents all came from bulldozing the West and East End. Crime weights went up. Mortgage money was harder to come by. Housing projects fell into disrepair and municipal services to poor neighborhoods all but vanished. Good. Their neighbors that

they had neighborhoods they'd grown up in and that they cherished fell into decay. This was the new Boston for the poor living through it. Destruction of community. Well, you know, it's a good set up. It's the new Boston. It's the new but it's new Boston. Sorry, everybody. Boston 2.0. It's like Coke too. For you. For these guys over here, big high rises for you. I'm gonna shit on your face. You guys don't figure it out. You're smart. New Boston. Move. Come on. As is common when people are cast aside, populism rose against new Boston. The political rhetoric reflected it. In 1963, City Councilor Gabriel Piemonte ran for

mayor. Quote, We're tan down homes without replacing housing for this same economic group. We have moved thousands of families with no thought, no interest in providing suitable housing replacements. Progress doesn't have the right to trample over human beings. Good luck with that attitude. Good luck with that attitude. He lost. Not surprising. Not surprising because all we should do is vote against our best interest. Right. Then came Louise Day Hicks, an old school Irish Catholic and chairperson of the Boston School Committee. Okay. Hicks father was a very respected man in South Boston, also known as Southie. Yeah. And

the most wealthy family man there. Okay. He would he was the guy who loaned out money to people like not under under the table, but like as a bank. He was set up a community bank sort of. It was still shady though. They still treated it like as shady as possible. Yeah. Don't tell anybody. Don't tell anybody. Sign right down the line. Don't even look. Don't even look. Don't look me in the eyes. All right. So it's going to be like a 4%. Yeah. Don't look at me. It's 4% loan. Deal. All right. Yeah. And if you don't fucking pay this, you know what happens? Do you know what look at me? You don't fucking pay this. You know what happens? Ah, goes on your

credit. Is this a bank? So Louise wrote the family name a couple years before the Boston chapter of the NAACP had demanded an immediate public acknowledgement of the de facto segregation in the Boston public school system. Okay. They just wanted a decent education for their black children and acknowledgement that their children were worse off. So that's all they want. Fair. They just want the school board to acknowledge. It's pretty big ass. Black children worse off. Pretty big ask. Four of the 13 black schools in Boston had health and safety problems so horrible

they were supposed to have been closed. Okay. Per people spending for black students was on average $100 less than white students. Right. That makes that that adds up with what you're saying. The district employed almost no African American teachers or administrators and many white teachers were hostile and racist towards black students. In Boston? Yeah. Wow. Shocked. Boston, Massachusetts? Yeah. Oh. It's been so open-minded in my experience. So in response to- And if people get offended by that there are so many like there are so many racist people. We can have we can have your who I consider to be your

spokesman Bill Burkhamon and he'll tell you what's his joke. Boston's like San Francisco except racist. So in response to the NAACP all the white school committee held a hearing. Right. Okay. So they're all white. They hold a hearing to- To figure out- To respond. Let's listen to black people and what they want. So only invite white people. Right. We'll figure it out. So they thought that having a hearing would release the steam and then they wouldn't have to do anything. Like that was the plan. Right. Okay. Good. But 800 people came out to support the NAACP. So many that they had to turn almost all them away because

there wasn't enough room. Right. Then the committee decided to do nothing. The white committee decided to do nothing. Nothing. Right. And some of them wanted to do something but Louise made sure that didn't happen. Okay. They said racism and segregation did not exist in the cradle of liberty. Okay. Because Bostonians are super into the whole revolution started here. Right. It's the fucking liberty. Yeah. We could do anything. What's that? They don't have the liberty bill there. No but they're like this is where the liberty happened. They have the freedom trail. We've been living forever. You know how long we've been

liberating? Yeah. Then what? Liberating. Is that a- Yeah. That's what we do here. We liberate all over the place. Okay. I liberated last night. Up and down, liberty, liberty, liberty. The problem was the committee said black parents. The problem is that people are upset. No. They're saying that the black parents are the reason that things are worse off in the black schools. Just- But that's saying the black kids, right? Well they're saying that the- The black parents have raised bad black kids. That they're not and they're not helping their kids with their education. They're not helping their kids with the education they're not

allowed to provide them with? No. They're saying that the kids school, the black kids schools would be fine if the parents were better at helping their kids. Helping the kids what? You help them with their homework and stuff. Oh okay. So you know. Okay. All right. That just doesn't make much sense. Yeah. I know. It's also not going to go well. Right. Yeah. No, terrible. It's not great. Yeah. No. The black parents then decided to use the courts to get equal treatment. They're like, oh we're not great. I'm gonna show you how not great I am with my fucking lawyer. Okay. There were two citywide boycotts by black students to make their

point. So two days no black students went to school. Okay. By 1967 racial desegregation was looming and Louise did not approve and the people of South Boston had had enough change. Right. So they've had all this shit with the fucking developments happening. They've become a neighborhood. They've been through enough. They've been through enough. They're people. Louise made the argument that Boston schools being made quote the scapegoat were being made quote the scapegoat for those who have failed to solve the housing economic and social problems of the black citizen. This is one of the gotta be one of the

first time because that is what happens so much now is that like you just the the people who are the aggressors paint themselves as the victims and then like the victim they like take you take the talking point away from the victims or you at least neutralize it by you know saying you're also a victim. Yeah. Look I understand these black people are upset. But the white people have been through enough trying to deal with the black people. You get what I'm coming from. The black people should understand this. You black people you've been so unbelievably terrible to deal with the white people. We think of

what we shall overcome. We shall overcome. Louise said the Chinese schools in Chinatown were 100% Chinese. The north end schools were almost all Italian and the south Boston schools were Irish Catholic and quote we do not have segregation in the Boston schools. I can't even imagine. She doesn't know what the word means because she just said that. Oh yeah. We don't have segregation. They're all segregated but then we don't got the segregation. Well look she's look she's she hasn't had time to focus on other things. Her people have been through enough. Thank you. Yeah. She ran for mayor against current mayor

John Collins and his urban renewal policies. It was a populist people's campaign. Louise quote what the people wanted was to be head by a city hall but they found that the mayor belonged to big business and special interests. Bussing was the main topic and she ran on the slogan so this is her campaign slogan. You ready. Uh-huh. You know where I stand. Oh God. Ridiculous. You know what I'm doing over here. You know where I stand. By the way that is not like. Well look it's code for. Yeah. No blacks. No blacks. Let's keep things the same. You know where I stand. Let's not have any change here. We're

gonna do everything good. You know what I'm gonna do. I was gonna call my campaign winky wink but I went with you know where I stand. I also just don't understand the idea that like how you like how you feel like it's normal to just have no racial integration of any like how that is how you see that as a benefit. Like I think it's true. What. So you're okay. So take a place like South Boston. So you're living there. The only contact you have with because they they're not these people aren't really going to work in the city or if they are. No. Southeast is very much. So they're not really they're not really

having that. So the only time they're they're seeing black people is like a bus driver coming through or when their schools play the other school and then they fight afterwards like but that's that's the so so they're so they're so isolated that they don't see the benefit of why would I want to why would I want to know anybody else. Right. But that is the reason why the schools are always a good thing to start integration because then kids are sort of like oh I didn't even know my best friend was Chinese like instead of the grown-ups who are hold on to that sort of yeah racism just because they haven't seen it before. My

kid goes to school it's like a half Korean half Korean I would say and and so to him growing up it's just like yeah there's a bunch of Korean people it's all this is what it is but you can tell the there's a lot of Korean parents are like okay yeah just go yeah you're not part of my world but there's there's quite a few that are absolutely fine but there's definitely a segment of them like our kids are in an all Korean class they're not gonna hang out with you kids we're not gonna talk to you right yeah it's very it's very interesting. So they go to Korean to Garten? They go to there is a special Korean language

program and they don't teach their kids English growing up so they will have to go into the in the Korean language program which is all Korean. That's that's an interesting it's an interesting time we live in be fun to see how this all shakes out. I can tell you what happens all the all the all the white kids boys get Asian fetishes and then they start dating them and the fathers want to kill them. Wait what? Eventually cuz the Korean kids aren't gonna have any problem with it but even though they're trying to keep their kids isolated at school they can't and then those kids are gonna start dating and they're gonna

start dating white kids and then the whole fucking thing will come apart. Yeah well that's what we need right we just need one we just need to keep like we just need to keep mixing it up hopefully we'll all just turn out one color in like 200 years it's mixing up 200 years like they'll be earth anyway have fun earth good luck okay so back to this so so you know where I stand it's code that she believed the things that they believed in code against the tide of change the business community and moderates were terrified by what she represented they all came together and backed new and up-and-coming mayor

candidate Kevin white and yet so wait whites the non-racist so okay whites the whites the guy I guess yeah it's white power white power no no no no do not chant that do not chant that here sir come on white is right white is right no gentlemen gentlemen gentlemen gentlemen gentlemen and the wealthy and better people as they consider themselves had no problem going after Louise Boston author George Higgins described her quote stubby and overweight middle age with a fussy hairdo and at least a double chin see this is the thing but this is where yeah this is the thing that you can't if you're like do not judge

people based on their appearance you short double chin weirdo you can't be against blacks you little stubby fat fuck you should not join you should not just suddenly decide that someone does not belong to school based on their appearance otherwise you'd be in troll college you little bridge sprite let me guess you want a handful of children's teeth or something so I can cross your moat Louise's campaign was such a big deal that she made it onto the cover of Newsweek magazine in an article that mocked her to the point of savagery it was titled backlash in Boston she was portrayed as a crude popular monster and

Newsweek took pleasure in ripping her apart quote her Boston is the immigrant Boston of Irish cops and firemen's loonkeepers and cab drivers long shaman and small-time businessmen can I okay can I take a little get because this is very like when when time magazine just named Trump person of the year it was you're like okay I get it your your angle is to like the whole thing is that it's always been like who is the biggest deal of the year not the best person of the year but the problem is that it's titled person of the year it's not titled main focus of the year so he's able to spin that into

I'm the best person of the year time said that it's unbelievable I'm the best right but Hitler was the person of the year in 43 or whatever like see they just can't it's maybe time to tweak the rules I get it but this is the same thing it's when it's when you bring you put the spotlight on someone to be like isn't this person stupid and then you're like oh god we're stupid and everyone now knows of this person well Newsweek said her supporters looked like characters out of Moon Mullins Moon Mullins is a comic strip about low brow characters who lived in a boarding house and loved vice okay the writer

called her followers quote a comic strip gallery gallery of triplers and brawlers this guy this person you can't yeah this is foolish and after Hicks gave a speech they unsquote unscrewed their cigar butts from their chins and lined up to pump her arm as if it were a jack handle under a trailer truck and then I'm a little lost Newsweek was being the exact kind of snobby superior classist bullshit that basket of deplorables that's right that fuel Louise's canisly she attacked the magazine for its quote insults to Boston and its residents declaring quote I am proud of my heritage and my

chins now said word senator Edward Kennedy also backed white for mayor the powers of the day thought white could bridge the divide between business and the poor working white class neighborhoods and white won by 12,000 votes they're like 300,000 people so it's a pretty close uh-huh race and he tried to bridge the gap he stopped the rampant destruction of houses and gave locals a voice he tried to put an end to racial tensions with his summer thing neighborhood program summer thing neighborhood music art sort of thing whether but then people from all neighborhoods come together for the

festival that's terrible name yeah it's not great I bet it's at the hat shell it's still happening though okay he spent over 500 million on neighborhood improvements and it seemed to be working then came the recession of 1974 oh boy and as the money stopped pouring in came the desegregation decision of the courts with no power to speak of middle-class blacks in Boston had been focusing on the schools for a while and had turned to the state legislature and the courts their belief was simple Pat Jones a black community activist said quote if the rain drips into the school library and they are there are only

blacks sitting in that library then nothing is going to change if white kids are sitting in the library things are going to change and the roof is going to get fixed okay that's absolutely true at 100% true next next point in 1965 the legislature passed the racial imbalance initiative which said that schools with more than 50% minorities were imbalanced and would not get state funding so so now just sort of starting to turn the clock back on what the progress they've no they're saying right now any any school that doesn't have 50 percent minorities oh that doesn't doesn't yeah sorry the Boston School

community fought it in all kinds of ways at one point reclassifying 670 Chinese students as white whoa whoa whoa wait but because the Chinese are better than the blacks didn't their mind yeah but we'll take the okay we'll take the god damn Chinese okay right okay alright so put Chinese over here put Chinese over there the more I look at the diff the more I look at the black kids they look very color-wise very Asian kid oh he looks a little white guy you know especially that kid that dyed his hair blonde I mean that kid is ridiculous he's is he's almost Caucasian it's like in a boy band he's an Asian white they're Caucasian

tremendous color tremendous child and that's where Caucasian came from the state then denied Boston 52 million dollars in school funding for what we did everything we made the Chinese why what do you want from us yeah we're not making the blacks why you don't tell you that right now that's not on the agenda I knew it for that white guy got into office we'd be screwed the school committees responded the school committee responded by pushing demonstrations and fighting in the courts so their response is to get have people hit the streets right and then fight back with lawyers finally the NAACP

stepped in and charged the Boston School Committee with violating the 14th amendment federal judge Arthur Garrity agreed he ordered that the school committee come up with a plan by September 1974 and the committee refused hmm yeah that's a weird is that an option it's not actually an option right yeah judge Garrity then put the schools in federal receivership and imposed his own solution so he's taken over school okay federal governments running the schools okay phase one of his plan focused on the two poorest schools in Boston all white Irish South Boston high and nearly all black Roxbury high okay

kids would be bust from six different public housing projects to the two schools okay right so they're taking black kids and put them in South Boston they're taking white kids and put them in Roxbury surely this will be not how well all that's going to happen is it going to be a little bit of grumbling blah blah blah let's get to learning normally if if a person who's prejudice meets the person they're prejudiced against they learn right away right away especially when especially when you force them into a room right right yeah this will go fine Southie had the highest levels of concentrated

white poverty in the United States and an adult male unemployment rate of 40 percent pretty pretty pretty high well the good I the good that is there's a lot of dudes hanging around doing nothing that's good that's always important looking for work poor dudes Southie led the city in drug overdoses and came in a close second to Roxbury in gun murders hey alright something to talk about South Boston and Roxbury high had parallel dropout rates so this is essentially like a foreign exchange program but with races well what should happen is that look how much we have in common you shoot guys I shoot guys the white parents in

Southie were enraged over what because the judge lived in better off Wellesley and there was no busing going on there that's amazing Louise had several demonstrations anti-busters formed an organization called Roar Roar restore our alienated rights okay a right to have white people only here only in Boston would they start and end their acronym with the one letter they have trouble pronouncing sorry how do you spell it Roar Roar Roar Roar are you saying raw Roar Roar like the lion Roar like meat like the king of the Roar are you saying like more Roar okay you know the lion goes out there Roar I don't I feel weird

you're a fucking idiot fuck you fuck you I can wicked stupid Jesus Christ to get in members had to pledge okay ready for the pledge you know I will not pledge allegiance to the court order of the United States or the dictatorship for which it stands one law one nation under garrity with liberty and justice for none this is Roar Roar's pledge is their pledge that they will not identify America until it recognizes whites as number one or a dictatorship right in Boston political leaders empowered the working class by rewarding them politically for loyalty the city's working class believed in pragmatic

politics and making deals that's how it was done so the people of South Boston figured if they protested they would force another solution through a deal okay because that's the way things had done yeah the power of protest right they almost looked it almost looked at them like fixing your traffic ticket right yeah you get fucking the guy over there to come over you do a thing you talk about some stuff and then they're like no blacks right the anger from the outside manipulation of their lives was bubbling over the economy was in the shitter shipyards are closing defense related industries repairing down after

the Vietnam War South had the highest average number of families on welfare in the city they were at the end of their rope and then along came something they could physically fight against now South Boston's a peninsula into the harbor and the Charles River separates Charlestown from downtown and so these are totally isolated communities proud hostile to outsiders and too poor to send their kids to private schools the high schools like Southeast kind of scary if you're white yeah I mean you know it's a little bit different now I think but yeah I think there are back then it's scary if you're yeah totally

there it's a fucking old-school neighborhood like you if you come through there like who the fuck is guy but they like even when I was when I went to school there but one of my best friends still lives in Revere which is this you know they're just these like and it's very like reminds me very much of like England in the sense that you know if you went out drunk there's a good chance you'll fight somebody yeah like and that was sure the same and but in like Revere and Southeast the same where yeah you don't want to you know you just don't want to fuck around right yeah keep yourself a little no you know

how to fight growing up in Southie yeah there's no other yeah so so they're isolated communities are proud of the two port of center kids other schools the high schools and their sport teams were like the one of the focal points of the community so they're very tribal they sang Southie is my hometown you know they're like that kind of right the white Knights and so bringing in black kids and sending their own kids out of the village to go to school was a major threat to their way Judge Garrity was another elitist attacking their way of life and the Boston the South Boston State Senator William Bolger said

Garrity a quote the sensitivity of a chainsaw in the foresight of a mackerel and then that's that just fucking a classic Boston so I can't allow these fish like to reach it's you know he's loud and fish like well I'm sure when he said that everyone nodded the head and that's right macros don't fucking see shit line in the line in an interview one Southie resident warned what was coming we may be guilty but we will fight you we might go out in the back here and fight and I might tell you eyes out it's wrong maybe but we'll stand by our actions okay it's a very Southie weird oh yeah but he's saying we'll fucking

we'll do well I will kill you I'm gonna do some fucking damage we will kill you might be wrong but I'm gonna be okay with it I'm not always we might kill you several days before a busing went into effect well known Southie crime boss whitey Bolger said in elementary school on fire in Judge Wesley neighborhood okay right so that's how he gets back he's like see now you don't have a school neither well basically those kids had to go to be bussed somewhere else while they were fixing the school so when you're busing these kids are you is it almost just like you're just randomly picking like however many kids and

they're just getting bussed into this other school they go through the school roster and they pick a certain this amount of girls this amount of boys this color that color and then they send them to another school pretty weird that's pretty weird in general it's like be weird it's it's it's it's it's a strange force it just it doesn't seem like it's going to go well well I'm gonna agree with you on this one yeah three days before schools were to open a group of moderates organized a meeting at City Hall Plaza it was an attempt to maybe take the air out of everyone talking about violence okay let people fucking

blow off some steam and then maybe it'll all work itself out sure center Edward Kennedy was invited to address the crowd at one point so no one knows he's there and some guys like hey you want to fucking stand up and say some words okay people were surprised to see him and everyone knew he supported busing 8,000 people jeered and booed him they sang songs and people yelled out quote you're a disgrace to the Irish why don't you let them shoot you like they shot your brother now while that is going on far too far you don't put why don't you put your one-legged son on the bus to Roxbury all right that's it my

boy that is unbelievable lost his leg a year before to cancer yeah you know the yeah well let's go to a Boston sporting event like they there it's it's not nothing's off-limits I remember the Jason kid when he was there and they were shouting wife beater like literally every time he touched the ball yeah they're amazing his son had just lost his leg to cancer these were the people who had supported Kennedy for years and now most of them turn their backs on him and started singing songs while others threw tomatoes and eggs at him Kennedy was hustled off the platform a newspaper reported quote he was rushed

by an aunt by angry mothers who stepped in front of him with clenched fists you will not be throwing anymore tomatoes at that Kennedy you're not taking Tommy away from me one woman kicked him in the shins while others started hitting him wait these are women against Kennedy yeah you know that this is like a fetish for him will you kick me in my balls autumn and it's one of the only ways I cannot be sexual anymore I'm busting busting busting oh there we go there you go neeming neeming my stomach and then let me sniff your foot he was hustled out and the doors were closed behind them but the doors were glass and

the people immediately shattered them then they went outside and threw eggs at the federal building next next door did they all just go shopping Kennedy they fucking brought eggs in case someone like Kennedy came they were fucking prepared worst-case scenario we make the world's biggest omelet this obviously did not bode well for the fish the first day of school right oh right how's that gonna go the next day September 12th 80 schools open in Boston only one had problems South Boston high okay it was a hot September morning the old building sits on top of a hill but that day it looked different as quote everyone should own a

nigger and no niggers in South Boston and kill niggers was spray painted on the walls it's not a good start outside a crowd of several hundred people had gathered across the street they held signs that included bus and back to Africa and french fried niggers for sale the bus and back to Africa just shows a total lack of geographical grasp it's not an aquatic vehicle reporters had gathered and a police official told them quote make sure you leave a little passageway for the kids who might have the balls to show today geez the cops well where the cops from yeah oh yeah I'm not surprised when the

first buses appeared the crowd went into a quote frenzy you're being treated like a scab for your race right interesting several hundred people chanted here we go Southie okay mm that's terrifying mm because of the people it's coming from it's terrifying yeah because again you know what that means yeah you know where we stand well it's also a fucking we're gonna go get them yeah we go Southie no it's a sporting event yeah yeah and then they started throwing rocks followed by chunks of wood beer cans and beer bottles they also threw bananas and pieces of watermelon at the bus now these are

kids it's just like the cops made a line clubs out and moved toward the crowd to try to disperse them which worked but the crowd would just immediately reform elsewhere and start throwing things again a Swedish reporter was there and she said quote it's just trying to make the kids eat fruit salad happy bananas yeah it's just like Belfast the women look the same talk the same and seem to be just as tough anytime there's trouble you see them egging the kids on so that sorry that is in relation reporter is saying that what she's saying in Southie is exactly like what she's saying in war-torn Belfast ah the street battle went

on all day by the end of the day the cops had riot helmets on when they fought to get the kids back on the bus one bus had a winner school hunt well you're covered in banana what happened us weird I got you excited for tomorrow I want to die you excited to go back tomorrow try this forced experiment again yes cuz you lost the lottery this is great for kids send you back into the devil's den one bus had a window shattered by rock glass cut children the driver and a monitor attendance on day one of the 1974 school year at South Boston High out of 1300 students mm-hmm 124 that's how many showed up the first day 56 blacks and 68

whites I gotta say if you're a black kid that's not numbers yeah that's not terrible way better for that's yeah granted the rationale is awful we're getting there's not but at least then you're like look worst-case scenario it's almost like one-to-one yes one-to-one in here worst case and they're white the mayor and his aides were said to be in shock by the response of the neighborhood well he was dying of AIDS no one knew the sense of rage that had a building in southeast student Regina Williams had never been there quote I had no idea what to expect of this busing thing I didn't know anything

about South Boston I didn't know anything about you know that they didn't like us I didn't know anything that was in store for us but when we got there it was like a war zone that's even more terrifying yeah I'm sure most of them had no a fucking idea what they're getting they're just like getting on a bus they don't know what it is I came back and I told my mom and I'll never forget I said ma I'm not going back to that school unless I have a gun at 14 years old I'm not going back to that school and she didn't she dropped out of school the next day wow on the second day school there was a mob of 500

outside now the mob was adjusting to police tactics and advancing and retreating while throwing missiles throwing missiles well missiles are what they call rocks or whatever okay well they should be more clear on day 3 the police brought we're throwing grenades apples throwing apples apples sorry my bad landmines frisbees on day 3 the police brought out the TPF the tactical police force okay that was a special unit that it had been formed to deal with anti-war press protesters during Vietnam okay so that's good that it's paralleling that mm-hmm so on and on this went the crowd would attack disband

and then run through the streets and reform a brick hit detective Francis creamer who fell to the pavement hitting his head and he went to cardiac arrest and he died three weeks later 100 kids rushed the Andrew Square subway station and just beat random blacks so it's spreading out a little bit good normal behavior the TPF rushed into the subway station swinging nightsticks of the kids the kids ran off very tactical very tactical precise maneuvering take out your clubs and hit him hit the fuckers a brick hit a cab driver as he drove past a housing project by day three South Boston women

were wearing football and hockey helmets in the street come on that's crazy one woman told reporter quote in America the voices of the people are supposed to be heard the black people are being heard but we're not we want our kids to go to our schools they say the schools belong to everybody we're part of everybody that is so like that it's it's so hard when you hear like a point like that and it's confident because you're like oh my god I have to like argue against lot like logic like you're not buying into logic well here's the hard thing so they're right about getting backed into a corner but they've picked the wrong battle of

all the battles but you can't like so they've been fucked over by the city and then now there's one this is the problem with with with when you're fighting against wealth is that at the end of the day the only thing you can punch is another poor person yeah well I mean you know the the like what's so vexing about the world we live in is that we had like we're literally talking about like you know 2,000 people who are ruining the fucking world like we know we know the area where they are let's just go there and just fucking kick the fence down and go ape shit on them and then be like yeah this is Ted he's gonna

be the president for a week while we figure stuff out hey Ted hey doing hey man hey you guys I was just out the bar he's great I think we're all gonna love him like I said every congressman and senator died in the explosion so it's a page one rewrite another woman said quote we just want our children close to home you'd think this was Russia now that I will give now that I will say as a parent if someone came to me and said your kid has to go to school far away totally if your kid is one of the kids who is going into like a completely different racial environment that is that that is like the flow that's why

it's like you know it's like an arranged marriage it's like you can't force this sort of acceptance the idea behind it like the thrust behind it is is good because you're like let's let's show people how not different we actually are the problem is that they made their bed because they own the school district and they they controlled it and they didn't do anything so now they're getting the repercussions of that and they're fucking mad at it yeah no you I think you do like you can empathize with but again it's like when you're like when someone is saying you know this is about equal rights well where are my rights it's

like no you're not these are no mm-hmm in South Boston a couple nights later the TPF just flat-out brawl with the mob about 500 tactically who are trying to break into the school what we have them with swords we tactically hit them over the head with these sticks that we got here we're shooting them in a spread fashion tactically the Saudi violence emboldened the other neighborhoods because that's how violence works on the fifth day black students in I can't believe they made it to a fifth day oh dude through rocks at the integrated Boston Technical High School soccer team during practice so black students

are now throwing students rocks at white students and fights were happening in schools students fighting at Hyde Park High it was so bad in the first week that police called that in the TPF so they called the cops into the school right they couldn't handle the fighting we think we should just start hitting them with wood yeah yeah yeah tactical yeah get the guys in here then yeah four students were hop hospitalized the headmaster closed the school for two days shots were fired to the door of Jamaica Plain High School buses were stoned in Roxbury and Matapan and Dorchester in Dorchester a group of black

guys slash two white students with knives two white guys assaulted a black MBTA driver so it's just a bus driver yeah it's attacked so it's spreading citywide now and that's how it went for a couple of weeks stoning stabbings fighting and then on October 4th the anti-busting forces held another rally with politicians speaking and the neighborhood politicians did what they could do to calm the tensions I'm sure the word words will probably be the answer to this state senator William bolder okay quote this is no time for the faint of heart the enemy can go straight to hell wait who's he pro he's an

anti-busting guy so who's the enemy the enemy are the busing people yeah people who bring in the but the buses it feels like when they say enemy they're not they're talking about okay yes someone asked him if there was a chance of success and he said quote you bet your life there isn't there's no chance of success that you're going against the court right no chance of success right so the politicians are lying the politicians have been saying for years we're gonna stop the busing and now the busing is happening so they're trying to say they're trying to keep their fucking jobs and their power by saying we're

gonna fucking get the busing out right they can't say that's it for that yeah Louise told the crowd they were fighting for freedom the police were mostly Irish and their union had donated money to the anti-busting cause good but when they were called upon they held their ground it didn't take long for them to get tired of the towny bullshit quote after the third or fourth rock comes flying you tend to forget the righteousness of the cause soon the police were laying into the crowds with everything they had the actions of the cops particularly the TPF made the people angrier everything is snowballing

there was a well-known bar in Southie called the Rabbit Inn a local hangout for an Irish gang known as the Mullins and right across the street from a housing project there were rumors that the Mullins were gonna commit major acts of violence with guns and dynamite and the police knew the rabbit in was a place where anonymous calls kept being made that would lure police into areas where objects would be thrown at them okay so on Friday the 4th when a police cruiser had its windshield smashed by a brick near the rabbit in the cops tried to arrest the guy but 35 Mullin gang members came out of the bar and fought

with the police until they let the guy go wow the next night the TPF with black tape over their badge numbers and dressed in riot gear raided the bar Wow the top of the cops tore the place apart and quote busted heads okay did you get his badge number I could there was a black stripe a badge number I don't even know if we can find the black stripe guy he was fucking Frankie he lives down by my mom I know it's fucking Jesus Christ we went to a fucking school together why you not do that it worked out well it's weird that the heater doesn't work as an Ottoman Ottoman strange two nights later a crowd loitered around the

projects across the street protesting the raid that's when completely oblivious to everything Jean Louis Andre Yvonne drove past he was a Haitian refugee oh god the crowd stopped and surrounded the car smashed the windows dragged him out and beat him with hockey sticks Jesus news cameras recorded it two cops tried to rush in to save him but they were also beaten back one of the cops pulled out his gun and fired over the crowd's head and they finally ran off and Yvonne was saved the next day after watching it on the news blacks retaliated yeah English High was a new mostly black school near Fenway Park white students were being

busted someone pulled the fire alarm and the students emptied out into the streets and started a race war all right first one of that tree wins no that's not that's not this that's not the war we're doing oh you're like you know how you're white yeah I'm punching you now in the oh it's not the same one race to the tree I'm a punch in the stomach oh the blacks from nearby housing projects started throwing rocks at passing cars that whites are driving whites are dragged from their dragged from their cars and beaten right riders through objects from the tops of buildings at police cars one guy reported they were

throwing baseball bats about 1500 students walked up Tremont Street smashing windows and throwing rocks the fighting went on in the area for another day okay Tremont on October 10th genius president Gerald Ford stuck in his his nose in and said quote oh I respectfully disagree with the judge's order wait he disagrees with the order busing wow he just he just said in the middle of writing wow that he agrees with the white people who are fucking attacking buses and did he that's it's almost like like a city is how does he not know not to say that a city is literally coming apart and the best thing

you can do is like we got to work this out let's forget how to do it you don't take a fucking side yeah and not that and the wrong side right well it fired up the anti-busters and gave them hope that the busing was stopped yeah like I looked the president's on a fucking side let's go get him mayor white said the president was challenging the rule of law in the country because that's that's what he was right after four weeks there are 149 arrests and 129 injuries property damage of $50,000 and one cop who died of a heart attack the mayor then asked judge Garrity for federal marshals to be sent

in he said hysteria was leading to more hysteria and like everything else with the anti-bussing people heard about his requests they got even angrier oh god I thought they were at like the height of anger already oh my god oh god state rep Ray Flynn responded quote force will beget force the people of South Boston have a proud tradition they don't like to be pushed around by police of federal marshals either like I love that like okay sure the tradition is that they don't like to listen to law the tradition also seems to be that they don't want black people around them that does seem to be an issue we are we've

just been racist for so long and we're celebrating our anniversary right now it's just the timing of all this is way off it's fucked up because I've been hating blacks for like 30 years and I'm supposed to stop now yeah it's not a good time for me to not be racist anymore after all that the judge rejected the mayor's request for federal marshals so the mayor asked the governor who gave 300 state troopers and a hundred cops from the master metro district okay on October 10th state troopers were patrolling the halls of South Boston high school that was when actually when the riots moved into the

high schools there was an endless stream of brawls between whites and blacks in South Boston and Hyde Park high schools on October 15th there were two separate fights at Hyde Park one started with some black girls attacking you a white girl in a bathroom a white student Joseph Crowley rushed into help and he was stabbed in the stomach the entire school was now in a race brawl and the entire 125 tpf squad entered the school to stop it let's all run in different directions and scream and we'll stop fucking hidden guys in the face with us stick things tactically outside the school the police arrested Joseph

Crowley's sister for throwing rocks at a bus okay I love that her brother stabbed she's like fuck yo yo fuckers you're under arrest for being upset about your brother the school was closed by the headmaster for two days on what grounds I don't know I just know they didn't want kids no day yeah it's a what taking a racist day hey so no school for two days because of races okay the governor then mobilized 400 National Guardsmen he asked the federal troops for federal troops but for president Ford who said no the 400 National Guardsmen seemed to stop the fighting in the schools and by the end of October the FBI had 42 open

files of civil rights violations but something else was happening black parents are reporting their kids were bringing home textbooks for the first time previously they had not because there weren't enough for each student and now there was enough textbooks to go around more equipment to at Roxbury High quote they've got them they've got equipment they're coming out of their cars I know the science teacher there and he's tried for years to get a microscope just one lousy microscope suddenly he's got 125 yeah as soon as he started sending white kids over to the black schools they started funding

the black school right it's so fucking gross the state troopers left on December 4th as that was the length of time that was agreed they'd be there starting that day until December 10th South Boston High was one of continuous brawls inside while cops fought protesters outside on the 6th they closed the school early when white students marched through the halls chanting racist chants cool on the 9th a black girl hit a white girl on the head with a padlock black students said they left for home on buses that said that when they left for home so when they get on the buses at the end of the day

Southie mothers waved bananas and jumped up and down like they were monkeys oh those are fucking adult there's like 35 year old yeah not not shocking on December 11th as anybody who had a fruit stand was like hey business is booming around here believe how many I'll tell you what this new busing program has done wonders for my fruit cat I saw like I saw like 80 watermelons this week there's an eight those are two bucks a pound on December 11th as students which classes which was when the brawls usually start because they're all in the fucking hallway right James white a black student stabbed Michael

faith a white student as faith crumpled to the ground in a puddle of blood panic ensued white students fled the school as they did the picketers heard what happened and a huge mobs swelled outside this is not gonna end well the crowd thought faith was dead and they wanted vengeance okay why do you think this isn't gonna end well I'm sure someone's gonna talk this is this is such a tipping point moment like this is this is the this is the butane on the fire this is when this is when everything comes together and they hold hands and they sing a song everyone stop we're gonna get a bit highly illogical for too

long we'll get a circle we hands when Frank is gonna lead us in a song all right oh no Patrick Patrick gonna lead us in a song someone about love and loving all colors and whatnot I'm not gonna fucking do that so they think they think the kids dead right all the white kids ran out of the school the picketers heard what happened and they're outside soon there are 2,500 people screaming outside the building and throwing everything they could find inside they became certain concerned they they would not be able to get the black students out of the building Louise Bolger and Flynn the politicians all arrived on

the scene and somehow Louise was the voice of reason okay using a bullhorn she dressed the protesters and said they had a right to be there but they should let the black students leave okay quote let the black kids be bus back the Roxbury that's when the crown turned on Louise and started chanting shut up Louise shut up Louise could have been so much worse they also started singing I'm dreaming of a white Christmas the thing I mean it's kind of clever it is stupid the truth is it is it is it is clever I mean at this moment they start singing I'm dreaming a white Chris I mean that's not it's so fucking South

Boston the argument isn't that they can be funny they they do have they do have timing but you like yeah you got to be like all right good okay a little a funny a funny moment in this racial nightmare now back to work the reporter script described the scene quote cans and sticks and bricks were flying through the air like a hail storm and some of the cops have been hit hard police waited in with clubs swinging away while mounted police rode into the crowd trampling people kids slash the tires of police cars and broke their windows they overturned the police superintendent's car inside the building a teacher saw a

brick hit a cop in the head and she started wondering if any of them were going to get out alive at that point they came up with a plan to bring decoy buses out front while they would hustle the black students out a side door for other waiting buses okay quote the horsemen had to bear the brunt of it they waited into a hail storm of cans broke a bottles rocks the size of fists brickboards and eggs but neither the battered men or the bloodied horses broke so the cops wait in as a distraction get themselves in the middle of the fucking crowd right so they can get the kids out the side door

right it worked the students got out after being trapped for four hours but it had finally gone too far South Boston High was closed for the rest of semester the black community called for the school to be closed permanently black leader Thomas Atkins called Boston High a jungle but I would that's that's actually too nice yeah jungles aren't like I mean jungles are there's night there's you know nice things there it's fairly dangerous though I don't feel like it's as bad the jungle yeah the jungle that you would not want to be in the jungle I feel like you're being a little bit mean to the jungle the jungle

yeah I feel like I feel like you do not want to go to the any sorry but the high schools way I'd rather be in the jungle than in the high school I don't think you're right I think I think 12 hours into your jungle journey you'd go you know what I'll give it a whirl back in the old school I don't know as you're like step by as like you've been bitten by five things and eight berries that are making you throw up well I don't like bugs is that a problem it's a huge problem for your plan since the beginning of the school year 1092 black students had been arrested I mean I had been suspended or expelled compared to

550 white students oh well that tells you that the black kids are twice as bad case closed case shut and good the local alternative newspaper noted that the people of South Boston were completely alienated from the government and their rage was all-consuming but at the same time Southie was a community coming together before the busing crisis people expected Southie to break apart slowly being overrun by progress right right was development but this perceived attack reversed that trend and created a rise in ethnic pride residents started chanting green power as they stood at rallies or marched in parades they wore

shamrocks green power you know they're Irish okay they had green Tamo shanters Irish knit sweaters signs and bumper stickers that proclaimed God had made Irish number one young Irish kids were encouraged to study the origins of their race in Ireland oh they came together to revive the spirit not a super rich hissed like that then we got a bunch of potatoes and killed each other and then we came here so embrace that pride yeah that's right we're big fans of green leaf things little things that give you wishes and potatoes and war yeah but she forgot about the rainbows hi that's right although I like my rainbows only white

what about take pride in the people who have killed each other over a man in the sky forever I did that is the other thing the eye we have you have people if we have to and I know this is from a while ago but it still happens you have to stop thinking that God then support him believe in him however you want to slice it we have to stop thinking that he's picking sides in it it's just this is not the man so the deity or the being that's that's never going away it but it's like he can't no it's never going he's not like it's not like it's never gonna stop that's why like when they like you know like they in America they

definitely politicians at times definitely insinuate like look God likes his best first and foremost first of all clearly God likes us because we got all the shit that's got nothing to do with geography and we say may God continue to bless the United he's just hasn't stopped blessing so great to us if you're white yeah oh by the way you know they they've there was a reddit thing where someone said that what you're very podcasting someone posted this and a bunch of people floated it up and there's a whole like discussion on it down the very bottom some guy said I I'd like it man but when they get into their

fucking white guilt shit hey you know what if you don't know if you don't have white guilt listening this podcast you're inhuman but I also think that you know it like the and again I mean I I get it I get I get the idea that somebody would be like dude stop making me feel so bad about something that I had nothing to do with I understand that however the bigger point in all of it is just if and and I think if you wouldn't like what what choice do we have how else are we gonna react to us you have to are we gonna react to this like oh man this is fucking great hey hey this is no big deal I agree no bussing Gerald Ford

had it you know the only way you can react is to be like what a nightmare what monsters and it's part of the way that you not to say that we're gonna end racism but you have to listen to it is how you accept it do you this are you and if I understand the history yeah and you can't like these people in this story we're doing right now when we react the same if they had true empathy and understanding yeah for the kids that were coming over we're saying the same thing everybody should take mushrooms that's what we're talking about thank you I wasca listen you know me huh I wasca right so it's called that is not

what mushrooms are called no I know Jesus Christ let's know listen you your question was so also and yes I wasca is a great way to learn about everything also people were finding their calling a woman explained how fighting back changed her quote I'm a professional racist bodily I got a hold of the anger wow I never knew this old lady even had this kind of anger what a great feeling to be able to take it out on all those ridiculous decisions and fight them we've got a lot of people joining us who've lived with this anger all their lives this is the white anger yeah they all knew they had it in us they just

didn't know what to do with it it's the only good thing about the busing movement it allows me to find that anger and brother am I angry every minute of the day so that's a sign that this is set working what's the sign it's settling in and becoming an accepted way of life when people say stuff like that yes right you are now yeah you're now moving beyond outrage into full-time job right yeah but the anger just led to violence and children not going to school attendance rates while they had gone up since the beginning of the busing were still way down activists in the black community saw things differently quote if

the whites want to keep their kids home that's okay let them let them keep them home for 25 years so they can't get jobs I guess that will mean more jobs for us so true meanwhile lieutenant Robert Bradley my plan is to stay at home and get stupider more stupid both meanwhile lieutenant Robert Bradley of the TPF stood with his helmet on in a pile of broken glass with a dead cigar stub hanging out of his mouth as tow trucks took away a wrecked police cruiser he said quote there's no end to it it's just gonna go on and on you're on mic there seem to be no answer to the problem of Boston so this is so long

this is gonna be two parts are we at our break yeah this is this is gonna be two parts because it's have we hit it but have we hit our midpoint because well 1975 it's fucking insane so we should take we should take a break before we should we just did 1974 1975 so can we take let's end this before we get into 1975 yeah yeah it's way too long to do it is one episode so let's do a full break to be continued okay wow done done done