Hundreds rally to fight school resegregation
By Frank Neisser
Boston
Hundreds of parents and students rallied Feb.
10 at the 12th Baptist Church in Roxbury to send a strong
message to those who rule Boston: A return to segregation under
the slogan of "neighborhood schools" will not be tolerated.
The Boston School Committee, which is appointed by the
mayor, has launched a process to "re-evaluate" its current plan
that assigns students to schools. A task force has been
appointed to conduct community meetings like one at the church
to prepare for a new plan.
People in the community say they recognize this as a slick
cover for the mayor's racist move to resegregate the schools.
In the community news conference before the Feb. 10 task force
meeting in Roxbury, African American City Councilor Chuck
Turner made this clear.
He and others pointed out that the city has sold many school
buildings in the communities of color that have been turn ed
into condominiums, leaving children of color bearing a
disproportionate weight of the busing burden. But even if there
were schools available, the record since the Supreme Court's
1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling shows that segregated
schools do not get equal resources.
Residential segregation remains as strong as ever in
Boston.
The attacks on desegregation in the schools have been coming
hot and heavy since the beginning of the year, when Mayor Tom
Menino called for a "return to neighborhood schools" in his
State of the City address.
After the mayor's speech, the president of the Boston City
Council removed Turner from his post as chair of the Edu cation
Committee, replacing him with a white racist who espouses a
return to "neighborhood schools."
Before Turner's removal community supporters and
progressives had mounted a campaign of calls and letters to
support him. Turner responded to his removal by saying "the
spirit of Louise Day Hicks is alive and well in the city
council."
Louise Day Hicks was the symbol of the racist anti-busing
movement in 1974 that resisted desegregation by hurling stones
and bricks at buses carrying African American
schoolchildren.
Community speaks out against racism
At the Feb. 10 meeting, parents from the Black and Latino
communities made it clear they would not tolerate
resegregation.
They demanded an increase in the quality of all schools in
Boston, reinstatement of Turner as chair of the City Coun cil's
education committee, discontinuation of racist standardized
MCAS tests--and that parental choice in student assignment be
continued and extended citywide so that students of color can
get an equal, quality education at the school of their
choice.
They condemned the task force process as a sham. And they
told the task force and the School Superintendent Thomas Pay
zant that there is no basis for the community to trust in the
School Committee given its continued failure to provide quality
education to students of color.
They said quality education for their chil dren is a matter
of survival--and that they would "wage war" to get it and
defend it.
Chuck Turner gave a concluding statement in which he
acknowledged the efforts of the Boston school bus drivers'
union for having helped to mobilize the hundreds of parents and
students who attended. Union drivers distributed thousands of
fliers to students on the school buses.
Turner pointed out that while other, pre dominantly white,
neighborhoods were calling for excluding children from quality
education under the slogan "neigh borhood schools," as Louise
Day Hicks did, the Black community was calling for quality
education in all schools and opposing limitation of choice. He
spoke of the 1974 march against racism by 25,000 people in
Boston to support the right of the African American community
to equal quality education by whatever means it chose.
He urged everyone at the meeting to be an organizer, calling
for a new march against racism, and to take the issue to the
mayor. Turner called on progressive allies from Boston and
beyond to contribute to help build such a mobilization.
Members of the Boston chapter of the ANSWER Coalition were
present at the Feb. 10 meeting to express solidarity in the
struggle against racism. They distributed a flier calling for
an end to the war on desegregation and affirmative action. The
leaflet invoked the history of the racist 1974 mobilization in
Boston and the victories of the communities of color and
anti-racist forces--including the 25,000-strong anti-racist
march and community defense of homes against racist
attacks.
The flier also supported the workers in the teachers' and
school bus drivers' unions in their fights for contracts, and
demanded that the money going to Bush's wars and occupation of
Iraq be used instead for the schools. The Boston school bus
drivers' union also distributed a leaflet calling for
solidarity with communities of color in their fight against
racism. And the union urged the defense of the oppressed
communities' right to choose where their children go to school,
and the right to access to equal quality education and equal
resources.
Reprinted from the Feb. 26, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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