To mark the 50th anniversary of court-ordered school desegregation in Boston on Thursday, a yellow school bus drove reporters and educators on a pilgrimage around the city to sites that played a key role in that notoriously divisive period in Boston’s civic life.
The tour went to City Hall, where a mob of busing opponents turned on Senator Ted Kennedy, shattering the windows of the building where he took refuge. It stopped at South Boston High School, where white parents threw stones and insults at Black children from Roxbury who were arriving for their first day of class. It made its way to Freedom House in Roxbury, where Black parents, educators and activists strategized about how to keep children safe and continue their struggle for more equitable education.