segregation

On a frigid morning in 1964, students crowded into the assembly hall at St. Mark’s Social Center in Roxbury. Bundled in winter coats and boots, some students wore excited smiles while others stayed straight-faced, waiting. Outside, school buses carrying suburban students waited among piles of snow.

Before federal Judge W. Arthur Garrity’s school desegregation order in 1974 led to an explosion of white opposition in some Boston neighborhoods, Black leaders had spent about a decade trying just about everything they could to secure a better education for their community’s children.

Our elected officials must commit themselves to ending systemic racism which creates the current segregated system in which some students receive a quality education and others do not. We need leadership to narrow opportunity gaps and focus on the residents who are experiencing the worst of the pandemic, not just in the Boston Public Schools but in all our neighborhoods.

The Policy for Progress group in Massachusetts is taking a closer look at the problem of segregated schools. Its recent “Commonwealth Fault Lines” study compares pairs of neighboring Massachusetts cities, including Boston and Needham. In a webinar on Jan. 26, hosted by MassINC, researchers and legislators concerned about the issue discussed how segregation has increased over the years and methods to reduce it.