Judge W. Arthur Garrity

Boston Desegregation and Busing Initiative's walking tour illuminates Boston’s desegregation history 50 years after busing.

Federal judge W. Arthur Garrity, hailed as a hero or denounced as a villain, had no choice but to order the desegregation of Boston’s public schools in 1974 and deploy yellow buses to remedy a wanton violation of the Constitution, legal analysts involved with the epic case say.

MIT Professor Karilyn Crockett was just born the year before federal Judge W. Arthur Garrity ordered the Boston Public Schools to desegregate, but noted her grandmother joined the lawsuit because she felt even the separate but unequal schools back in West Virginia served Black students better.