Boston busing crisis

The desegregation of Boston's public schools was a major historical event that was the product of many different historical forces and events. In turn, it gave rise to many other important events. The following questions ask you to consider the Boston busing experience in relation to some of those historical forces and events. Be sure to respond to each question in 2-3 complete sentences, using proper grammar.

1. What events or historical forces contributed to the Boston busing crisis of the mid-1970s? Name at least three, and briefly explain why you think each one was a contributory cause of the Boston busing crisis.

2. Name three specific consequences of the Boston busing crisis

Boston, Busing, and Backlash
The struggle for voting rights, which we looked at in Theme 3, Learning Block 3, was a struggle against de jure segregation* that existed in just one part of the country: the states of the Old South. But the problem of de facto segregation* was one that existed throughout the country, and its effects were perhaps seen most clearly in the nation's public schools.

A series of Supreme Court cases in the early 1960s made it clear that de facto school segregation was unconstitutional and that segregated schools would be integrated by court order if necessary. Beginning in the early 1970s, the Court began requiring school busing* plans, which would send African-American students to largely white schools and send white students to largely African-American schools, as a means of achieving greater racial balance.

In Boston, the city's small but growing African-American community began protesting the quality of public schools in largely black neighborhoods in the early 1960s. In 1965, in response to a federal investigation of possible segregation in the Boston public schools, the Massachusetts legislature passed the Racial Imbalance Act. The new law outlawed segregation in Massachusetts schools and threatened to cut off state funding for any school district that did not comply. (Levy, 1971)