A Tale of Two Responses

Bostonians protesting forced busing 

In early 2016, our local PBS station started re-airing the documentary miniseries Eyes on the Prize which profiled many pivotal chapters of the country's civil rights movement.  The episode entitled The Keys to the Kingdom primarily focused on the Boston busing crisis of the 1970s.  As I watched the events of those dark days unfold on my TV screen, I found myself filled with sadness because a great opportunity to show the world what Catholic values were all about was lost in a sea of fear, ignorance and hatred.

Boston had been a hotbed for the abolitionist movement and during the Civil War, Massachusetts was home to the first all-black regiment but these and many other milestones did not make the state a utopia of racial harmony.  On the contrary, some complained of latent racism where segregation was often implied.  Boston's neighborhoods tended to be divided along cultural lines and the evils of block busting and redlining only made matters worse.  Funds and resources regularly went to schools in predominately white neighborhoods while their black counterparts had to do without.

The deck was stacked heavily against Boston's minority students but an all-white school board refused to even acknowledge the problem.  Legal action was taken and in 1974, Judge W. Arthur Garrity ruled Boston's school system too segregated and implemented a long-ignored busing plan where students from the black neighborhood of Roxbury would trade places with students from the Irish Catholic neighborhood of South Boston.

This is not a Christian response.

The plan was met with outrage from many of South Boston's residents.  Some felt it was a risky social experiment that would only hurt the neighborhood's children while others were clearly racist.  Protests calling for an end to busing devolved into angry mobs holding offensive signs.  Rocks and eggs were thrown at buses transporting black students into the community.  Fear was in the air.  The year before, there had been three grisly murders of innocent whites at the hands of blacks within the span of a week.  In letters to Judge Garrity, concerned residents pointed out the deplorable conditions of inner city neighborhoods and worried integration would bring the same to South Boston.

The cycle of hatred and violence only increased.  White protesters attacked a black man outside city hall.  Two weeks later, blacks threw stones at a white driver in Roxbury and beat him into a fatal coma as onlookers shouted to first responders, “Let him die!”  A black resident of a South Boston housing project was shot by a rooftop sniper.  A black youth waiting for the bus was stabbed to death by two whites in a passing car.  Black students and white students viciously bullied each other and massive resources were spent not educating children but making sure they survived the school day.  How is it that ordinary citizens became murderers?

As Christians, we are told “be not afraid” but the Boston busing crisis shows us just how quickly evil spreads when we fail to take up our crosses and see the bigger picture.  For years, many were content to let neglect fester within the black community.  Countless young minds were being lost and when something was finally done to correct this, many of South Boston's Catholics pushed their faith aside to embrace sin.  Had busing occurred between two white neighborhoods, I doubt it would have created such a firestorm.  Not to be outdone, some in Roxbury decided revenge was far more acceptable than love or forgiveness.  Today, it's not difficult to find comments on the internet from traumatized former students (both black and white) who felt busing turned their young lives upside down and caused nothing but misery.

This is a Christian response.  See the difference?

Yet, it didn't have to be this way.  During the 1965 march on Selma, students from various Catholic colleges were joined by priests and nuns to confront racial injustice in a very visible way.  Sister Antona Ebo famously told the media, “I am here because I am a Negro, a nun, a Catholic, and because I want to bear witness.”  None of these Catholics knew exactly what to do when they arrived in Selma but their faith gave them wisdom and strength.  Dr. Martin Luther King felt the nuns' participation during the march had significantly helped the civil rights movement by making the struggle a moral issue.  It's no coincidence that after Selma, nuns from all over the country began to move away from their traditional roles to embrace social justice issues.

Sometimes life places us into situations we would rather not be in.  It's our responses to these difficulties that count.  Imagine how different the history of Boston's busing crisis would be had the people of South Boston denied themselves and put their Catholic faith into action.  What if angry fists had been replaced by smiles?  (...even reluctant smiles.)  Loving your enemies or turning the other cheek is a very tough thing to do but it's what defines us as Christians.