Resources Documenting School Desegregation

Boston College

• Citywide Coordinating Council Records, 1975-1978
• Louise Bonar and Carol Wolfe Collection of Boston Education Materials 1952-1984

City of Boston Archives

• Boston Public Schools Desegregation-era Records Collection 1952-2004
• Citywide Parents Council 1975-1993
• Louise Day Hicks papers 1971-1975
• Mayor Kevin H. White records 1929-1999
• Morgan et al. v. Hennigan et al. and related cases files

Massachusetts State Archives

• Massachusetts Executive Office of Educational Affairs Administrative Files, 1972-1980

Northeastern University

• Citywide Educational Coalition records 1972-2001
• Frank Miranda papers 1964-2005
• Freedom House, Inc. records 1941-2001
• James W. Fraser (collector) photograph collection
• Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, Inc. records 1961-2005
• Phyllis M. Ryan papers 1959-1988
• Roxbury Multi-Service Center Records 1965-2002

Suffolk University

• Congressman John Joseph Moakley papers
• Oral History Interviews

The books listed below are available via the Boston Public Library.

• Boston: 12 Moments that Mattered, 1872-1997
• Desegregating the Boston Public Schools
• Desegregation in Boston and Buffalo: The Influence of Local Leaders
• Desegregation: The Boston Orders and Their Origin
• From Little Rock to Boston
• The Hardest Lesson: Personal Accounts of a School Desegregation Crisis
• History in the Making: An Absorbing Look at How American History Has Changed in the Telling Over the Last 200 Years
• Life Upon These Shores: Looking at African American History, 1513-2008
• A People's History of the New Boston
• The Resegregation of Suburban Schools
• Schools on Trial
• Southie Won't Go: A Teacher's Diary of the Desegregation of South Boston High School
• Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation

UMass Boston does not hold copies of the following titles, but patrons may be able to request them through interlibrary loan. See https://www.umb.edu/library/interlibrary_loan.

• Boston Desegregation: The First Term the 1974-1975 School Year
• Boston Desegregation: Questions and Answers
• The Boston School Integration Dispute: Social Change and Legal Maneuvers
• Community Crisis Intervention and the Boston School Desegregation Effort: Case Study of a Training Program
• Desegregation and Busing: An annotated Bibliography, with Special Reference to the Case in Boston
• From Brown to Boston. 2: Desegregation in Education, 1954-1974, Legal Cases and Indexes
• "I Respectfully Disagree with the Judge's Order:" The Boston School Desegregation Order
• The Racist Offensive Against Busing: The Lessons Against Busing: How to Fight Back
• Reminiscences of James Madison Nabrit III: Oral History 1979

The publications listed below are held at the Boston Public Library, and the digitized items are available through the Internet Archive. To locate additional digitized publications about desegregation through the Internet Archive, visit archive.org and search for related keywords such as "school desegregation," "Boston desegregation," or "busing crisis."

• Analysis of the Impact of Implementation of the School Desegregation Plan on Population Flows in Boston
• Boston School Desegregation Project
• Report No. 2 to the United States District Court, District of Massachusetts on Boston School Desegregation
• Report No. 3 to the United States District Court, District of Massachusetts on Boston School Desegregation
• Report No. 4 to the United States District Court, District of Massachusetts on Boston School Desegregation
• Report No. 5 to the United States District Court, District of Massachusetts on Boston School Desegregation
• School Desegregation Plan
• Student Desegregation Plan Submitted by the School Committee of the City of Boston, January 27, 1975
• United Facilities Plan: Summary and Recommendations (Part 1)

This list provides a sampling of journal articles that are available through the Healey Library. For more articles please search through the Healey's Databases & Indexes.

• Chancy, Joette and Brenda Franklin "Report from Boston: The Struggle for Desegregation," Black School 7, no. 4 (Dec. 1975): 19-27.
• Durham, Joseph T. "Sense and Nonsense About Busing." The Journal of Negro Education 42.3 (1973): 322-35
• Hannon, James T. "The Influence of Catholic Schools on the Desegregation of Public School Systems: A Case Study of White Flight in Boston." Population Research and Policy Review 3.3 (1984): 219-37 
• Hornburger, Jane M. "Deep Are the Roots: Busing in Boston." The Journal of Negro Education 45.3 (1976): 235-45.
• Jones, Leon. "Brown Revisited: From Topeka, Kansas to Boston, Massachusetts." Phylon (1960-) 37.4 (1976): 343-58.
• Lewyn, Michael E. "The Courts vs. The Cities." The Urban Lawyer 25.2 (1993): 453-61.
• McAndrews, Lawrence J. "Missing the Bus: Gerald Ford and School Desegregation." Presidential Studies Quarterly 27.4 (1997): 791-804.
• Nutter, Kathleen Banks. "Militant Mothers": Boston, Busing, and the Bicentennial of 1976." Historical Journal of Massachusetts 38.2 (2010): 53-XI 
• Olzak, Susan, Shanahan Suzanne, and West Elizabeth. "School Desegregation, Interracial Exposure, and Antibusing Activity in Contemporary Urban America." American Journal of Sociology 100.1 (1994): 196-241.
• Richer, Matthew. "Busing's Boston Massacre." Policy Review.92 (1998): 42-7. 
• Rossell, Christine H. "School Desegregation and Community Social Change." Law and Contemporary Problems 42.3 (1978): 133-83.
• Schofield, Janet Ward. "Inside Desegregated Schools: Understanding How and Why They Influence Students." American Journal of Education 109.3 (2001): 383-90.
• Theoharis, J. F. "We Saved the City": Black Struggles for Educational Equality in Boston, 1960-1976." Radical History Review 81.1 (2001): 61-93 
• Useem, Bert. "Models of the Boston Anti-Busing Movement: Polity/Mobilization and Relative Deprivation." The Sociological Quarterly 22.2 (1981): 263-74. 

Search or browse all of the Healey Library's newspaper databases.

• The Boston Busing/Desegregation Project, a project of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods
• Digital Commonwealth: Search for the subject term "Busing for Integration"
• Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement 1954-1985;" "The Story of a Movement - School Desegregation in Boston;" produced by PBS as part of its American Experience series
• Long Road to Justice: The African American Experience in the Massachusetts' Courts; "Education: Morgan v. Hennigan;" produced by the Massachusetts Historical Society
• Mosaic records and publication, 1980-1990: Digitized Materials
• Stark and Subtle Divisions: A Collaborative History of Segregation in Boston
• W. Arthur Garrity, Jr. chambers papers on the Boston Schools Desegregation Case: Digitized Materials

Stark & Subtle Divisions was designed by graduate students in the History and American Studies departments at University of Massachusetts Boston. This collection showcases letters, photographs, legal documents, artifacts, and interviews that explore de facto segregation in Boston and the federally-mandated desegregation of Boston public schools.

UMass Boston does not hold copies of the following titles, but patrons may be able to request them through interlibrary loan. See https://www.umb.edu/library/interlibrary_loan.

• The Community Decision Making Process in the Boston Desegregation Case from 1965 to 1975.
  • Publication Date: 1977
• Desegregation in Boston: The Politics of a Social Policy
  • Publication Date: 1975
• Narratives of the Past in Contemporary Urban Politics: The Case of the Boston Desegregation Crisis
  • Publication Date: 2015

Documentary:

• Beyond Black and White: Race in the Boston Public Schools
  • 57 minutes, 2005
  • Created by: WGBH. Hosted by Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., Thomas Payzant, Gary Orfeld, and Melissa Colon
• Desegregated, Yet Unequal
  • 7 minutes, 2015
  • Creators: David Knight and Stephen Shane
• Eyes on the Prize: The Keys to the Kingdom, 1974-1980
  • Episode 13, 55 minutes, 1987
  • Creator and Executive Producer: Henry Hampton

Made for television:

• Common Ground Part 1
  • Adaption of J. Anthony Lukas' Common Ground
  • 1 hour, 37 minutes
  • Director: Mike Newell
• Common Ground Part 2
  • Adaption of J. Anthony Lukas' Common Ground
  • 1 hour, 55 minutes
  • Director: Mike Newell