Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Civil Rights Gone Wrong: Racial Nostalgia, Historical Memory, And The Boston Busing Crisis In Contemporary Children’S Literature, Lynnell L. Thomas

American Studies Faculty Publication Series

On May 14, 2014, three white Boston city councilors refused to vote to approve a resolution honoring the sixtieth anniversary of Brown v. the Board of Education because, as one remarked, “I didn’t want to get into a debate regarding forced busing in Boston.” Against the recent national proliferation of celebrations of civil rights milestones and legislation, the controversy surrounding the fortieth anniversary of the court decision that mandated busing to desegregate Boston public schools speaks volumes about the historical memory of Boston’s civil rights movement. Two highly acclaimed contemporary works of children’s literature set during or inspired by Boston’s …

Stop And Frisk: From Slave-Catchers To Nypd, A Legal Commentary, Gloria J. Browne-Marshall

Trotter Review

Today’s “stop and frisk” practices stem from centuries of legal control of Africans in America. Colonial laws were drafted specifically to control Africans, enslaved and free. Slave catchers culled the woods in search of those Africans who dared escape. After slavery ended, “Black Codes” or criminal laws were enacted to ensnare African Americans, including the sinister convict-lease system that existed well into the twentieth century. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled to extend police authority to stop and frisk during the Civil Rights Movement.

Police abuse of stop and frisk has led to tens of millions of people detained and searched …

William Monroe Trotter: A One-Man Protester For Civil Rights, Robert C. Hayden

Trotter Review

William Monroe Trotter was the first, the only and the last of Boston’s significant protest leaders for civil rights, equality and justice for black Americans in this century. He gained national stature between 1901 and 1934.

Trotter was uncompromising in his demand for complete and immediate equality for black Americans in the early 1900s. His stress on militant protest for integration, legal and voting rights for blacks during the first quarter of this century became the hallmark of the modern civil rights movements of the 1954—65 period. William Monroe Trotter was a man 50 years ahead of his time.