WGBH, September 2024
Fifty years after Boston’s court-ordered busing plan was implemented to desegregate the city’s public schools, Boston continues to grapple with the fallout of the controversial decision. For Kim Janey, the city’s first Black and first female mayor, the repercussions of the busing program were personal.
“My parents kept me home for the first couple of weeks. They did not agree with the [Judge W. Arthur] Garrity decision. They did not want to bus me outside of my neighborhood,” Janey recalled on Boston Public Radio on Wednesday. “I remember the distorted faces of the people in the mobs. I remember the police escorts. I remember having to sometimes leave out the back door of school to avoid some sort of riot in the streets,” she said.
