Louise Day Hicks - De Facto Segregation

De Facto Segregation

She ran successfully for the Boston School Committee in 1961, presenting herself as a reform candidate. In January 1963, she became the committee chairperson and seemed likely to be endorsed by the leading reform group when, in June, the Boston chapter of the NAACP demanded "an immediate public acknowledgment of de facto segregation in the Boston public school system." At the time, 13 city schools were at least 90% black.

The committee refused to acknowledge the segregation. Hicks was recognized as the holdout; within months she became Boston's most popular politician and the most controversial, requiring police bodyguards 24 hours a day. Hicks became nationally known in 1965 when she opposed court-ordered busing of students into inner-city schools to achieve integration.

By refusing to admit segregation existed in city schools and by declaring that children were the "pawns" of racial politics, she came to personify the discord that existed between some working class Irish-Americans and African-Americans. "Boston schools are a scapegoat for those who have failed to solve the housing, economic, and social problems of the black citizen," Hicks said. She asserted that while 13 Boston schools were at least 90% black, Chinatown schools were 100% Chinese, the North End had schools that were 100% Italian American, and South Boston contained schools that were mostly Irish American. The Boston Public Schools included a conglomerate of ethnic Whites ("Caucasians") with very few WASPs.