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Document 5: “The Soiling of Old Glory” by Stanley Forman (April 5, 1976) In 1965, Massachusetts passed the Racial Imbalance Act that required school districts to desegregate or risk losing state funding. In 1974, federal judge Wendell A. Garrity Jr. ordered a compulsory busing program in Boston that required white and black school children to be bused throughout the district to finally bring about desegregation. While Garrity’s ruling would eventually be upheld by the Supreme Court, racial tensions immediately boiled over in the streets of Boston. This photograph was taken as Theodore Landsmark, simply walking to Boston City Hall, was attacked by a group of white anti-busing protesters, including Joseph Rakes who attempted to assault him with an American flag.

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