A short history of boston-(ch6&ch7)

2Reflections-AShortHistoryofBoston.docx

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1.The Coconut Grove fire was a great tragedy, so much that it even overshadowed the World War II events as new paper headlines briefly. Hundreds were killed and the fire is recorded as the second-deadliest single-building fire in American history. A large part of the high death toll was a panic caused stampede. The stampede in combination with the darkness caused due lights going out and revolving doors at the entrances made a lethal death trap for the people in Coconut Grove. I have never liked revolving doors; this unfortunate incident reinforces my dislike for them. The fire prompted introduction of new and revision of old laws, interestingly quite a few of them explicitly pertained to the usage of revolving doors at buildings’ entrances. In the course of finding about more about the incident, I came across a victims and escapees page. This page had a very interesting account of a Coast Guardsman Clifford Johnson who went back into the Grove more than 4 times to look for his date. I commend the chivalry and fearlessness of this man, I do not know if would have been able to that. He survived this fire and lived a fulfilling life before succumbing to an automobile fire a few years later; guess he had fate with fire. After reading up on the incident I went on to watch the short film - Alarm, Coconut Grove Disaster of November 28, 1942. As a connoisseur of movies, I was satisfied by how well done the dramatic representation was considering the times. However, the film made many concessions in order to make it more sensational; for example, since the origin of the fire was unfound, it fictionalized one. The only other thing I had qualms with was the expositional narration (I think I have watched too much CinemaSins these past few days.) Overall, the film was a good watch.

2. This week’s readings touched upon a multitude of industrial and social changes in Boston during the 1900s. In particular, Robert J. Allison’s sixth chapter contains a large section focusing on the issues of segregation in Boston schools. He explains how schools with higher populations of minority students were systematically underfunded, and that the major attempts to promote desegregation were met with backlash from people in the city. The first attempt to reduce inequality was the Racial Imbalance Law of 1965, which essentially mandated integration in Boston schools. But this was only met with opposition and stubbornness from those on the school committee, who “rather than responding to pressure... by providing more resources or building magnet schools, instead dug in its heels” (Allison, 101). The next major attempt to ensure integration occurred in response to the committee’s decision to build a new school in the predominantly White neighborhood Allston, instead of in more diverse communities like Dorchester or South End. A group of African American parents sued the school committee, leading to a federal ruling in 1974 that called upon a new method of balancing the schools racially.

This major change resulted in the Boston busing controversy, where students were shuttled between various predominant-White and predominant-minority schools. As usual, this program was met with a lot of backlash, this time through the form of violence in areas like Charlestown and South Boston. This practice found community activists “pitted against one another rather than against the common threats to all Boston neighborhoods” (Allison, 102). Although many activists such as Mayor Ray Flynn tried to compromise and heal the divide, this attempt to desegregate schools ultimately failed. Allison remarks how “by the 1990s more than 90 percent of the Boston public school students in all neighborhoods were minority students, but they still were bused all around the city to ensure illusory racial balance” (Allison, 103). The fact this is still an issue in recent times brings me to my next point, and why I find this topic so important to learn about.

There is now a practice in many schools in the Greater Boston Area known as the METCO program, which any of you guys who attended schools in this area are likely familiar with. For those that aren’t, it is a program that essentially allows minority students in some areas of Boston to attend high school in various towns in Eastern Mass. More specifically, its webpage states their goal is to “expand educational opportunities, increase diversity, and reduce racial isolation, by permitting students in certain cities to attend public schools in other communities that have agreed to participate.” My high school was part of this program, and though I can’t speak for the other towns, this program didn’t quite tackle some of the ongoing problems pertaining to diversity within my school. That is, though it’s certainly a great opportunity for some students in potentially lower income areas in Boston to access better forms of education and higher quality classrooms, there is still a fundamental lack of racial integration.

This is in part attributable to many of these towns including mine being predominantly white, though I’ve observed that even with the inclusion of minority students from Boston, there is still a noticeable lack of diversity. As a minority myself (that already lived in the town), I was one of few that got a good view of both sides. African American and other minority students would often say they didn’t always feel welcome by their White peers; conversely, White students would often say that their minority counterparts never really seemed to have any interest in associating with them. There were of course some exceptions to this, but overall there is certainly still an aura of segregation that often remains overlooked.

In short, many people often see segregation as an issue of the past; however integration in modern schools is clearly still an issue, and a much neglected one at that. I remember in a class way back in high school, our history teacher showed us a cool map that displays roughly 1 dot per 1 person based on 2010 census data. These dots are also color coded based on different ethnicities (it can be viewed here at https://demographics.virginia.edu/DotMap/). Looking at Boston, among other urban areas, is pretty interesting as it can really put into perspective how segregated our communities remain.