The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 229 - Boston Busing 1975

Episode Date: December 20, 2016

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

When you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. That in-law sweet guest house where your parents stay only part-time Airbnb it and make some money the rest of the year whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. You're listening to the dollop this is a I guess tri-weekly American History

podcast. Each week I read a story from American history to my friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea who knows the topic already and is ready to hear the second half of this one. Do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gareth. Stay okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not going to 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 what? Pray. Hi, Gary. No. Is he done, my friend? No. No. It's to be continued. So this is where we left off. You said that 1974 that 1975 was crazy and we just finished 1974. We only did four months of the school year and then they shut down South Boston High School for 1974. Yeah, so they shut it down or like two weeks early. So they basically got a month off. You know, hopefully the things would breathe a little and people would calm down. Real quick, we were just saying this to probably one of the crazier things that I think has happened from this podcast was the story we did about the gentleman who lost John who lost his arms in a farming accident and had a teenager and lived and had what is quite simply the funniest responses by any of you being that's ever been on that we've done a dollop on his fucking wit and He just handled getting his arms torn off really, really well. And so when we did the podcast. It felt a little weird about it. A little bit. And it was really about how this guy was kind of sensationalized. And so we felt we I felt we're doing it even though because that's what the press had done. But then he then he had such a good sense of humor that it was like easy to make jokes because he was making jokes. Anyway, like five weeks ago, he sent us a message, which I couldn't

forget I respond to, but I finally did. I think I did. So he sent it. I don't know. Sometimes I get these messages from Facebook. I'm like, How is this? I don't know what this is coming from. Yeah. So anyway, he sent a message just saying that he fucking loved it. And said he was pissing some of his friends were upset by it, but he loved it. And he thought it was really funny. He said he was pissing over some of the lines. Yeah. So that is actually super cool. Yeah. To get something like that. Yeah, that is crazy. Whenever we do when people are alive, it gets a little sketchy. Yeah, truly. Yeah, we can definitely say that about one Australian person. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that was a little weird. Yeah, yeah. But you know, the truth, like in a in a broad sense, recently, there was somebody who was upset about the subject matter and about a person that we talked about because this person was actually like related to the person, which is like first and and I sort of went back and forth with this person. And yeah, and just kind of explained that it's so surreal to actually know that somebody related to something that you talked about is it's just like you would never you would never I don't think you'd ever think that. Right. And and it's crazy. It's really like a surreal thing. And, you know, and we sit we have to just react like we are reacting to history and trying to make jokes about it. And for sure, there are times when, you know, we say stuff like there I mean, there have been times on the show where we'll be like laughing and I'll be like this is about two people who died and we're like giggling. Like it's really crazy. That's the great part. What is happening with your heater? And when I kicked it over and it sounds like birds. Oh, I have it set to birds. Oh, you have it set to birds. That's a mistake. Set the beat of the set the heat of the birds turn the heat of the birds. Okay.

Boston riots 1975 part two our first two part dollop because there was so much in here I couldn't pair it down. After a year and half of anti bussing after after half a year of anti bussing violence that led to the closing of South Boston, which we do one of the things like previously. Oh, yeah, yeah, previously on the dollop. White, white isolated people in South Boston on an all new dollop began attacking children being bussed in. Yeah. So to summarize the first part, racism was tried to be solved with buses. Right. Right. Great idea. So South Boston High School is closed in early. We should call it busting. Everyone began preparing for the school to reopen on January 8 teachers went. This is not this is not binders and pencil stress shopping. Oh, cool. Teachers went to a three day seminar with teachers from other states who had been through busing issues. How to survive a class during a race war. Metal detectors were installed in high schools. All weapons would be confiscated as well as Afro combs and spray deodorants. Sorry. Okay. The last let's let's let's divide this into a and b. Isn't shocking that all weapons would be confiscated. That's weird that that's in there. But maybe we're proud to say that we are not letting them retain their weapons is the deal after last year. Now we're saying no more weapons. And then they're also getting rid of hairspray and Afro pics, which I feel like is on a white person thing. Yeah, that's.

So your your afros are going to be fucked up. That's just how this part of the deal. Sorry guys. They're not going to look all springy. I don't know what you call it. Dude, we're taking away white people's Afro pics too. Yeah, white people can Afro pics both. Jimmy, you can keep your steel comb. Thanks. Your hair looks feathered. It looks great. It hurts. I don't know what that means. My head hurts from my hair. Okay, I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to talk to Jimmy anymore. Oh, I want to go to the black school. Go fucking go. Judge Garrity issued a judicial riot order that meant no groups of three or more persons could gather with within 100 yards of South Boston High. No groups of three or more could gather within 100 yards at all. You can't if you're talking to one person and a third person you know comes over and dips in. What are you doing, Tommy? Yeah, what are you doing? 500 heavily armed state troopers were stationed to be inside the high school for three years.

Oh my God, so the school's at an occupying force? Yes. Does this remind you of Iraq a little bit? This all just sounds like it sounds like the process of trying to leave the Iraqi military to get their shit together. It's fucking bananas. So speaking of bananas, state troopers entered the city at dusk in a long caravan of jeeps, trucks and ambulances the night before school began. Oh, I'm excited for my first day. The townies. Could you imagine for your first day of high school? I'm more nervous than high school than I think most people are. Oh, no, I don't think so, darling. It was the same for me except for all the cops and the buses and the militias that are going to be in the school. So that doesn't sound the same at all, ma? Well, you know, it's the same thing. You're walking into a new social environment. It's different. You know, the difference is you'll have assault rifles in your classes. Yeah, that's nice.

So it's the same thing. I had the butterflies the night before my first school, too. You know, you know, boys, you know, social circles, the idea that your professor could be shot with a grenade, you know, these are all very... It's not. Yeah, it's very similar. I don't think so. It's just like when I went to school. Okay. It was the same thing. So the Tannies came out to see the caravan come in. The usual mothers with children, teens drinking beers and old timers. On the street was a guy who called himself Waco holding his shalely.

Excuse me? You know what shalely is? It doesn't even matter. His story checks out. Yeah. You don't even know what a shalely is. A shalely is like a fucking cane with a big thing on the end you can hit people with. It's also used in, I think, like a sort of Irish martial arty type thing situation. But a shalely is like... Type of a potato.

Well, it's like a cane weapon. Yeah. And a guy named Ricky was there holding a huge faded American flag with 48 stars on it. Quote, I'm carrying this flag because I'm a loyal patriotic American. Fuck you, Hawaii Alaska. Not on my flag. So wait, what is your problem? Boston flags got 48 stars. Yeah. Honestly, if you're trying to make that point, it should be like one of those 13 star flags. Like that would make your point better than being like, Alaska, Hawaii, I don't recognize you.

Fuck you and your Native Americans and your island peoples. And Alaska, I would be pro you, but I couldn't find a 49 star. And if I want to take a vacation, I'll go to Bermuda. Fucking animals. So a friend of Ricky's walked by and offered him a swig of a schlitz. A swig of a schlitz? A swig of a schlitz. A swig of a schlitz.

A swig of a schlitz. And he said, we're going to get those fuckers this year. So while the army is coming in, there's an army coming in and he looks at a friend and says, we're going to get these fuckers this year. And he's talking about the black people and the army coming in. Well, I'm a little relieved to hear that the army is among the people on the list. Ricky then stepped into the street and refused to move until he was arrested. No, not until you cuffed me. A small woman grabbed his flag as he was being handcuffed. She was surrounded by several of her children.

She looked at someone and said, quote, go get my husband. Tell him I'm going to be arrested. He should bring my cigarettes. Fuck. She looked at a reporter nearby and made her martyr speech. Quote, first they give the niggas at schools and then they start arresting people carrying the flag. But as long as one of us is alive, Liberty will not die in South Boston. See, there it is. It's the people don't agree on what Liberty is. That's going to be the problem.

Okay, so in this area, it's all wrapped up in this fucking Liberty shit because this is where it started, right? Right. In 1776. So they have this American Revolution tied in with this fucking crazy white working class. The problem with the problem, and again, not to just lean into the white guilt as people say it, but the problem is that the founding, like you can't keep holding everything that the founding fathers said to be so vastly important. No, they were slave owners. The slave owners and also founders of the Electoral College. And women didn't get to vote.

Yeah. By the way, if you look at what they did, not that great. Yeah. The people of South Boston never stopped talking about it. Because Jefferson was an absolute genius. Oh, sure, he raped slaves. But come on. People.

Oh, come on. So this is what it looked like according to one of the troopers in the school. Quote, there were so many heavily armed men stationed around the school. In our case, there were actually a trooper every five yards inside the school and out. Believe me, in the beginning, every one of those troops was needed. Just getting kids from buses into the school alive each morning was a major task. That's crazy. Early mornings, everyone was fresh and spoiling for a fight.

Fights were a constant inside the school. We had a flying squad assigned to just to classroom situations, but most of the action was in the hallways. Every time a bell signaled a shift of classrooms, it was like a gong signaling a new round of Friday night fights. You know what I do? Sorry, you made a quote. No, go ahead. This is what I would do. And this might even sound, I would come up with a second bell.

I would come up with two bells. I would start. What, for the different races? For the first year. You can't do that. That's the whole problem. You're not. Hey, hey, it's baby steps.

It's baby steps. So we're starting with blacks go on one ding, whites on two dings. And I mean, whatever else we're dealing with, you know, subsequent digs. The other 1% of the other one. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to classify as other because I think that I'm going to sound like I'm a selfie. It's not great. He called me a couple different bells. It's not a good idea.

Come on. A couple bells. No, it's definitely not solving anything. But so I love that they had a roving squad that ran into classrooms every five yards. And a roving a roving squad. You would feel like there would be. Okay. So there's still tons of fights, even with the 500 troopers.

Lunchtime was the most difficult. Troopers would form a line between black and white students in the cafeteria. And some in Southeast believe black students were being trained in gorilla warfare at Elma Lewis School, which was a cultural institution. They also thought the NAACP was hiring thugs and militants to pose as students. That is such an amazing. Like they literally think the plot of 21 Jump Street, but with just black people. I mean, how out of your gourd do you have to be? Quote, they don't pay him much, maybe $40 a week.

Hey, you know, I figured out how much they're making. You know, with no confirmation or anyone to tell me that this is true. I finally cracked how much money they're getting paid. I've settled on a wage scale for my insane theory. Yay. A lot of facts are rolling in about this thing I invented in my brain. Turns out they're getting 40 bucks a week. 40 bucks a week.

And they get a car. They get a little bonus. They get to fucking ride around in a car. And they're building a spaceship. Spaceships are landing on the roof. Thank you. Hyde Park High was also a constant battle on the second day back. One fist fight bloomed into a series of fights all over the school.

And soon they were fighting the cops. The brawl that day was insane. 225 cops in Hyde Park High fought with students both black and white. The day of fights arrest ended with 15 arrests, mostly black students and classes being suspended. Sounds like it's coming together. Well, it was then calm at the school for a month. But fights broke out again on February 12th.

They lasted three days. What? Three days of fights at school? Yeah. And you are going home in between? Yeah. So it's almost like you're the... Oh, that's the bell.

All right, I'll see you tomorrow. Yeah. Wait, remember my fist was right here. Okay. Your head was right there. Yeah, yeah. No, you're definitely about to break my jaw. Okay, so just remember that.

Okay, you're about to break my jaw when we punch in tomorrow. I will see you tomorrow. Have a good evening, my friend. I hate your race. I hate your race. All right. I didn't care before, but now I fucking hate you. See you in the morning.

Fucking hate you so much. Tell Tammy hi. You got it. Tell Tammy hello. Wait, are you fucking Tammy? No, no, I'm supporting you. I'll write to fuck Tammy. We're off the clock.

Thank you. Thank you. On the way home one day, 50 black students abducted a school bus driver and forced him to stop for hamburgers. That's not an abduction. They didn't abduct him. Well, they made him drive the hamburger. They forced them into a hamburger trip.

Not an abduction. March and April were fairly calm considering. There were occasional issues. Roar held the anti-busting group, held a funeral themed protest on March 5th. Good. We say goodbye to your liberties, Barry, and the six feet on that. Oh my God, you nailed it. Four day anti-busting protesters marching by in a coffin that represented the death of

Liberty. Oh my God. You got any last words for Liberty? I'm sorry we created you like shit. No, no respect for you. Enjoy the day. They chanted, Gary killed Liberty as they walked. Gary killed Liberty.

Gary killed Liberty. It's almost like they're a parody at this point. Yeah. At the end of the March, they went to a reenactment of the Boston massacre, right? So all the stuff's nearby here, right? This is not good. And as the shots were fired. Exactly.

All 400 of the protesters fell to the ground. Oh my God. Oh God. If you're a black student from a distance, you're like, oh, awesome. Oh wait, they're acting. They really saw themselves as having lost their freedoms and continuing a righteous tradition of protesting in America. Sure.

They sang. Oh no. It might be the most ironic singing of a song of all time. Oh no. They sang, we shall overcome. No, they did. Shut up. Wasn't that from part one?

Yeah, you said that in part one. You can't do that. We shall overcome these black children coming for a better education. Like, you just can't. You can't. You can't. It's unbelievable. No.

You can write your own overcome song in your insane perspective, but you're not allowed. No. You're not allowed it. You don't get that one. No. It's not a single written for you people. Not at all. It's the opposite of written for you.

It's about you. You are. You are the thing to be overcome. They're overcoming you. The kids on the bus should be singing it while you're throwing bricks at them. Yeah, you see, we shall overcome while you're throwing bricks at kids on a bus. I mean, we are just complete victims. The victimhood is insane.

Dude, you don't know what it's like. I got to get up so early in the morning to go throw tomatoes at black kids. It's like a full-time job. I'm like exhausted. It actually is a full-time job because I don't have a job because I got laid off because I was drinking. Sorry, kids. There'll be no Christmas presents this year because daddy spent all his money on watermelons and bananas. To show these black students that they're not white, okay?

You'll get it. You'll get it. You understand what you're doing. You're young now. You'll get it when you're young now. You'll understand when you're talking to your kids about how they subsequently will have to go to buses and throw bricks at students because their race is not the race that you think is the number one race. And which one of you dragged by Schlitz?

Who had a slip of my Schlitz? On April 7th, Senator Kennedy was giving a speech at a political forum in nearby Quincy. The anti-busters broke in and started jeering at him. Women surrounded Kennedy and started jabbing him with small American flags as he tried to escape the building. Harder, harder. You're going to poke a hole in me there. Put one inside me. When he got to his car, he discovered his tires were slashed.

The police escorted the center to a train station and the crowd followed and then threw rocks at the train as it left the station. We also hate trains. Fuck the trains. Anything with wheels that are moving and transport more than 40 passengers. On May 3rd, a national left-wing organization called the Progressive Labor Party decided to have a march against racism. Okay. Many came from New York. The plan was to march right to Lewis Day Hicks' home.

Okay. They, quote, carried clubs or sticks and canes and many of the persons who lined the sidewalks along the march were similarly armed with baseball bats, sticks and crutches. One man had a section of a metal bed frame. Uh, so... Jimmy, what are you doing there? Yeah, so, uh, I just didn't have time. My alarm did not go off. What the fuck does that mean?

Why don't you have a hockey stick? We've been playing hockey for, like, fucking 17 years. Dude, I woke up so late, so the only thing that I could, I basically, I just took half of the bed. Let's get them. You're fucking making a mockery. Let's get them. Let's get them. No, you're making a mockery.

You'll watch tomorrow nine other people are going to show up with bed halves. What's going to be fucking laughing at us now? That's not how you fucking attack. Jesus Christ, man. Silver lining. You're the worst fucking racist. Silver lining. Right?

When we get tired. Don't you? We have to bed. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I think it's going to come in really handy. Number one, I don't get tired. You know that.

That's why they call me fucking nonstop Jimmy. Yeah. Well, sure. Yeah. Yeah, that's mainly the reason. But also, you can't just have one. What's that mean? You have a drinking problem.

Okay. I don't want to turn this into an intervention. We all have a drink. It's fucking South Boston. Dude. Dude. We all have a drink. Dude.

Look, you're getting on me about bringing half of a bed. I'm just saying. We all got beef. Okay. You brought schlitz to a fucking morning demonstration. Hey. Hey. Listen to me.

I almost brought my night table. Okay. What does that mean? I almost brought the end table instead of half a bed. So we're lucky. But the first time I left the house, I left with a handful of couch cushions. So don't tell me that half a bed is pretty good. I'm a guy for this.

Okay. Is he around yet? You're barely a person. Listen. Tomorrow I got a great plan. Don't you? I'm going to show up with a used ottoman. Don't you do that.

Come on. We'll show him. Don't you fucking do that. We'll show him. Don't you fucking do that. I'm going to build a whole little dining room bed area around here. Sometimes I think you... I'm moving my house day by day out here.

Sometimes I think you're English. I'm not. Guilty. Eventually the PLP quote attacked a group of 20 to 30 South Boston youths near the Bayside Mall with belts, wooden canes, and karate blows. How old are these people? I don't know, but I couldn't really... I read a couple newspaper articles.

I couldn't figure out exactly, but I loved that they came in to march against racism and then ended up attacking a bunch of South white boys and kids. Yeah. That's the thing. It's like you can't... Yeah. The response was swift. About a thousand Southies were there in moments with baseball bats, sawed off hockey sticks

and rocks, and they did their best to push the PLP back. They threw rocks at the PLP and their buses from an overpass. One driver said, quote, there were at least 100 kids throwing rocks and running towards the bus. They broke every window on my bus. 300 cops came, but they could not end the battle for several hours. This led to fights for the next couple of days at Hyde Park High, as white students went on the offense after a black student stood up and waved a PLP flag.

Okay. Too much. And anti-bussers had had it with the Boston Globes coverage. Oh, yeah. Roar thought the newspaper was distorting news and influencing people against them, so they held the demonstration in front of the globe offices. They picketed the newspaper plant and laid down in front of delivery trucks. Then the trucks were attacked.

Two drivers were injured after their windshields were shattered. For the next couple of weeks, cars would drive by the Boston Globe and shoot at the windows. Jesus. One man blasted the front doors with a shotgun. Is that not an arrestable offense? Oh, yeah, of course it is. They're totally arrested. Yeah, but they just get in the car and drive away.

Oh, so they're not caught? No. So we have 500 cops in schools, but we can't put one in front of the Boston Globe for the shootings. That guy was a friend of Whitey Bulger, and he said he ran up and he watched the security guard duck down, and then he shot the fucking doors. Okay. On the more violent side, a group of anti-busting protesters led by Louise, sorry, on the nonviolent

side. So now there's starting to be a nonviolent... So now there is almost a pacifist wing of the violent racist... That's correct. ...battle. That's correct. God love them. I mean...

They're getting warmer. And they're led by Louise, and they stage to sit in at the federal building. There, they asked reporters, quote, if Martin Luther King was a hero for sitting on the edge or blocking traffic or picketing, how come we're not heroes? So they're really putting everybody in a really weird headspace because they're now not the worst guys, and they're comparing themselves to Martin Luther King, but they're still racists. So like...

While they're moderate racists. Right. Yeah. They're level-headed racists at the time. They're like... Pragmatic racists. Pragmatic racists. We just hate buses.

And soon came the Carson Beach incident. Oh, God. Carson Beach was in the heart of White Boston and near a housing project. You would not find a black guy on that beach because they were scared they would be attacked. Six black Bible salesmen were visiting from South Carolina, and on the 27th, they went to Carson Beach to enjoy a little sun and water and to get away from the oppressive heat of Roxbury. They were totally unaware of the area and the danger.

They thought the heat was oppressive. Do you think the heat's bad? Wait till you get to all the white people over in the South Sea. Not the heat that'll kill you. It's us. It's the embedded racism in the culture. Huh? No, I have Bibles.

I think it's the humidity. They were surrounded in minutes by white men and women armed with pipes and sticks. The salesmen ran. Why? Leaving their car, which was immediately destroyed. Then the whites gave chase and caught the salesmen, beating them one particularly badly because he was trapped by a fence. The black community was incensed.

This was the ultimate indication of how blacks could not travel into white areas of the city of Boston. The people of South Sea said these were bad guys who came looking for trouble. Okay. What, they brought their fucking Bibles? Like what is that shit? They had Bible guns. It's fucking wicked bullshit.

They had loaded Bibles. Jim Kelly of Roar summed it up, quote, we've always welcomed good colored people to South Boston, but we will not tolerate radicals or communists, good colored people to welcome. Yeah. It's just that the way we determine if they're good is if they, if we beat them or not. Right. So, so if we don't, if there's a black guy and he comes over here and we don't beat them up, that's a good black guy, but then if there's another black guy and he comes

over and we're like, let's beat this one up, that guy's, that's a bad one. If they fight back that bad, that's what I'm talking about. The city's African American community leaders decided to respond with a march that would end with a picnic on Carson Beach. This is the black people, African American community of Boston, you know, the activists. Should they go there? I think it's a bad idea. Okay.

How about, how about that? How about that? How about we solve the problem of that beach after people stop trying to kill kids and buses? Let's start small. Baby steps. Baby steps. Authorities said this would lead to a riot and did everything they could to talk them

out of it, but they were determined to go forward with their march. The next Sunday, 800 cops were at Carson Beach and then came 2,000 black protesters. And they met 4,000 furious Southie whites. Oh gosh. Police stood in a line on the sand separating the two groups. That is, right there, just real quick, that is the, what is, every time we talk about this, there is a line of cops in between the two races, which just sort of says, maybe we're going about it wrong.

I think it's not working. Yeah. Okay. Keep going. You're about to get to this massive handshake and apology moment of the dollop. The whites threw rocks and wood over the cops at the black people and the back people threw shit back, back, back. On the beach, sorry, off the beach.

So whether cops are not, the fighting was much more intense. The battles there lasted for over two hours and ended with 40 injured, 27 of whom were police. Cops finally shut down the beach and made everyone leaves. The whites of South Boston considered it a victory because black people never came back to the beach. Yeah. Okay.

Great. We did it. Now, this was not the greatest omen for the coming 1975, 1976 school year. Oh boy. What? It's just not in a good place. The 1975, 1976 school years was phase two of Judge Gilarity, Gilarity. Gherty.

Gherty. Well, this changed it. No, it's, I don't know if this changed it or, anyway, it's wasn't a Gherty. I don't, it's all, I can't tell you because it's completely messed up, his integration plan, right? So he's, this is phase two, phase one, phase one went so well. We closed that phase one beautifully. Phase one we knocked out of the park.

Yeah. It was given to John Coakley, a school official to implement. While he struggled with the plans, a reporter visited him and Coakley said phase two would only bring more trouble. As he stared at maps, he said, quote, the Chinese, everybody wants to integrate with the Chinese. God knows what they used to call him. I just left this guy in his office trying to figure out how to do it all.

He's just looking at it going, oh fuck. He's lost his mind. He's lost his mind. He's like, God damn, the Chinese. What the fuck are you doing with the Chinese? What did they used to call the Chinese? This is. It's just, if we just, if we just had a way to do with the Chinese, what, how long has

he been in there? Two days. It's just, if we, if we're trying the Chinese, the Chinese hold the key to all of this. And then if I get the Chinese, then the blacks will be fine. And the white people will get it. The Chinese, it all comes down to the Chinese. Hey guys, I figured it out. The Chinese are a magical people.

Guys, the Chinese are robots. Ha. Duh. Ha. What done? The number of students being bussed increased from 19,000. What, who? 224,000.

Oh, but. And they rearranged all the school assignments. So the kids who went last year didn't have to go this year. Like they switched it. So you're not even keeping some sort of consistency with, which is so backwards to what, that's just terrible. Right. Terrible decision.

People hated it more than phase one. And those who hated it included the teachers, the mayor, the city council, the school committee, and all the anti-bussers. This time. Small fraction. This time, Charlestown was included. 1,200 black and Hispanic students were coming. 848 townies were going to Roxbury and the South End.

Mayor White placed 1,000 police, 350 state troopers, 250 MDC police at the schools. This is triple the amount of law enforcement of phase one. 600 guardsmen moved into Southeast. This is Iraq. We're ready for phase two of planned whoopsy. For his part, Whitey Bulger and a buddy threw a Molotov cocktail through the back window of John F. Kennedy's birthplace, which was now a historical site. Dude, Whitey Bulger.

Has anyone ever given less of a shit? This was because Senator Edward Kennedy's support for school desergregation. Bulger spray painted bus teddy in black on the sidewalk and then fled. The fire caused 30,000 in damage. The anti-bussers held a rally the night before schools opened on September 7th at City Hall Plaza and 10,000 Bostonians showed up. Oh, God. Local leaders said there should be no violence, but pushed for a boycott of schools.

And the crowd chanted, boycott, boycott. That night at Southie, gangs attacked the building the National Guard were stationed in. Oh, Jesus. Sometimes that's the thing. Something always has to be done first. The idea that you're like, we're going to attack where the National Guard is. They're like, well, we thought we were on ghoul.

Okay. Fuck. That's the foremost. Just wave and wave after wave and wave of Walburgs coming at you. Yeah. Yeah. They threw rocks and bottles. This is Donnie and Kevin and Richie and Tony and Lou and Sambo and Mosca and Lunu and

Donnie and Phyllis and Rockin and Pushpa and Blowfish and Paz and Lune and Valia and M.B.M. This is a good time to bring up that Mark Walberg blinded an Asian guy punching him in Southie for no fucking reason. Come on. Are you going to be like that or see Ted too? I'm going to see Ted. Thank you.

So they threw rocks and bottles at the guard on duty and then someone stabbed a cop in the leg. Fucking school tomorrow. What do you want me to do? Fucking stay home. Okay. Then 300 kids fought the cops in front of the high school, near hide high kid stone passing cars and for opening day the next morning the boycott was on.

Only 58% of students came to school. Only 324 out of 883 came to Charles Town and those kids who were not in school were out on the street starting shit. They threw rocks and bottles at cops, overturned police cars, set trash on fire and threw rocks at firemen. They usually didn't throw rocks at firemen. According to a woman whose husband was a fireman, quote, my Joe is a fireman and all the other guys at Townies too.

The other night when the news said they were throwing at firemen they really weren't. They were throwing at the cops and the firemen just got in the way. Oh, they like the firemen. I love that. Meanwhile, the women of Charles Town organized a daily prayer march. Enough. Stop bringing God into the fight. I think he wants us to just figure it out.

I think that's the thing. I think he wants us to just solve the problem. That's what that's what God wants. He wants us to solve it and not keep name dropping. What if God's name it's name dropping. What if God's a huge racist? That's come. I mean, God, you know, that would be like the that would be that would make so much sense.

If when he does come back, he was like, are you guys talking to each other? No, no, no. That's not what I made them to put you on different parts. There was a reason why all the Asians were you guys, uh, I can't even I just can't mixing mix races, that's why I gave continents for the daily prayer march. The mothers were gather in front of a housing project in the morning. They picked a teen named Duffy to be their marshal. He walked in front wearing a white armband with town written in blue marker.

I despise Duffy. I'm Duffy. The first day was all very friendly. Come on, everyone. Let's get ready to match. But it's me, Duffy, I'm excited to lead. First day was all very friendly, but then that night they went home and saw themselves on the news.

Oh, no. The next day they came and they were belligerent. They attacked the news cameras screaming, quote, why don't you show the truth? Half of the women thought the cameras thought the cameras made them look like animals. And the other half are upset because reporters had said the first day of school was pretty calm. Wait, so wait, so half of them think they look like crazy people and the other half are mad because everything was too calm.

So half of the people are upset that they looked crazy while half of the people are being crazy. Just the women. OK. These are the moms. Right. Good old moms. The cops were not down with any of this and they got rough with women.

Shocking. Soon news camera men were wearing helmets. Because it's already easy enough to have that job. God. Hey, let's give them helmets now, too. How's the viewfinder? It's tough. There's so many pictures of guys in Southie throwing fucking shit at news vans.

As one film. I'm down to, by the way, I'm down to throw stuff at news vans. As one film, a young gentleman named Tommy walked up behind him, tapped on his shoulder and said, quote, watch out, motherfucker. What are you making news there? I'm filming this. Watch out, motherfucker. OK.

Yeah, it's Southie. I want to cut, cut. That night, a crowd gathered in front of the high school and started throwing objects. This is a year. This is a year later. It's not going well. The cop in charge ordered them to move or they would be arrested. They just stayed there.

The TPF moved in. At the same time, 75 kids attacked Bunker Hill Community College and beat up a black student in the lobby. Run through the effigy of a black guy off the projects and then they burnt it. It could have been a science thing. It could have been. It could have been a science thing. That's true.

You know what? Let's give everyone. Let's wait. Benefit of the doubt here. Benefit of the doubt. One guy noted they were much more organized in Southie, quote, Charlestown ain't organized. In Southie, there was string and wires across the street and clothesline and motorcycle cops.

They had the whole thing worked out. We need to get that here. No, no. Not the right. Just figure out. Jealousy is not the sentiment we need from you right now. We are not fucking. You know what?

They fucking beat us in football. They beat us in basketball. They're beating us and killing cops. We haven't killed five cops yet. Well, they got a whole fucking thing worked out in Southie. They're killing us. It's fucking me. I'm fucking embarrassed.

I'm embarrassed right now. They're like, they're smart racists. They're the best fucking racists. We're like half racists right now. Those lining cops. The next day, a mob of 300 marched up Breeds Hill, overturning and burning cars. By the way, all their own cars, they're they're it's it's an isolated fucking little village and they're burning.

So they're it's just other Irish American cars. This is great. After sundown, Warren Prescott School was fire bombed and when the firemen came to put it out, a mob threw rocks at them. So that also goes against the firemen. Yeah, they're not throwing rocks at firemen. Riots and fires occurred all over Charlestown until midnight. This went on for the entire first week of school.

Duffy kept on as the prayer march marshal. That's right, everyone. We're going to show them our opinions matter. It's me again, Duffy. It's not like he was working. His hand had been caught in a machine at the sugar factory two years before right after he left high school. I do it all the same again.

The machine had no safety guard, but his lawsuit was no going nowhere. His fingers were all different lengths and he was missing a few knuckles. He was out of workman's comp because he was employable, but no one would hire him after they saw his hand. Follow me, everyone. We're going to change the world together. My hand looks like white liquorice currently. He was making money quote on the sneak 35 year old Bernie Donovan came down to watch

the mother's prayer march on day four. He didn't live in Charlestown anymore. He had moved to the suburbs. He said this was the end of Charlestown. He said the cops look like stormtroopers. He was an electrician and made good money, but was upset he had to move to the suburbs quote. I'll never forgive them for forcing me out.

He didn't want to leave. Even though the suburbs were seen as a better place quote. I'm a townie. You can never understand that. I've lived all my life in Charlestown. This was a great place. Property values were going up every year. People were fixing the houses, new schools were being built.

And my seven year old gets an order to go to a high school in Roxbury. She's seven. So a month ago I moved to Stoneham. There's going to be an explosion in this neighborhood. You'll see there's nothing more dangerous than a caged Irishman, except maybe an Irishman who gets money and becomes a liberal. It's a bad trait our people have to get some money and then they turn on their own. Bernie did a lot of talking.

Yeah, like that should have been cut off like three sentences deep and he just like kept rolling. It was so great. He kept digging. Bernie was ashamed that he lived in the suburbs and he saw himself as a deserter of Charlestown. Jesus, dude, stop talking. You know, at the end of the day you gotta like look in the mirror and realize that the problem is that, you know, I'm like, I'm like a huge pussy, you know, because I like, I relented

on how much I hated black people. You know what I mean? I betrayed my racist roots. You know what it's like to get up in the morning and look at myself and go, I got a fucking job and I live in a nice fucking apartment. You know? It's terrible. Knowing that everybody I know is in Charlestown and they can't get out.

I mean, I get sick. I get throw up in my mouth when I think about the fact that my daughter's going to grow up thinking like everyone's close to equal or something like that. Oh, it's fucking terrible. Fights were now happening in the high school. Everywhere, literally everywhere. The school in Charlestown constantly, same in Southie. It really blew up on October 24th when 15 students were arrested in the school.

The violence was so extreme that black families requested South Boston High School be closed down. Wow. Judge Garrity, that's Garrity, Judge Garrity called for hearings on November, in November to consider it. So he's actually considering shutting down the school. As he should be. If you can imagine this, that upset the people in Southie.

What do they want? It's like when you're in a deep argument with like someone you're seeing and you're just like... Well, they don't. They don't. They want... Look, I'm sorry. Look, I'm sorry.

I completely forgot about that. No, I'm not mad anymore about that. I'm mad that you didn't apologize in the moment. You're like, I can't hit this moving target. If you've ever said a mad you didn't apologize in the moment, then you should have been broken up with any relationship. Oh, well, I've been in relationships before where I'm just like, all right, you know what? If I just say, my mentality becomes like that of like a monkey where I'm just like, I'm

like, if I say I'm sorry, I get a sugar pill. So there's someone else just be mad and I'll go, I'm sorry, and they're like, oh, it's forgiven. I'm like, okay, well, that'll be a good long term. This will be a good pattern. A guy named Dan Yatz, who was an anti-busting leader, wrote... I want them in on Yatz. Wrote a response about the news that Judge Karate was considering hearings to shut down

the school. Okay. He wrote it in the South Boston Tribune. They call it the Tribby. Sure, yeah. RIP Tribby, shut down in 2012. Quote, well, if Garrity closes Southie and Thomas Atkins, who's the NAACP president, is not wiped out and NAACP headquarters with him, I'm going to be the most surprised and

disappointed guy in Southie. Okay. Wrote that. Sure. Wrote that in a newspaper. Yeah, that's fine. In a small story that week, a team talked to a reporter while clutching a mop handle. Quote, the best thing that happened this week is when they firebombed Kennedy's house.

They should kill fucking Teddy. I'd like to take up a collection higher than another Lee Harvey Oswald. He raised the mop handle like a rifle, blam blam. When the reporter asked him what school he went to, he said, I got out two years ago. Quote, I did clean up work on this construction crew. It wasn't bad either, it was about 325 an hour, but they laid me off a couple of weeks ago. I just went over to the unemployment.

Do you know when the checks.com, he asked pulling cramped papers from his back pocket. To the reporter? Yes. Who's like, sir, no, I don't, what? I don't work for anyone that is associated with what you're doing. You know, I'm actually, I need to get paid. Can you give me money with these? How's this work?

All I have is a bunch of receipts. Can you give me a check for $1,000? Off them over the bridge. Right? So you got the money or what? You know where all the money is. You're a bank. I know how it works.

God, I want to kill Kennedy. How do I get the cash? I shoot him. I believe Harvey Oswald. Hey, will you give me money for this paper that has handwriting on it, please? In December, Judge Gearty ruled the school would stay open, but the headmaster was fired and the school was put into receivership. Sorry.

One more time. So he fired the headmaster, which I would call a principal. Gearty did? Yeah. Okay. And then put the school on. So receivership is, you know, I think the government completely takes over the school. Okay.

Like, yeah, it's fucking done. He's completely taking it over. That night, the Boston NAACP headquarters was fire bombed as was the home of a local black minister. Cool. War fights happened at the high schools on January 21st, 1976. At Hyde Park High, black students and white students battled throughout the building. One teacher said, quote, it was turmoil.

There were several hundred kids fighting all over the place. They were like soldiers fighting and falling, chairs were flying through the air. It was a very, very, very large confrontation. I saw white students trying to get away by jumping out windows. Well, you know what, were they on acid? I don't know. I'm going to fly out of here. There's only one way out.

There's a fire to the sky, gentlemen. Black, sorry, police came and quelled the situation. The head of faculty said it was the worst fighting at the school since busing began. Well, that's good, at least. Then a riot started at East Boston High, which was not even a school where bussy was taking place. What are they doing? Apparently.

They're just jealous? Apparently, they were upset because East Boston High was supposed to be turned into a magnet next year. It's supposed to be turned into a magnet? A magnet school. Oh, OK. So they were rioting. The no-magnet school crowd fought with cops, throwing chunks of ice at them, overturning

cars, and blocking traffic from entering the tunnel to the town. One kid told a reporter. This is insane. This is so, what, like what? We're not going to be a fucking magnet. Like how badly is this going? How about I kill the guy who said we should be a chata? You can't come into the town.

Like this is like Lord of the Flies. One kid told the reporter, quote, Judge Gatti has taken our school. What do you expect us to do? I don't know, be a magnet? I don't know. Yeah. You can be fine. I mean, I don't think you can get another magnet.

Fighting and riots were just becoming a part of life. When a new teacher came to Southie, another teacher told him you get used to the fights, become apathetic about it. Of course. How else could you, from a psychological standpoint, you're so deep in a PTSD that he's just saying he's shut down. He's shut down. The good news is you die inside.

Yeah. Everything inside of you just sort of dies and then you're like a husk and then you see the fights and you're like, I wouldn't mind getting some meatloaf for lunch. Yeah. Eventually, you'll start rooting for kids to get beaten up. That's the cool thing. It doesn't matter what race they are. You're just like, oh, that one beats that one.

Anyway, I have a fantasy league about it. I'm dead inside. The South Boston High Fantasy Race Fight League. Yeah. Yeah. Man, I mean, I started Jeremy, but that was a big mistake. He's had a really disappointing year. Oh, fuck, he's been terrible.

Kid seems to have reformed himself over the summer nicely. That sucks. That's awful. Terrible offseason. Ernest Coffee was a black kid being bussed from Roxbury to South Boston. He'd been in a brawl one day when a white kid spit in his face in the hallway and he ended up fighting five kids and then vowed never to return. He told the reporter, they don't want us there.

We don't want to, we don't want to go either. And the reporter asked, then why do all the black politicians favour it? And the kid said, they don't have to get on the bus every day. That kind of sums up, doesn't it? That really, yeah, because you're like, yeah, like, you can't fucking put kids in a fucking battle situation. That's not the answer. You also can't do what we were saying earlier.

The idea that you switch out who does this every year, that's just like an experiment. No, it's crazy. Like, if you're just rotating who the kids are every year, the whole thing is, the whole way that you can defeat this is by embedding the clash and like forcing people to get over it by liking people of other races. I mean, that's not going to happen either. Like this solution is much higher probability that someone will befriend someone they go to school with for three years over one year.

I mean, I know what I would have done. I would have shut down South Boston High School and said, you guys all go somewhere else. Dude, you know, you would not. You would hire the genius who came up with the two bell theory. Come on, I'm sitting right here. Different dings. Double bells, Gareth.

On February 15, the bells will have a different pace for every race. On February 15, anti-bussers decide to hold a father's march. Well, I mean, they're like, they're like Hallmark calendars, this racist parade. All right, it's the Valentine's Day march. New loves first. I know, but think about it, a father's march. Yeah. Because is that what you need?

All the fucking dudes coming out one day. No, no, no, no. The last thing any situation needs is only men trying to solve it. All right, let's get the dads out here. Let's fix this. All right, guys, time to get rational, so I figured I'd get 30 dudes together to talk it out. Okay, so we're agreed we're going to murder everyone.

Yeah. Good, yeah. All right. Yeah, it's a way to do it. Go, guys. So they got to permit all the parade. The idea was to have two separate groups head through Southie, then meet up at Perkins Square and then march together to South Boston High.

Quote. What constitutes a parade? Well, I think it's just a... Did they just have like a plethora of confetti and they were like, oh, let's go be racist with more confetti? They had to make... You had to make 13 floats. Now, I think that it just means you can walk down the street.

That's all. It feels like a protest. Quote. They wore resist arm bands, drank beer, and carried sawed off hockey sticks, jeered at police, and even at a passing nun. Bitch. Fuck you, sister. What?

Fuck you. I'm here because of the blacks. You fucking god-lover. Okay. By the way, I will see you on Sunday. Yes, I was going to say. Tell father I couldn't make it last week because I was out fishing and fucking whores and whatnot.

Excuse me? You wouldn't understand. You'd get your pussy all tied up and stuff. Oh, my God. Anyway. Oh, turn green. Ah, you've heard it. Turn green.

You've heard the father say this. Green. They also brought their own tear gas and clubs with nails in them, and they monitored the police radio calls while having a headquarters that directed their dad army with CB radios. The dad army. I mean, I called it that. Yeah, but still it's crazy. They were ready for battle with the police, who they called Judge Gaddy's Goon Squad.

Yeah, it's long and not catchy. The cops are out in force and we're a bit confused about where the actual parade route was because there were two groups. So they blocked off. We have a spinoff parade. Yeah, but you guys supposed to have a parade, but there's never been a double parade. Yeah. We're double parading.

What are you going to do? Copy, copy. So they blocked off one set of the marchers from going to the high school, which just caused the dads to lose it, and they started the usual throwing rocks, balls, anything else. Then they if you got rid of hockey sticks, bottles and rocks from these areas. Oh, that's the answer. That might have been the way to go.

That's it. So they then the dads busted through the cops line and met up with the other group. And then the fighting with cops commenced officially, quote. They pelted the cops with rocks and pieces of brick and concrete. One of the officers picked the stuff up and threw it back. So now it's just a fucking mob on mob, right? The police shot tear gas into the crowd and the crowd shot their tear gas back. Oh, that's never a good sign.

They're also shooting tear gas. The cops said this was the most aggressive crowd they had seen to date. A newspaper reported, quote, tear gas filled the streets of South Boston High and the area took on a battleground appearance. As nearly a thousand demonstrators faced lines of policemen on foot, horseback and motorcycle. The police commissioner said the crowd was made up of two bit criminals and hoodlums. And quote from the police commissioner, our tolerance policies have failed. It is now time to stop this.

The tear gas use was a signal. So the fact that the crowd now had tear gas came in with tear gas. There's a signal to the police that this was turning into something more entrenched and much more dangerous. So that's how we get the cops to listen to us. Well, after tear gas, then they start bringing guns and they start bringing bombs. Tear gas is a sign that like. They're arming.

Yeah. But in anti-busting headquarters, this day was seen differently. Flossy O'Keeffe. Who? It's a woman. Flossy? Flossy. Flossy O'Keeffe.

Flossy. Flossy O'Keeffe. Flossy. Flossy. Flossy. Flossy O'Keeffe sitting at a desk in the South Boston Information Center, which is there. Flossy.

Headquarters. Said quote. Teeth. We are winning. We stay in the news. The news tries to make us look like hoodlums, but we're not hoodlums. They can call us what they want. We're not going to stand for this.

People have fed up. So, father, people here have been restrained. Very restrained. Oh, boy. Yeah. So, that's again, going back to the... Wink, wink. Weapons.

They're... Yeah. The worm is turning. The L.A. Times said a tone of determined martyrdom prevailed the office. That's good. Yeah. That day, 80 police officers were injured. Meanwhile, in Charlestown, they would have a week of nightly battles with the cops in

which they set barricades on fire and stoned policemen. They also looted a butcher shop. Well, they needed food. Or meat to practice punching on. I love it in the middle of all this. Let's get some meat. Hey, come on. Let's take the mutton and the sausages.

But things were coming completely apart in Charlestown. The anti-busting groups were fracturing between pro-violence and anti-violence groups. It's so hard to argue anti-violence to a pro-violence group. Oh, my God. How about we just beat the shit out of you? Well, that's against what we stand for. Well, we'll for it. Well, that's tough.

Okay, I'm punching you now. Ow, okay. Oh, you don't like this? I'm for it. I'm for it. It's going to keep happening. I'm for it. There you go.

The Roar Group in Charlestown called itself powder keg. Oh, God. We're now shit-splosion. Greg Smith was part of that group and was anti-violence. Her son had come out of Charlestown High one day with blood pouring from his nose. She wrote in the Charleston Patriot, this is a paper, against violence. She blamed cowardly adults who were pushing the kids to fight and riot. Another mom, Marie Lesseur, was pro-violence.

She wrote in the paper, quote, we lost in the polls and we lost in the caught. What is left, put our kids on a bus, obey the law that is completely wrong? Yeah. Yeah. That would be the answer. That's how it works. Yeah. Because you want your kid to have an education.

I guess that's the thread that's been lost is the idea that when you look at what's happening in North Carolina, the way that you can, it's just getting so much shittier as far as how you lose. Right. Like losing doesn't mean you lost anymore. That means you have to find a different way to be a dick. Right. Well, this is like, they're so deep into violence and fighting that they can no longer see anything.

Yeah. They're just lost in it. Yeah. Another powder keg leader, Tom Johnson, wrote, quote, I'm not scared to throw a punch at someone who's throwing a punch at me. I'm the bull of the powder keg. I don't like marching with a permit. I'm for civil disobedience.

All right. Take a wrap on the head, big deal. I've been arrested five times since we started. I'm the most violent member of the powder keg. Did they know how to brag? They're not good at it. They're not good. No.

I'm the worst. I'm willing to kill anybody. I'm a dog person. I don't have a lot of friends. My ego is out of control. And I'm here to be the worst. I throw fists. I throw fists without thinking.

I hit people without thinking. I don't like to think. I like to throw things. All right. I'm a chair-throwing man. Yeah. If you look at me and say words, I start getting angry inside and I want to punch you. Now let me spell my name properly so you get this right, okay, sweetie?

And maybe they weren't observing exactly what was happening in Charleston and what their town looked like from the LA Times, quote, most of the streets along Bunker Hill Street in Charleston have been broken out, shattered long ago by rocks or pellet guns. Those left intact now remain dark. The only light comes from windows along the street, passing headlights, and the trash and oil can fires. Up the street, someone turned on a fire hydrant and water just runs deep in the gutters and backs up at the storm drain down the hill.

In the intermittent flickering light, it is hard to see anything but silhouettes and shadow, but the kids are there tonight, as always, darting from Dory to Alley, darkness to darkness, signaling each other to run. It just sounds like a fucking- It's crazy. It sounds like a war zone. Oh, it's insane. Yeah.

And it's also one of those things, like, when you're in it and it's happening, you don't step out, like, a light gets broken, another light gets broken, and then all of a sudden all the lights are broken, but at that point, you're so in it that you're not seeing that they're all broken. Crazy. You notice the first one. Yeah. Yeah, it just becomes normal.

Yeah. Seeing the violence cheered so publicly by guys like Tom Johnson started to erode the movement. Well, did they know, but Louise Day Hicks had for a while been trying to stop the violence by turning snitch. Okay. She was informing- She's quite a layered onion.

She's very interesting. She was informing Mayor White of Roar initiatives. In return, he was giving her people political opportunities and solidifying her strength. She shows she's seeing the end game, and she's seeing she can put her people in positions of power if she plays the game. And so anytime Roar comes with a new idea, the mayor knows ahead of time. Right. But there was a militant leader of Roar named Elvira Paladino.

She was nicknamed Pixie, and she was pro-violence. Pixie challenged Louise's leadership of Roar, and because she was so disruptive, she was kicked out of Roar. Then Pixie- Pixie was kicked out of Roar. And then Pixie formed her own. Are we in a wardrobe? And then Pixie formed her own Roar group.

Uh, sorry. She made a side Roar? It's a Roar split-off. A Roar Jr.? She called it Roar United. What is- What? The original Roar became known as Roar Incorporated.

What? I- Hey! I got an idea. Why don't we all go completely batshit fucking crazy? We're fighting a Roar War! Oh, my God. The anti-buses were split down the middle, but the violent people could steer clearly

do a lot of damage from the LA Times quote. The sex that have splintered off here? No. You're like, here's why you're wrong. Here's why you're wrong. Here's why you're wrong. And here's why you're wrong. From the LA Times quote,

Dor Atkinson stands in the darkness in Charlestown looking up at the roof of a housing project. Three helmeted policemen, nightsticks in their hands, watch her from the edge of the roof. Dora, who's about 45 and a grandmother, puts her hand on her head. I think someone threw a rock at me. She says, I think the police threw a rock at me. The children around her, about a dozen, ranging in age from 11 to 15, looked up and began shouting obscenities. Mrs. Atkinson smiles and then shouts out a string of words that cannot be printed in

most newspapers. You know fucking consigns of fucking whores? Like that. Colorful language. Atkinson, Mrs. Atkinson is out every night when something is going on. When a police sergeant approaches her, the kids gather around her and start calling her mom. Wow.

What? But her children are all grown and not out on the street. I think one of those cops threw a rock at me, Mrs. Atkinson says to the sergeant, I'm just trying to find my kids and someone threw a rock at me. So this is clearly something they've been doing for a while. Yeah. Because as soon as a cop walks up, they know she's going to say where are my kids and they all walk up and say, hey ma, it's fucking insane.

Wait, the kids come up and say, hey ma. Yeah. Before she says her line about I'm looking for my kids, it's something they do every night. They're now falling out of sequence. The sergeant looked at her for a long time and then said, why don't you just take your kids and go home, lady? And Dora Atkinson stood there and did not move.

So then came April 5th. This would be the day that sealed the fate of the anti-busters and the reputation of the entire city of Boston. South Boston and Charlestown students went to a city council chamber to protest busing. They made their statements and then they left the room and marched through the plaza. Just then Theodore Landsmark, a black man and the executive director of the Boston Contractors Association was heading into a meeting in City Hall. And he walked right into the group.

Now the mayor and all the people that work in the mayor's office are standing watching this from above, completely unable to do anything. That tells me that something happens. No, it's fine. So one black guy walks into a bunch of protests about the bussing system. A bunch of fucking, a bunch of white kids, you know, protesting him essentially at this point. Yeah, that's it.

The argument is deteriorated so far. So a photographer, oh wait. So the first blow was the one that changed everything. The first blow. Yeah. Okay. Southeast student Joseph Rakes was carrying the American flag on a staff. So like he clearly was somewhere and he pulled the flag out of.

Huge patriot. He picked it up in the lobby. Right. Like he's at school. Yeah. He's in the building. Right. Were you right?

That's what he did. Yeah. There's no other way. Because if you see the flag and anybody can look at the pictures, it's one of the famous fucking pictures. And it clearly looks like he pulled the flag out of a fucking, that was just sitting there. Okay. So he jabs Land's Mark in the torso with it.

A photographer from the Boston Herald was there and he took pictures of the moment and the beating that followed. The photo that changed everything is of a picture of a black man looking like he is about to be speared by the American flag. The photographer won a Pulitzer. Oh, wow. Boston's fate as a racist city was sealed. Wow.

Land's Mark said, quote, I end up in Boston with someone trying to kill me with the American flag. That is so crazy. This is this picture on a Pulitzer? Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Like how do you get to that?

How are you like at that point like still making sense? Black could have stabbed this black guy with the American flag. It thinks everything's still stable over here. The black community said they were not even safe at City Hall because because they were because they were going to get stabbed with flags. Not even safe. It's ill. A black state rep called for an immediate investigation into politicians and leaders

who have been fueling the violence. A minister said, quote, the streets of Boston are not safe for people of color. They have declared war on us. You can't really argue that. No. The town leaders had a different response. Louise, quote, I am most fearful of the consequences that will be forthcoming. James Kelly made a threat, quote, the outrage over the incident is more deplorable than

the act itself. The worst. The worst if if I was an 18 year old student, I'd do the same thing. It could not. It could be a long hot summer. You might you might you might come down here. Watch what you're right. It might not be safe.

Wink, wink. So now he's just threatening the press. Yeah. There was racial violence all over the city after that. On April 19th, black kids in Roxbury attacked a guy driving by Richard Pulley was pulled out of his car and beaten horribly. They crushed his skull with paving stones. When the police got there, he was surrounded by a hundred people chanting, let him die.

Let him die. They fell into a coma, never recovered and died a few months later. That shut up black community leaders. They no longer talked about white aggression. They started pleading for racial unity. Mel King made the point that they come together or they don't have a city. Louise Day Hicks rejected his message, quote, I don't agree. We shouldn't come together as a city.

A young man lies close to death from the stones thrown by the disciples of Mel King. This just increased the racial fighting. The mayor called in even more cops. Motorcycle cops. This is like Palestine and Israel. Motorcycle cops escorting buses were switched to a stoning response force because so many stonings were happening. Stoning response force, right, because the motorcycle cops can get somewhere fastest.

The last big melee occurred on April 28th when someone pulled a fire alarm at Hyde Park High and all the students emptied out into the street where they battled. One of the last things the anti-busters were holding onto was support from President Ford. The attorney general had promised he would present a brief in their favor to the Supreme Court. But after the flag incident and what followed that did not happen and word came, it was not going to happen. On May 25th, the attorney general said publicly it was over and the townies headed into Boston

that night and went bug fuck. They broke windows to fire bomb businesses, banks, and other stores. On June 14th, the Supreme Court refused to hear anti-busting appeals. It was over. That's it. The townie politicians responded as expected, Hicks, quote, the people of Boston have been had and they will respond. Paladin, quote, now we are up against a wall with no place to go.

James Kelly, quote, as long as there is forced busing in the city, violence and racial confrontation are unavoidable. The people of that attitude, the people of South Boston, Charleston, and others, however, knew it was over and that they were beaten. They fell into apathy and confusion. But still they stayed bitter. There is no major violent actions after, though on the first day of school in September 1976, Charleston students did throw rocks and bottles from a housing project at cops.

Southy crowd threw rocks at a city bus. Buses were stoned at Hyde Park in Dorchester. Throughout that year, there was some fighting and demonstrations in Southy, but it was nothing like it had been. A new headmaster was brought in from the Midwest to take over South Boston High, his quote, I always had this feeling of Boston as this great bastion of liberalism, of learning and allowing people the freedom of doing their own thing. After seeing it, I will never again feel inferior about coming from the country.

The whole image of Boston has changed. Boston is backwards. The next year, all the anti-busting politicians were voted out of office. They had been promising people a victory over busing for 10 years and they were all wrong, and they paid for it. Then to voters for the first time, I elected a black man to the school committee. However, his name was John O'Brien, so many people think it was a mistake and they just voted for an Irish name.

I'm not voting for an Irish black, I'm voting for this Irish guy, John O'Brien, he believes the same stuff we do, he sees he's black, I don't feel right, I need a seat, I have to take a seat. How'd a black guy get an Irish name, would he steal it? Oh boy, yeah, watch out, that black man stole my name. It's fucking crazy. By the fall of 1976, 30,000 students had left the Boston public school system. That's just crazy.

More than a third of the district's white students. Federal control over Boston schools ended in 1985. The way that I'll show you this is not okay is I'll be really stupid. That'll teach you. That'll teach you. That'll show you. Federal control over Boston schools ended in 1985, 11 years after it started. The majority of students in Boston schools were then minorities.

In 2001, Boston schools were 50% black, 60% Hispanic, 8% Asian, and 25% white. Today, half the population of Boston is white, but only 14% of the students in the school district are white. The year busing began, there were 86,000 students enrolled in Boston public schools. Today, there are 54,000. Wow. Charleston is now nearly 20% Hispanic and 20% black. More than half the population is white, but white children make up less than 8% of public

school students. So they've just completely avoided the solution. They've all gone to, I assume, Catholic schools. Right. So racial violence continued in Boston for decades. In 1993, there was a huge racial brawl at South Boston High School. You've heard of that one. Rock throwing, window smashing, a fight involving 200 or more students.

Mayor Flynn tried to stop it, but was sent to the hospital as he tried to break it up. It was the same old anger that began with the destruction of communities in the 50s. A Southie resident wrote a letter to the Boston Globe in 1993, quote, the bitterness is still a response to 40 years of demolition of the West End and Barry's corner of gentrification of Charlestown and North End and an attitude prevalent among the downtown crowd and at your newspaper that we out here in the neighborhoods need to be told how to live. Wrong people may commit wrongful acts. And when repeatedly attacked economically, helpless, whether perceived or real, people

will lash out at the only thing they possibly could have power over. In this case, the other poor people in 1916, Boston ranked as the most unequal city in the United States. And what year? 1916. Sorry. 2016. I see.

1916. Yeah. In 2016, Boston ranked as the most unequal city in the United States and racial and class stratification still shape its urban geography. Wow. Good Lord. Boston, you're my town, right? So recent.

I mean, yeah, the violence is fucking insane that went on there. Boston is a fucked up thing because, you know, if you have a kid and you have, you know, niece, nephews, Jose, but if you do, it's right for the kids. Right. And sending kids into a situation in which they'll be horribly psychologically damaged is fucking insane. Well, you have to find another solution. That's not the solution.

Good things came of it. Really horrible things came of it. But you can't force people. And at the end of the day, this came from, why didn't you send the black kids to the suburbs? Yeah. The only people who couldn't take it. That's the only people who were like both those communities are at the end.

They're backed up against the fucking wall. They both are. And those are the ones you sent at each other. Yeah. I think that is that's the truth, right? It's like because you're trying you're trying the drug like you're you're using like if you're using poor people and that's isn't even race because it's white and black people. Yeah.

It's like you're just you're not testing on humans. You're testing on the animals in your opinion, you know, in the opinion of these. And then also before the busing, they had volunteer busing. And when volunteer busing was happening, the suburbs were happy to take black kids, right? So there was a already a precedent set of something you could do. Yeah. I, you know, I mean, yeah, this happens all the time where something was work or something was there's there's the right solution, but you'd rather do the cheap solution or you'd

rather do like. Well, there was also the stubborn resistance to fixing the fucking black schools by the assholes, which fuck everything up. If they you also if they if they dumped money into these schools, everything would probably be fine. Well, like you're saying, too, like you can't like you can't force you can't force kids to be the guinea pigs. Right.

That's what they are. And when you think about like, you know, any anybody who any any like, if you think about any like black athlete or person who has like shattered some sort of imagery sports is just the easiest one because white people will are, you know, like if you entertain them in sports, then they'll be like, that's slowly how it worked. But Jackie Robinson knew he was going knew he was going through a moment. Right. He was a fight, he's an adult chose it knew he would get fucking through the line and

chose to fight through it and is remembered for it. But if you can't you can't put that on a 14 year old. Yeah. You can't put it on anybody. No. You like anybody who's not into that moment, you can't be like, well, go live it. And then, you know, I saw, you know, this is also happening in elementary schools and that's not really talked about.

But I'm sorry, but those kids can be fucking brutal and particularly at that time when they didn't have the same sort of bully rolls. So you can only imagine the shit that was going on there. Yeah. With the little guys. Yeah. So, yeah, it's, it's, I mean, I get why they did it. But at least Boston learned its lesson.

Like the silver lining and something like this is like, okay, it was tough, but at the end of the day, white people just started going to different schools. So there you go. Another beautiful summed up lesson from this podcast, which is brought to you by knowledge. Knowledge. Wow. And I wonder what happened to Duffy, Duffy, if you're out there, give us a call. I'm still out of here.

I've still got my noodle hand. Look at the fingers. All my fingers are different sizes. They were. Well, that's our first two parter. Yeah. We signed, we signed racists. Yep.

We're right. Hopefully you guys enjoy them.