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Oral History Interview of John Joseph Moakley (OH-001)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Oral History Interview of John
Joseph Moakley
Interview Date: April 2, 2001
Interviewed by: Robert Allison, Suffolk
University History Professor and Joseph
McEttrick, Suffolk University Law School
Professor.
Copyright Information: Copyright
©2001, Suffolk University.
Citation: Moakley, John Joseph. Interviewed by Robert Allison and Joseph McEttrick. John
Joseph Moakley Oral History Project, OH-001. 2 April 2001. Transcript and video recording
available. John Joseph Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Interview Summary
Congressman John Joseph Moakley, who served the Ninth District of Massachusetts from 1973
through 2001, discusses his life and political career. This interview covers what it was like to
grow up in South Boston in the thirties and forties; his military service in the Navy during
WWII; how he became involved in local politics in the fifties; his career as a member of the
Massachusetts General Court during the fifties and sixties; his memories of Suffolk University
Law School and his law practice; his late wife Evelyn; how the city of Boston has changed
during his career in public office; his thoughts regarding the Boston school desegregation in the
seventies; his campaigns for congressional office; his career working in Washington D.C.; his
work in El Salvador as chairman of a special task force following the murder of six Jesuit priests,
their housekeeper and her daughter; and his work to help improve conditions in Cuba. He ends
by remembering important figures that helped shape his career and giving his own advice for
future elected officials.
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
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�Oral History Interview of John Joseph Moakley (OH-001)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Subject Headings
Boston (Mass.)
Cuba
El Salvador
Massachusetts Politics and
Government
Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
O’Neill, Tip
South Boston (Boston, Mass)
Suffolk University Law School
United States. Congress.
Table of Contents
Part 1
Growing up in South Boston
p. 3 (00:02)
Military service
p. 9 (10:29)
State political career
p. 12 (16:05)
Member of Congress (1973-2001)
p. 19 (29:30)
Evelyn Moakley
p. 25 (41:24)
Suffolk University Law School
p. 26 (43:34)
Thoughts on political figures
p. 30 (47:58)
Improvements to Boston
p. 36 (1:00:30)
Part 2
El Salvador involvement
p. 43 (13:55)
Cuba
p. 49 (29:09)
Reflections of almost fifty years in public office
p. 53 (39:07)
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
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�Oral History Interview of John Joseph Moakley (OH-001)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Interview transcript begins on next page
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�OH-001 Transcript
This interview took place on April 2, 2001, at Congressman Moakley’s district office
in South Boston, MA.
Interview Transcript
(Interview begins during casual conversation)
CONGRESSMAN JOHN JOSEPH MOAKLEY: Unless it’s getting right down to the wire
and we’re in contention somewhere, then I’m an avid sports fan.
PROFESSOR JOSEPH McETTRICK: In high school football in those days, did they have
you play offense/defense?
MOAKLEY: Oh, yeah. We played everything.
(interruption)
PROFESSOR ROBERT ALLISON: To follow this up, you played hockey and football.
Where would you play when you were a kid? I mean not when you got on the team.
MOAKLEY: Oh, down at Columbus Park; they used to flood the park in the wintertime and it
would freeze over, and you’d go ice skating. Of course ice skates were very, very expensive in
those days, and your parents would always buy them three sizes too big anyway, and you’d be on
your ankles all day long, and by the time you grew into the shoes, you probably couldn’t walk
anyway.
But you know, when I was growing up as a kid everything was unorganized. I mean, every
corner had a baseball team. Every corner had a football team. Every corner had some kind of a
pickup situation. And the Columbus Park, fifty-seven acre park in South Boston, right across
from the projects where I grew up, that was the place we all met.
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�OH-001 Transcript
McETTRICK: Did you have a chance much to get out on the water?
MOAKLEY: Well, not a boat—I like to swim. I bought a boat when JFK [John Fitzgerald
Kennedy] got assassinated, and I had it about two years, and then I took up golf, and I didn’t
have time for the boat, so I got rid of the boat.
ALLISON: What kind of a boat was it?
MOAKLEY: It was a thirty-two foot sports Ulrichsen lapstrake, three-quarter inch lapstrake
mahogany, 310-grade marine engine; but they’re a lot more fun riding in someone else’s than
owning your own I’ll tell you.
ALLISON: It’s an expensive hobby?
MOAKLEY: Well, you know, you’re never through with it, and then in the wintertime, you’re
scraping it, and in the summertime you’re equipping it, you know, and then you can’t go out by
yourself, so you invite everybody and you feed them and give them the fishing poles. You go
fishing up till about seven o’clock at night; you come back, and you’re there till midnight
unsnarling the lines. I figured there were more important things to do with my time.
McETTRICK: I guess we were interested in what it was like growing up in South Boston, and
what your parents did, and where did you hang out in the neighborhood? Tell us a little bit about
your growing up in Southie.
MOAKLEY: Well growing up in the thirties, everybody was poor, but we just didn’t know it.
Pre-television, so that there was nothing to keep you in the house, so life really existed on the
streets, the street corners. And you learned to bond with one another. You learned your
strengths and weaknesses. You learned what life was really about just being on the street
corners. And I think a lot of my political acumen comes from the ability that I developed just
hanging on street corners and knowing, what was the right thing to do, what was the wrong thing
to do, and how best to achieve an end.
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�OH-001 Transcript
McETTRICK: So where were you living when you first remember growing up in South
Boston? Had the project been built yet, or where were you?
MOAKLEY: Yeah. The project was built in ‘38, and my father, my mother, and my two
brothers were one of the first people in the projects. But we grew up on Dorchester and Old
Colony Avenue, Dorchester Street and Old Colony Avenue, over a hardware store. And I
figured that’s where I got my nuts and bolts politics from the hardware store. (laughter)
ALLISON: Is it still there?
MOAKLEY: Yeah. It’s there. In fact, I told someone that someone just bought the house I
was born in. He says, “Are they going to make a national shrine out of it?” I said, “No. They’re
going to tear it down and make a garage out of it.” (laughter)
ALLISON: So what was it like moving into the projects?
MOAKLEY: Actually, it was a delight. I mean, gee, we moved into a brand new building, and
we really had ice cube trays then. You know, you could make your own ice cubes and you had
heat. I mean up until then the only heat we had was the oven in the kitchen. We didn’t have any
central heat, and when you get up out of bed, you had to run like hell, open the oven door and put
your feet in, so you wouldn’t freeze to death. But we lived there from ‘38 to ‘41, ‘42.
McETTRICK: How large was your family?
MOAKLEY: It was my father, mother, and three sons.
McETTRICK: And you’re the oldest?
MOAKLEY: I was the oldest, yeah.
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�OH-001 Transcript
McETTRICK: So where did you go to elementary school?
MOAKLEY: I went to John Boyle O’Reilly School, which is now an elderly housing, and then
I went to the Thomas N. Hart School, which is now elderly housing, and then I went to South
Boston High School, and then I quit when I was in my third year when I was fifteen; forged
some papers, joined the navy. This was in the middle of World War II. Did three years and then
came back, went to prep school, went to college, went to law school.
ALLISON: Did the navy ever find out that you had forged the paper?
MOAKLEY: No. In fact there’s a group that’s been incorporated, it’s about underage veterans
of World War II.1 I joined up when there was two of them in the Congress, Mike Mansfield,2 the
son of Mike Mansfield, when he was younger. But it was a great experience.
I was taking up sheet metal in South Boston. You know in those days, we had a caste system in
the city of Boston. If your father was a doctor or a lawyer or dentist; you were going to be a
doctor, lawyer or dentist. If your father was a dock worker or a longshoreman or a sheet metal
worker, you were going to be that. I mean there was no crossing. The only opportunity you had
is--when we got out of the service, we had the GI Bill of Rights,3 and some of us took advantage
of it, and broke the mold.
McETTRICK: When you went to South Boston High, did you have any part-time jobs? What
did you do after school?
MOAKLEY: Not really. As I said, I quit there when I was fifteen, so I was in the cooperative
course; that meant that I was taking sheet metal, so they used to send us out to work in some of
the shops at thirty cents an hour, but that was part of the school training.
1
The Veterans of Underage Military Service was incorporated in Ellicott City, Maryland, in 1991 by Allan
Stover. (See http://www.oldvums.com/ for more information)
2
Michael Joseph “Mike” Mansfield (1903-2001), a Democrat, represented Montana in the U.S. House of
Representatives from 1943 to 1953, then in the U.S. Senate from 1953 to 1977. He entered the navy at age 14
during World War I, served for nineteen months, then spent one year in the army and two years in the Marine Corps.
3
The GI Bill of Rights, officially called the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, provided, among other
benefits, government compensation for the educational costs of returning World War II veterans.
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�OH-001 Transcript
McETTRICK: Were there any teachers at South Boston High School, parish priests or a cop on
the beat, or anybody in particular that comes to mind when you think about when you were
younger? Anybody that had any influence on you, or someone that you looked up to?
MOAKLEY: Well, yeah, I had one teacher that was a math teacher—and I was kind of an
outspoken kid in high school. They’d call it fresh today. He chastised me a few times, but I had
great respect for him. Even when I was in the service, I’d write him a note or two.
McETTRICK: What parish was the family living in then?
MOAKLEY: Well we went from Saint Augustine’s when we lived on Dorchester Street, to
Saint Monica’s when we lived in the project, and when we moved up to the Point,4 we were in
the (inaudible) parish, Saint Brigid’s.
ALLISON: Where about on the Point did you move to?
MOAKLEY: 5A Bateman Place—it’s upscale now; it’s Bantry Way—and lived there for a
couple of years. I guess it was cheaper to move than to pay rent. We lived in about eight places
in the Ward before we settled down, I guess.
McETTRICK: So did the parishes have many activities for youth in those days, altar boys or—
did you get involved in anything along those lines?
MOAKLEY: Well, as I said, every corner had something.
McETTRICK: So what was your corner? When you think of being on the corner or—
MOAKLEY: When I went to the Thomas N. Hart—it was a junior high school—H and Fifth
Street.
4
The Point, or City Point, area of South Boston is located on the neighborhood’s eastern side.
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�OH-001 Transcript
McETTRICK: Okay.
MOAKLEY: It was a corner I was—
McETTRICK: That was kind of your home?
MOAKLEY: That was the corner.
ALLISON: Do you ever see any kids that you remember?
MOAKLEY: Yeah. Every once in a while, I bump into—in fact, I remember one time I was
playing golf in Oyster Harbors5 with a friend of mine and he wanted to take me back to show me
his house, and they’re all great houses down there. This fellow was well-off. We walked in,
there were a lady and a man on the ladder fixing a drape, and so I said, “Hi. How are you?” So I
come out, the fellow was down off the ladder. He says, “How you doing?” I said, “Good.” He
says, “You don’t remember me, do you?” I said, “Gee, your face looks familiar, but, you
know—” He said, “Babe Zarillo.” I says, “Babe Zarillo?” I says, “The last time I saw you we
were six years old. We had a fight in Cat Alley. Why would I remember you?” (laughter) You
know, and “I remembered you,” he said. Of course, he would remember; they see you on
television. They hear you on radio.
But people are like that; they figure because they know what you look like, you should know
what they look like, but that happens many times. Someone will say, “Do you remember me?
Do you remember who I am?” and sometimes it’s kind of embarrassing, because you don’t want
to minimize the fellow’s importance. “Gee, I don’t.”
We had a congressman from one of the Midwestern states and he was kind of a hot ticket, and he
was standing in a receiving line and one of the fellows come up—the same thing, grabbed him
5
The Oyster Harbors Club is located in Osterville, MA, which is one of the seven villages of the town of Barnstable
on Cape Cod.
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�OH-001 Transcript
by the hand, and says, “You know who I am?” He says, “No. But let me get a police officer,
maybe he can help you out.” (laughter)
McETTRICK: So I suppose it must have been the situation when war started and probably a lot
of your buddies were signing up for the Marines or the Navy, the Army, everybody was pretty
much going in, I guess?
MOAKLEY: Oh, if you weren’t around, you just couldn’t imagine it. When the war broke out
in ‘41, ‘42, ‘43, patriotism was flowing in the street. They actually closed recruiting stations, not
because nobody showed up—it’s because too many people showed up. They couldn’t handle it.
I mean if you were walking down the street, and you looked like an able-bodied male, you would
get killer looks from matronly women as much as saying, “Why aren’t you in the service?” You
know, it was a different—and everybody wanted to go. Everybody wanted to stop the madness
going on in Europe.
McETTRICK: So tell us about your signing up. How did that work? Where did you sign up?
Did you have to go over to the army base or what was the—
MOAKLEY: The Fargo Building.6
McETTRICK: The Fargo Building, okay.
MOAKLEY: Well I was running with an older group. I was running with kids two or three
years older than me, because I was kind of a big kid. So I just mentioned to my father one day, I
said, “Geez, you know, they’re going to join the Navy next week. I think I’ll go with them.” He
said, “Okay.” So I come by and next week he drives up and he says, “Are you going someplace
today?” I says, “No, they’re going in town to a movie.” He says, “You’re not.” I says, “What
do you mean?” He says, “Well,” he says, “you said you were going to join the Navy. We got
the papers here for you. Come on, let’s go.”
6
The Fargo Building was located at 451 D Street in South Boston.
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�OH-001 Transcript
And my father joined the Coast Guard when he was younger, too. It just went in the family.
And I think it was the best thing for me to do at the time, because I was at a crux in my life; if I
didn’t go and I stayed with sheet metal, I may not have got in the proper time and became a
veteran. They give the GI Bill, so I’m one of the people that can say that I really benefited from
World War II.
McETTRICK: So when you actually signed up, you went to the Fargo Building. Did they put
you on a bus or a train, what happened next?
MOAKLEY: We had to go down to Camp Perry, Virginia.
McETTRICK: Okay.
MOAKLEY: And I was in charge of the forty people going down, because I enlisted. So I was
Seaman Second Class; the rest of the people drafted, they were apprentice seamen. So I had to
make sure that everybody was in line. And then when we went down to boot camp. We had
military drill in those years in Boston, the schoolboy parade and all that.
McETTRICK: Oh yes, drills in high school, yeah.
(interruption)
MOAKLEY: Yeah
MCETTRICK: So tell us about boot camp.
MOAKLEY: So we went down to boot camp, and they line us all up, and the drill instructor
says, “Anybody here have any military—have any marching experience?” I said, “Yeah.”
Because we had the schoolboys’ parade. So I became an acting drill instructor at age fifteen, and
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�OH-001 Transcript
most of these guys were twenty-five or thirty, and, you know, “Your left, your right, the rear
march.” So I did that for a lot of the time I was there.
It was intimidating because no matter how big you are, age is a very, very frightening thing. I
mean when you’ve—people who are five, ten, fifteen years older than you, and you know they
play mind games with you; you’re the boss, and they know you’re only a kid. So I mean it was
not easy, but I got through it all right.
McETTRICK: Did you wind up in the Seabees?
MOAKLEY: I went in the Seabees, because I was color blind. I went in to take the color test,
and I couldn’t fathom it. So they said, Okay, Seabee. I thought they meant color blind, but
it’s—Seabees was just a construction part of the U.S. Navy. So I was assigned to the Stevedore
Battalion, so that we used to go in and load and unload battle cargoes in the station in Pearl
Harbor for about a year. And then we left there and went to Samar in the Philippines and then
we left there, and we went to Japan.
McETTRICK: So when did you finally get out of the Navy? When were you discharged?
MOAKLEY: I got out on February 8, 1946. I did about thirty-five months. Then in those days
there weren’t too many jobs around and most of the guys my age were in the service then. So
my father used his power of persuasion once again to get me into school, which wasn’t my
favorite place to spend any time, but I went, as I said, to undergrad, then law school, and that’s it.
ALLISON: You went to Newman Prep?
MOAKLEY: I went to Newman Prep, yeah, to get my high school marks. And then I went to
the University of Miami for a year, took up sandpit playing and a few other little things.
ALLISON: What brought you down that way?
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�OH-001 Transcript
MOAKLEY: My father opened a café down there, so I went down there. While I was down
there, I figured I’d look around and get moving, doing something.
McETTRICK: So when you came back from the Navy, what was the political situation like in
South Boston? Who were the political leaders—the senator and the rep? Because you must have
kind of—
MOAKLEY: No, I really wasn’t involved. I was just a kid out of the service, and what do I
know? But the Johnny Powers7 and the Johnny Flahertys8 and Bob Linnehan and these were
the—John Kerrigan9—these were the local politicos.
ALLISON: Bill Bulger10 mentioned the story of you telling him that politics interested you
more than baseball.
MOAKLEY: Oh, yeah, Billy and I grew up in the projects a couple of years apart, but every
once in a while we’d get together. I was already—well, no, I wasn’t involved in politics then—I
just said to him, one time, I said, “You know, I’m more interested in reading the back of political
cards than I am baseball cards.” He said, “Ah! So am I.”
And of course in those days, again, the only activity in the streets were political torchlight
parades. I mean, we couldn’t wait for elections to come by, and you’d see these fifty cars going
by with these red light flares hanging out the window and a big flatbed truck would pull up, and
someone would get up and give a speech, and someone else would contest him. You know, it
was activity. Everybody was attracted to it.
7
John E. Powers (1910-1998), a Democrat, represented South Boston in the Massachusetts House of
Representatives from 1939 to 1946 and in the Massachusetts State Senate from 1947 to 1964. He served as Senate
President from 1959 to 1964.
8
John E. Flaherty (1910-2005), a Democrat, represented South Boston in the Massachusetts House of
Representatives for three terms before being appointed clerk of South Boston District Court in 1945.
9
John E. Kerrigan (1907-1987) was first elected to the Boston City Council in 1933, serving three terms as its
president. He was a member of the council for a total of thirty years and served twice as acting mayor of Boston, in
1938 and 1945. He also served two years in the State Senate.
10
William M. Bulger (1934- ), a Democrat, served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1962 to
1970, in the Massachusetts State Senate from 1970 to 1978 and as State Senate President from 1978 to 1996.
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�OH-001 Transcript
McETTRICK: How long were you down in Miami? You went to the University of Miami?
MOAKLEY: Just one year.
McETTRICK: One year, and then you came back to South Boston again?
MOAKLEY: Yes.
McETTRICK: Tell us about how you got talked into running for state representative. Was this
someone on the corner, somebody suggested it?
MOAKLEY: No. In fact, I can remember like it was yesterday. I got on a Bayview bus at
Knowlton Street, and I get on and I walked down the back of the bus and I sit down, and there’s
two fellows that I had played football with, Henry Doherty and Martin Carter, and I just got back
from the University of Miami. And of course to them, that was quite a thing, because nobody in
our group, not many people went to college.
So Marty says, “Why don’t you run for city council?” I said, “What?” He says, “Ah! You’re
young, you’re a veteran, someone our age—you know, we got to have somebody represent us,”
and Henry chimed in, he says, “Yeah.” He says, “We need a veteran. Those old guys, they
don’t know.” I wasn’t interested. Then they had some other people who kind of piqued my
curiosity, but I didn’t go for it. The next year they said, “Look it. That state rep’s fight, you got
to go for it; they have more people,” and I finally went for it. And it was a field of fifteen.
McETTRICK: Now was there a vacancy that year?
MOAKLEY: No. It was a field of fifteen and the fellow across the street from me got fourteen
hundred votes, and I lost by 199. The following year I won. I topped the ticket. Ever since then,
I’ve been topping the ticket.
ALLISON: Now were you campaigning in the torchlight parades?
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�OH-001 Transcript
MOAKLEY: Oh, absolutely. You get up at six o’clock in the morning and start knocking on
the factory gates and the MBTA [Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority] stations, you
know, buttonholing people, knocking the doors. I think the first time I ran for rep, I knocked
about three-quarters of the doors in the community.
ALLISON: Now what kind of issues would you have? You’re telling me you’re a twentythree-year-old guy running for state rep.
MOAKLEY: It’s very simple. When you’re a young kid, you say, “Give a young man a
chance,” and then when you’re there a few years, you go, “Experience counts.” And, you know,
everybody—most people like to give the young guy a chance. Politics, I think, is the only job
that you can almost say experience is not necessary. I mean, they get tired of the guy in there.
They get some fresh-faced kid, and they figure he’s going to solve all the problems and he
probably doesn’t even know what the state house is.
McETTRICK: Would you say that campaigning for representative is pretty much the same
today as it was in 1950 at that level?
MOAKLEY: Well, it’s more slick today. Today you’ve got paid campaign managers, you’ve
got paid pollsters. We would—a poll, I mean, all you would say is, “Please vote for me.”
Period. Issues—if you come from South Boston, it’s got to be labor, you know. You’ve got to
be with the working class.
In fact, when I was a kid, politicians were the guys that put the food on the table sometimes, and
if there’s a big snowstorm and the railroad people were hiring people to shovel snow, if you go
down to your local politician, he’d give you a little white button; you’d put on and you’d go face
the pick-up and the man up there picking the people would be picking all the guys with the white
buttons, because they know that was Representative Kirby’s or Representative Sullivan’s guy.
And, you know, that was a great job. You got about twenty cents an hour. But the politician was
very much in the socioeconomic fiber of the community.
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McETTRICK: Now when you ran, did you run in [wards] six and seven or was it just your own
ward?
MOAKLEY: No. In those days ward seven had two reps. Ward six had one, so I ran in a
double field, and it was Billy Carr11 and Jimmy Condon were the incumbents, and then Billy
Carr ran for school committee. Then there was an opening, then I took the opening.
McETTRICK: I think I saw somewhere in your website or someplace, describing the point at
which you were a lifeguard at Carson Beach?12
MOAKLEY: Yeah, one summer.
McETTRICK: Was that after you came back from the service?
MOAKLEY: Yes. The first summer or something.
McETTRICK: Of course, like everything else I suppose, it helped to have someone’s
endorsement.
MOAKLEY: Oh, sure. Sure. Yeah. Get a letter from the senator, yeah.
McETTRICK: So then you went to the state house, finally, in ‘52, and what was the situation
up there? Was it still Republican-controlled in the state house then?
MOAKLEY: Yeah. When I got elected, Herter13 had just taken over. He beat Dever14 for
governor. I think we had a Republican—yeah. Tip O’Neill15 had been a Democrat—Tip
11
William F. Carr (1910-1988), a Democrat, represented South Boston in the Massachusetts House of
Representatives before being elected to the Boston School Committee in 1953, where he served until 1958.
12
Carson Beach is located on the South Boston shoreline of Dorchester Bay.
13
Christian A. Herter (1895-1966), a Republican, served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1931
to 1942, then represented the Massachusetts’ Tenth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives
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O’Neill was the Democratic speaker. In 1952 he left the Mass. House and went to the U.S.
House. Jack Kennedy16 left the U.S. House and went to the U.S. Senate. And I got elected to the
Mass. House.
McETTRICK: So what were the issues up there in the state house in those days? That was the
240-member House. That was a really kind of a wild place I guess, in many ways.
MOAKLEY: Oh, yeah.
McETTRICK: What do you remember of that?
MOAKLEY: Well it was kind of wild, and politics was very tough and everybody was very
lockstep for their party’s position, and if the Democrats had more people, they’d win the vote. If
the Republicans had more people, it was very hard to switch anybody on some of those issues.
McETTRICK: Oh, so it was very close between the parties?
MOAKLEY: Of course, it’s a long way back. I forget what it was now, but it was a great
learning place. You could watch some of the—there was a lot of debates in those days.
McETTRICK: So then you were in the House for several years?
from 1943 to 1953. He then served two terms as governor of Massachusetts, from 1953 to 1957, and as United
States Secretary of State from 1959 to 1961.
14
Paul A. Dever (1903-1958), a Democrat, served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1929 to
1935 and as governor of Massachusetts from 1949 to 1953.
15
Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill (1912-1994), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Eleventh and, after redistricting,
Eighth Congressional Districts in the United States House of Representatives from 1953 to 1987. He served as
Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1977 to 1987. He also served in the Massachusetts House of
Representatives from 1936 to 1952.
16
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Eleventh Congressional District in the
U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953, then represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate from 1953 to
1960, when he was elected president.
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MOAKLEY: I was in the House from ‘52 to ‘60. My last term I was the Majority Whip. Then
I ran for the Senate against Senate president John Powers, which wasn’t too smart, but, you
know, I did it anyway, and I was successfully defeated. And I was out for four years.
McETTRICK: Who was the speaker you were the Whip for?
MOAKLEY: John Thompson.17
McETTRICK: John Thompson. And he reigned for quite a while as House Speaker?
MOAKLEY: Oh, yeah. But I just had it, and it was eight years and it was tough. So I ran for
the Senate. I lost and four years later John Powers got appointed to some clerk’s job, and I’d
been out of office for four years now, so I ran for the Senate and took every precinct in every
ward against incumbents, after being out for four years. And I liked the Senate very much.
Of course, you could do more, because you had more staff. Then one day I find out that John
McCormack18 is not running for reelection. I think he announced on a Monday he was not a
candidate. I announced on a Tuesday I was, and of course, all I had was a little piece of the
district, just a senator from South Boston. And Louise Day Hicks,19 who was a very known
figure for years, the front page of all the papers, cover of national magazines on the busing
situation,20 and it was a very tough fight, and I lost that one. Then I decided that Louise Day
Hicks could get one-third of the vote in any primary because of her stand and what people
17
John Thompson (1920-1965), a Democrat, served in the Massachusetts State House of Representatives from 1948
to 1964. He served as Speaker of the House from 1957 to 1964.
18
John W. McCormack (1891-1990), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Twelfth and, after redistricting, Ninth
Congressional Districts in the United States House of Representatives from 1928 to 1971. He served as Speaker of
the House from 1962 to 1971.
19
Louise Day Hicks (1916-2003), a Democrat, served on the Boston School Committee from 1962 to 1967 (serving
as chair from 1963 to 1965), ran unsuccessfully for the mayoralty of Boston in 1967 and in 1971, and served on the
Boston City Council before being elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1970. She represented
Massachusetts’ Ninth Congressional District for one term.
20
In his June 21, 1974, opinion in the case of Tallulah Morgan et al. v. James Hennigan et al. (379 F. Supp. 410).
Judge W. Arthur Garrity ruled that the Boston School Committee had “intentionally brought about and maintained
racial segregation” in the Boston Public Schools. When the school committee did not submit a workable
desegregation plan as the opinion had required, the court established a plan that called for some students to be bused
from their own neighborhoods to attend schools in other neighborhoods, with the goal of creating racial balance in
the Boston Public Schools. (See http://www.lib.umb.edu/archives/garrity2.html for more information)
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thought of her. So I lost to her in ‘70. In ‘72, when the fight was coming up again, I sat down
and tried to get some of the people who were running. I said, “Look it, let’s take a straw.
Nobody is going to beat her if we put this kind of field out there.”
Well, everybody had their own stairway to the stars and they said, No, no. I said, “Okay.” So I
just stepped out. I ran as an Independent. In those days you could still be enrolled as a
Democrat and run as an Independent. In fact, they changed the law because of what happened to
me. (laughter) In fact, I voted for Louise Day Hicks in that primary because if anybody won but
her my whole strategy would have went down the drain. So when she was having a victory party
in the primary; I was having a victory party in the primary. And then the—my strategy turned
out to be right. So when the election came, I won by about thirty-five hundred votes.
McETTRICK: Would you say that busing really was, if not the issue, was really the driving
force underneath that election?
MOAKLEY: Well, yeah. Busing—but yeah, I was against busing too, but I just couldn’t march
in the streets and scream and holler like some of the people were doing it, and that cost me, but
hey.
ALLISON: Did it gain you anything with other people in the district?
MOAKLEY: I don’t think so. On a Monday, I was picketed by six hundred whites. On a
Tuesday, I was picketed by six hundred blacks. You know, I’m saying, “Where am I going
here?” What happened was I lost—not that year—I lost South Boston one year, after I was in
the Congress during busing, because a fellow running against me was, “You got to absolutely
stop busing.”
McETTRICK: What would you say about that whole era? What did that do to South Boston?
MOAKLEY: Oh, it split people up and many well-intentioned people—some of them are really
not able to articulate properly—you know, were labeled as bigots, and then there were other
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people who wanted to do the right thing, and they were almost thrown out of their homes. It was
the worst political time that I have ever gone through in my life. Some days, I just didn’t want to
get up in the morning and put my shoes on. It was terrible, getting calls all during the night.
I had one young lady I went to the prom with—there were four of us. She just spat as I walked
by one day. You know, those things are hard to take for me. Most people in this business want
to be liked, and just to have people that you had a great friendship with and because of this—
they’re so involved and they can’t see anything but their point. It’s tough.
(interruption)
McETTRICK: So you finally got elected in ‘72? And you went down to Washington?
MOAKLEY: Mm-hmm.
McETTRICK: And John McCormack was no longer Speaker at that point?
MOAKLEY: No. He couldn’t be Speaker if I got elected. I took his place.
McETTRICK: That was his seat?
MOAKLEY: Yeah.
McETTRICK: So who took over?
MOAKLEY: Carl Albert21 was the Speaker. But there was a little byplay. When I was running
as an Independent, to some it was heresy that I gave up the party. I said, “I didn’t give up the
party.” “Yeah, but you’re not running as a Democrat.” As a result, Louise Day Hicks was
21
Carl Albert (1908-2000), a Democrat, represented Oklahoma’s Third Congressional District in the U.S. House of
Representatives from 1947 to 1977. He served as Speaker of the House from 1971 to 1977.
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running for re-election as a Democrat. So she got the endorsement on the radio and TV from
John McCormack, Tip O’Neill.
And so I’m fighting—and I bump into Tip one day, and I said, “Yeah, I’m running for
Congress.” He said, “You’ll never make it.” He said, “Nobody will want an Independent.” I
said, “I’m going to make it. I’m going to be down there.” He says, “No, you won’t.” He says,
“Kid, you’re drawing on a great reputation. You got a great reputation as a Democratic senator.”
He said, “I don’t know whatever made you run as an Independent.”
So I said to him—of course, he didn’t understand the situation. So when I get elected, and I went
down to Congress, Tip has got all the freshmen together in the room. He was seeking some
votes—I don’t know if it was for Whip or Majority Leader—and every time he’d see me, he’d
look the other way. He figured, “This guy is going to kill me.” So finally when he couldn’t
move away, I just went over to him, I put out my hand, and I says, “Tip, I’m with you.” I says,
“I understand the game. The ins are ins and the outs are outs.” I said, “I’m in now.” He put a
big smile on. He put his arm around me, and he says, “You sure are;” the beginning of a great,
great friendship. He became my mentor. He became my guardian down there. He ushered me
on to the chairman of the Democratic Personnel Committee, who channels all the jobs down
there, then went to Carl Albert and had me assigned to the Rules Committee my second term;22
that’s how I moved up.
McETTRICK: That was the year Vietnam was really going strong?
MOAKLEY: Oh, yeah!
McETTRICK: Tell us about how that impacted you both in South Boston and in your role as a
congressman.
22
Congressman Moakley was a member of the House Rules Committee from 1975 to 2001 and served as its
chairman from 1989 to 1995.
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MOAKLEY: Well I was ambivalent. I was strongly, you know, “My country, right or wrong.”
And then I listened to some of the protesters, and then I listened to some of the college kids, and
then I started changing. And Tip was the guy that really made the change, because Tip was
[President] Johnson’s right-hand man, and he just—I remember one time, there’s a book that Tip
is speaking about at Boston College, and the thing came up about Vietnam, and he said, “Look it,
I’ve been briefed by generals. I’ve been briefed by everybody. I know we’re doing the right
thing over there.” And there was a kid named Patrick McCarthy [who] stood up. He said, “Have
you been briefed by the other side?” And he thought about it, and he thought about it, and then
he went out with some of these generals, got them half-drunk and started getting the truth out of
them and finding that a lot of the figures were falsified that they were giving, and then he
changed his mind, and he and Johnson had a falling out. It was very, very tough.
ALLISON: Now that must have been a—you’re a Navy veteran from South Boston; coming
out against the war must have been a difficult thing?
MOAKLEY: It was, but by that time, I think people started changing. It wasn’t—I remember
down here on the docks, where students were thrown overboard by longshoremen, because they
were Communists and all that stuff. And we were subjected to the terms—I mean, you’re either
a pinko or a right-winger—I mean, terms that really don’t mean a hell of a lot, but they can
squeeze you into it, and make a big fight out of it. It was very difficult.
ALLISON: How do you avoid it? I mean, you managed to—
MOAKLEY: Oh, no, I came out—when I got elected, I ran on the McGovern-Meek23
amendment, and I wanted to pull our troops out, that we’ve been there long enough, and, you
know, I saw what happened to O’Neill. And I figured, hey, we’re just spinning our wheels, lost
a lot of our kids, over fifty thousand kids, and get nothing out of it.
23
The amendment to which Moakley is referring is the McGovern-Hatfield amendment, which was proposed in
1970 with the stipulation that U.S. troops be withdrawn from Vietnam by the end of 1970. The amendment failed.
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McETTRICK: Did you detect at some point that the veterans’ groups in Boston started to
change their position or their outlook on the war? I mean, what—as a congressman, what could
you see happening in the community?
MOAKLEY: Well, the veterans’ groups were not all together. Some of them had some
different feelings. But, you know, you couldn’t just take how the veterans are feeling on the war,
because this didn’t just affect veterans, it affected everybody. So it’s not like some other issues
that really directly affect veterans. I mean, this is a fact, that mothers and fathers and kids who
are waiting on that draft list to go overseas.
McETTRICK: So did you get a lot of constituent reaction, finally, on the war? Did you get
letters and phone calls?
MOAKLEY: Oh, yeah. I got a lot of—but I had made up my mind that we’d been there long
enough. Had I gotten elected two years sooner, I might have been just the other way, but in that
two years, there was just a turn in the war.
McETTRICK: So you could bring a somewhat different perspective to it, that things are
starting to change?
MOAKLEY: That’s right, yeah, and as a veteran, you know, when you speak—I mean, if
you’re a non-veteran and you say, “Hey, let’s get out of there.” They’re [saying], Oh, what do
you know? You know, but if you’re a veteran, they give you a little leeway, and I was given that
leeway.
McETTRICK: So the Personnel Committee, and then where did you go from there in terms
of—
MOAKLEY: The Rules Committee. See, the Personnel Committee handled all the patronage
jobs down there. So every member of Congress who had to put someone to work down there
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had to come to Joe Moakley, and I’d get to know a lot of people very quick. In fact, we had
more kids with a Boston accent on the police department down there than anywhere else.
O’Neill used to kid me, he said, “Geez, I thought I was back in Brattle Square with all these
Boston accents down there.” But it gave me a great opportunity to show people who I was, and
then on the Rules Committee, of course every bill has to go to the Rules Committee. It’s a
Speaker’s committee and from—so many chairmen of the committee want to make sure that
members of the Rules Committee are happy with their presentation of their bill, otherwise it
doesn’t get out. Because if the Rules Committee says no, the bill just doesn’t go to the floor. So
I made a lot of friends in that committee.
ALLISON: One of the big issues during your first term was the impeachment of President
Nixon?24
MOAKLEY: Yeah. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I remember sitting—I used to spend a lot of
time with Tip then. I remember sitting with Jimmy Breslin25 and talking about what’s going on,
and Jimmy Breslin would be like sitting in a corner with his eyes closed, and the next you’d pick
up the column written by him word for word for word. Great, great mind. In fact, he just called
me a couple of weeks ago. But I remember O’Neill sending for Peter Rodino,26 and Tip, at the
time, felt that the Judiciary Committee wasn’t moving quick enough.
And, of course, everybody knew that Nixon was capable of many things, so people thought
maybe he may have had something. O’Neill, calling on Rodino, he said, “Pete, how’s the
investigation going?” “Well, okay.” He says, “Does Nixon have anything on you?” He said,
“What do you mean?” “Just what I said. So anything that you’re afraid is going to come out if
you go ahead with it.” He said, “No, not a thing, Mr. Speaker, honest to God.” He said, “Well
get off your ass and get going.” I mean—and he was the one who prodded him, because nobody
24
Impeachment proceedings for President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) began in May of 1974; Nixon resigned the
presidency in August of 1974 before the proceedings were complete.
25
Jimmy Breslin (1929- ) is an American columnist and author.
26
Peter Rodino (1909-2005), a Democrat, represented New Jersey’s Tenth Congressional District in the U.S. House
of Representatives from 1949 to 1989. He was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee from 1973 to 1989 and
also of the impeachment hearings for President Nixon.
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likes to impeach a president. I mean in those days, you know—and so the thing just started
going down. But it was Tip O’Neill who—he wasn’t the Speaker at the time, I think he was the
Majority Leader—it was his prodding that moved that investigation forward.
McETTRICK: What do you think it was that did it, that really was the catalyst that made that
whole impeachment action in the committee? It seemed to be going on for a while, and then all
of a sudden—
MOAKLEY: Well, I think that that was one of them, and I think that O’Neill spoke to other
people and said, “Look it. I don’t care what the results are; get moving on this thing. We want
something happening. We don’t want this thing to die on the vine.” And I think that people
started making moves.
McETTRICK: Now how much contact had you had with the president? I suppose for a
congressman it’s a rare opportunity, especially if you’re in the other party.
MOAKLEY: Well I didn’t have any contact with Nixon, because I didn’t like Nixon. I just
didn’t like the things that I read about, what I saw him doing. In fact, that was the first year I
was invited to the president’s Christmas Ball, and I didn’t go. I felt nothing for Nixon. I just
thought he was just too tough on this thing and too unforgiving. Very paranoid, too.
Tip used to say, “You know, you can tell a lot about a guy if you play poker with him.” He says,
“Nixon and Carter were probably the two brightest presidents we ever had. I mean, if you talk
with them on issues, they could go right down to sub-section and they knew everything.” He
said, “But they’re not my types of people.” And he says, “I didn’t like Carter and I didn’t like
Nixon.” “Nixon, I played poker with,” he said, “and he just didn’t handle himself properly.
He’d get awful upset when he loses and throw the cards down, you know?”
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ALLISON: What about Gerald Ford,27 who was a member of Congress when you were—
MOAKLEY: Yeah. I didn’t know Gerald. That was when I was brand new. I didn’t know
Gerald, but Gerald Ford and Tip were very, very friendly. They’d have very partisan debates on
the floor of the House. There’d be blood all over the place, but when the bell rang, it was all
over. That night they’d be out drinking. That weekend, they and their wives would be out
golfing somewhere, not like today where the message and the messenger gets so confused that
the incivility just runs rampant up there. But I liked Ford, and Tip liked Ford, too.
McETTRICK: Did you like living in Washington? Where did you stay when you were down
there during the session? Did you move around over the years?
MOAKLEY: No. I bought a place down there, and even though I didn’t spend many weekends
there, I figured I’d better buy down there, because the rents were just so prohibitive. And we
don’t have—we’re only given three thousand a year in expenses. It’s Congress. I mean, we’re
not treated like salesmen or anything else. We get killed on that thing, so I figured I’d buy
something down there. In ‘77 I bought a place; I still have it.
ALLISON: So you have two houses; one there?
MOAKLEY: Yeah.
ALLISON: And would Evelyn28 go down to that one?
MOAKLEY: She’d go down. Sometimes she’d stay down, and sometimes she’d stay up here.
We kind of split it up.
McETTRICK: When did you first meet Evelyn?
27
Gerald Ford (1913-2006), a Republican, represented Michigan’s Fifth Congressional District in the U.S. House of
Representatives from 1949 to 1973, when he was nominated vice president after the resignation of Spiro Agnew.
He became president in 1974 after Richard Nixon’s resignation and served as president until 1977.
28
Evelyn (Duffy) Moakley (1927-1996) was Congressman Moakley’s wife. They married in 1957.
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MOAKLEY: I first met Evelyn in 1950. It was my first state rep’s fight, and I went to a party
in Cambridge, and she came from Cambridge. A bunch of us men from South Boston, and there
were a couple of tables—it was a club, but there were different functions going on in the club.
So one of the fellows in my group got up and went over to ask her to dance, and Evelyn was
taller than this fellow, so she just felt uncomfortable. So she said no. So I figured I’d show him
up, so I went over and asked her to dance, and she danced, and here we are.
McETTRICK: Was she politically inclined?
MOAKLEY: Oh, no.
McETTRICK: Could she tolerate politics?
MOAKLEY: She didn’t like politics at all; that was one of the big arguments we used to have,
because, you know, I’d be away all week, and then I’d come back, and I’d have to go to banquets
Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday. You know, “What about me?” Politics is a jealous
mistress, too. I mean, it really takes the man out of the house or the candidate out of the house.
You know, you have to have a strong marriage to stay together. I’ve seen many of them break
up just because they’re just apart so much.
McETTRICK: So when did you finally get married? Was it pretty soon or did it take a while?
MOAKLEY: Oh, it took a while, because—well, I wanted to graduate from law school. I
wanted to pass the bar, and I did. So in 1957 I passed the bar, graduated from law—became
Majority Whip, and then we got married.
ALLISON: She was willing to wait for you all those years?
MOAKLEY: No. (laughter)
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McETTRICK: You have to tell us about Suffolk University Law School. Did you go at night?
MOAKLEY: Oh, I sure did.
McETTRICK: Why don’t you tell us a little bit about—what was that like?
MOAKLEY: Oh, it was great. I went to law school nights. I’d just leave the state house right
across the street, go out the back door and in that class we had about five to six state reps.
Jimmy Linnehan29 of course was a CPA at the time, and Jeanne Hession,30 and we kind of
bonded. We’d go to school and then we’d go out and have a drink or something afterwards, and
we all had our own different life. We all had daytime jobs, but they say that class of ‘56 was
probably tighter than most classes for some reason.
But Jeanne Hession had a great knack of taking notes, and so she used to supply her notes, and I
think her notes probably got half the class through law school. So we felt we should do
something because she was so good, so we campaigned and made her the first female president
of the law school—the law school class. And we remain friends till today.
McETTRICK: So you were in the older building, the Archer Building?31
MOAKLEY: Yes.
McETTRICK: They hadn’t even built the Donahue Building32 at that time?
MOAKLEY: No.
29
James F. Linnehan, Sr., was a classmate and close friend of Moakley’s and is a member of Suffolk University’s
board of trustees. OH-065 in the John Joseph Moakley Oral History Project is an interview with Mr. Linnehan.
30
Jeanne Hession was a classmate and close friend of Moakley’s and is a member of Suffolk University’s board of
trustees. OH-015 in the John Joseph Moakley Oral History Project is an interview with Ms. Hession.
31
Suffolk University’s Gleason L. and Hiram J. Archer Building, named after the university’s founder and his
brother, is located at 20 Derne Street in Boston, across from the back entrance to the Massachusetts State House.
32
Suffolk University’s Frank J. Donahue Building, named after a judge and former faculty member, trustee, and
treasurer of Suffolk University, is located at 41 Temple Street in Boston, down the street from the Archer Building.
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McETTRICK: So things were pretty crowded. They must have had a lot of GIs who had come
back?
MOAKLEY: Oh, yeah.
McETTRICK: The place must have been bursting.
MOAKLEY: Oh, yeah. This was a veterans’ class, because, you know, the law, and we
started—I think we started about ‘52 or ‘53. Yeah.
McETTRICK: Anyone that you recall from that era, particularly in terms of the faculty or other
people that you encountered at the school?
MOAKLEY: Yeah. I remember Dean O’Brien.33
McETTRICK: John F. X.?
MOAKLEY: John F.X. was a professor, and then there was a great law—a criminal professor,
who had a great sense of humor. I forget his name. Then we had a fellow named Williams,34
who was a contracts lawyer and a great, great teacher. And then there was a young fellow a
couple of years ahead of us, that I knew was going to go someplace; his name was Dave
Sargent.35 (laughter) But they were nice people. I think when you go nights, you know,
everybody is in the same—I mean, we went with people who had been from Worcester, and
newspaper writers, and I mean everybody. The class was so mixed up.
McETTRICK: So did you have much chance to study, you know, with your whole day in the
House? You must have been really pressed for time.
33
John F. X. O’Brien was a member of Suffolk’s law school faculty from 1948 to 1976 and served as dean of the
law school from 1952 to 1956.
34
Kenneth Williams (1902-1980) was a graduate of Suffolk Law School (JD ’27) and member of the law school
faculty from 1928 to 1958.
35
David J. Sargent graduated from Suffolk Law School in 1954, then served as a law faculty member from 1956 to
1973, dean of the law school from 1973 to 1989, and has been president of Suffolk University since 1989.
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MOAKLEY: No. Yeah, we studied as much as we could, but, you know, it probably wouldn’t
come up to academic standards today.
McETTRICK: So you kind of sit in the back a little bit and hope you didn’t get called on?
MOAKLEY: Oh, absolutely. (laughter) “Please, don’t call on me.”
McETTRICK: I saw on your diploma that it was signed by John F.X. O’Brien. What was the
graduation—what was that like? You probably barely recall that.
MOAKLEY: I don’t. I don’t.
McETTRICK: It was just one of many things happening to you at that point?
MOAKLEY: Yeah. Yeah. In fact, there were so many things jammed into my life at one time
that I forgot where the graduation was now.
McETTRICK: And then you sat for the bar exam.
MOAKLEY: Oh, yeah.
McETTRICK: Were you relieved to finally get through that experience?
MOAKLEY: Oh, absolutely. I had to take it twice. That bothered me that I had to take it
twice, but then I figured well, going nights and missing so many classes, what the hell; I was
lucky to get it that time. But it was—the greatest feeling is when someone says, “You’ve passed
the bar.”
McETTRICK: Relief.
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ALLISON: Did you ever practice law?
MOAKLEY: Oh, yeah. I practiced from ‘57 to ‘70. I practiced out of my own office, and
being in public office, it was just so natural and people were coming to me, because they thought
I was a lawyer for twenty years, anyway.
ALLISON: I know some people in South Boston who run for office just to publicize their law
practice.
MOAKLEY: Oh, sure. In those days, that was the only way you could advertise. Now you can
advertise any way.
McETTRICK: So you started to talk about your reflections on the various presidents; I guess
we should ask you a little bit about that. You told us a lot about Nixon and then Gerry Ford went
in there. It was a tough time.
MOAKLEY: Yeah.
McETTRICK: How did you think he did under the circumstances?
MOAKLEY: I think he did what he had to do. Even though I didn’t like Nixon at all, I think he
had to pardon Nixon. He couldn’t keep that thing going. It was like an open sore. And that cost
him the election. I got along with Carter okay, but Carter just brought the Georgia mentality up,
and he thought that the same guys that were so successful around him in Georgia would be—do
the same job in D.C., and of course they didn’t do it. And then when he locked himself into the
White House in that cardigan sweater during the hostage trial, all he did every day was just
remind people of how impotent we were in that situation. A terrible thing.
I liked George Bush, senior, Tip liked him very much, and I thought he was a nice guy. Of
course, you have to separate them personality and politically. Of course, there were many
political things I didn’t care for, but you just can’t judge a person by his politics every time you
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see him. Like when I had—when GW [George Walker Bush] signed the bill in the Rose Garden
for naming the courthouse after me,36 I had him for about ten minutes in the oval room, and I
was just kidding with him a little bit, and he’s got a great sense of humor. You know, I thought
he might be stiff and all. Off camera and, you know, head-to-head, he’s a pretty funny guy.
McETTRICK: How about Ronald Reagan? Did you have much contact with him?
MOAKLEY: Well, yeah, Ronald Reagan used to credit himself as being an Irish storyteller. I
remember one time I had a bill on the floor and Speaker O’Neill was in the chair, so after I
finished speaking, he beckons me down to the podium. I says, “How you doing?” He says,
“Good.” He says, “I just left Reagan.” He says, “You know, every Wednesday we meet. We
talk about the world affairs. We talk about the legislative programs. We talk about everything.”
He says, “But before we start, we always start with some kind of an Irish story or joke or
something. The president says, “Tip, I got a great one for you.” He starts telling the story. Tip
says, “I put my hand on his hand, and I said, ‘Mr. President, Joe Moakley’s been telling that for
thirty years.’“ (laughter)
Now here’s how the story goes, so you could tell by the content: It was the end of World War II,
Hitler knows he’s losing the war, and he calls his top spy to his side. He says, “Look it, we got a
spy over in Dublin, Ireland. His name is Murphy. He’s got some information on the English.”
He says, “I think if we get that information, we implement it, we can stop all combat on that
side.” He said, “But this Murphy is a top spy.” He says, “In order to get to him, you have to
give him the password, and it’s got to be exact or he won’t answer.” He says, “The password is
the grass is green, the moon is high, and the cows are ready for milking.” The guy says, “I got
it.”
One dark night he parachutes—he flies over Dublin, parachutes in and lands in a field, buries his
parachute, and he’s walking through the field and he comes upon the farmer. The farmer says,
“Can I help you?” He says, “Yeah.” He says, “I’m looking for Murphy.” He says, “You’re
36
On March 13, 2001, President George W. Bush signed Public Law No. 107-2 naming the U.S. courthouse on
South Boston’s Fan Pier the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse.
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looking for Murphy?” He says, “You’re in Dublin. We’ve got Murphy the plumber, Murphy the
undertaker, Murphy the sail maker and Murphy the butcher, Murphy the baker. In fact, I’m
Murphy the farmer.” He says, “You’re Murphy the farmer?” He says, “Yeah.” He shakes him
by the ear. He looks in his eyes. He says, “The grass is green, the moon is high, and the cows
are ready for milking.” He says, “You want Murphy the spy. He lives over the delicatessen
downtown.” (laughter) So that’s the story.
McETTRICK: Did you ever have a chance to go over to Ireland yourself?
MOAKLEY: Oh, sure. I went with Tip a couple of times.
McETTRICK: Did you really?
MOAKLEY: We went up to visit his home where his great aunt was born. We met with John
Hume,37 met with Ian Paisley.38 In fact, I remember when we were going from Ireland up to
Northern Ireland, and I remember when we were landing, we were in helicopters and the
constabulary there had these dogs with their big white teeth gnashing and there’s all kind of
warlike souvenirs all over the place.
So the head security guy says, “Mr. Speaker, you and Mrs. O’Neill will come with me in this
bulletproof car. It’s got seven-eighths high end on the bottom bulletproof.” He says,
“Congressman Moakley, you come with me in the lead car.” I says, “Now I know how those
pigs felt running over those mine fields in Russia.” (laughter) But it was quite a trip. We really
met some funny people and talked to a lot of very bright people up there.
McETTRICK: So how do you think they’re going to make out over there?
MOAKLEY: Well I hope—I hope—in fact, I talked to John Hume a couple of weeks ago—that
they can get back together again. It’s a shame to come this far and then blow it. It’s small
37
John Hume (1937- ) is a former politician in Northern Ireland and founding member of the Social Democratic and
Labour Party.
38
Ian Paisley (1926- ) was the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland from 1971 to 2008.
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things, but, you know, you’ve got to forget something, if you’re going to go forward. It’s like
having a fight with your wife on the honeymoon; if you’re going to start every argument with
that fight on the honeymoon, nothing’s ever going to get solved.
McETTRICK: Can you tell us about Tip O’Neill’s becoming the Speaker? How did that all
come about?
MOAKLEY: Well Tip—it was a very strange way. Tip O’Neill was Majority Leader. No.
No. He wasn’t. I’m sorry. Carl Albert was Speaker. Lindy Boggs39 [sic-Hale Boggs] was
Majority Leader, and now they had to pick—at that time they picked the Speaker—the Whip,
I’m sorry. So Lindy Boggs went into Carl Albert. He says, “All right. I got the selection for
Whip.” He says, “Who is it?” He says, “Danny Rostenkowski.”40 Carl Albert says, “No way,
Danny Rostenkowski. The way he embarrassed me at that Chicago convention when Daley said,
‘Go up and take that gavel away,’ and he took that gavel away, there’s no way he’s going to get
it.”41 He said, “Well, gee,” he says, “That’s my”—“I don’t care what your choice is. Go out and
get somebody else.”
So then he went and he looked and it was between Boland42 and O’Neill, and Boland got it. But
if Danny Rostenkowski hadn’t taken that gavel away, O’Neill never would have been heard
from. That’s the way this thing happened. So O’Neill gets the Whip’s job. Then there was Nick
39
Corinne Claiborne “Lindy” Boggs (1916- ), a Democrat, represented Louisiana’s Third Congressional District in
the U.S. House of Representatives from 1973 to 1991. She succeeded her husband, Hale Boggs (1914-1972), in
Congress after he was presumed dead in a plane disappearance over Alaska in 1972. Hale Boggs, not Lindy, was
House Majority Leader beginning in 1971, a role that he held at the time of his presumed death. Hale had been in
Congress since 1941.
40
Daniel Rostenkowski (1928- ), a Democrat, represented Illinois’ Eighth Congressional District in the U.S. House
of Representatives from 1959 to 1993 and the Fifth Congressional District from 1993 to 1995.
41
Carl Albert was chair of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, during which proceedings
became raucous due to the turbulent political atmosphere, combined with the fact that House Speaker Albert was
suffering from laryngitis and hearing problems due to a cold. President Lyndon Johnson, watching the disorder on
television, called Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and asked him to restore order. Mayor Daley asked Dan
Rostenkowski to reclaim order, which he did by taking away Albert’s gavel. There are conflicting stories as to
whether Rostenkowski asked Albert for the gavel or physically grabbed it from him.
42
Edward P. Boland (1911-2001), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Second Congressional District in the
U.S. House of Representatives from 1953 to 1989.
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Begich,43 who was the congressman from Alaska, and he had Hale Boggs take a ride up on some
kind of a campaign trip and the plane went down. So now O’Neill goes from Whip to Majority
Leader.
Then Carl Albert was a little guy, but he just didn’t seem comfortable as the Speaker. He just
lasted a couple of terms, and he got out. O’Neill became the Speaker. So it was from almost
nowhere to Speaker, you know, in a very short period of time, but he was a great Speaker, and I
think he was the Speaker for about ten years. And he handled the job very well.
ALLISON: Now you were at the 1968 convention? Do you have any—
MOAKLEY: I sure was. Oh! All I can remember is the stink bombs and the smelly urine and
the broken windows on the stores and the crowds in the street throwing barrels through them. It
was like being at Checkpoint Charlie.44 Every bus going to the convention had a police car
behind it and a police car in front of it. Every bridge there were police with rifles on the bridge.
It was a scary, scary thing. And it was a terrible situation, but—
McETTRICK: It was for the good of the country when Johnson announced that he wouldn’t
run for reelection. We had a couple of assassinations?
MOAKLEY: Yup.
McETTRICK: How about Bobby Kennedy? Did you ever have any contact with him?
Because he was really one of the main players there in ’68.
MOAKLEY: Yeah. I met him. I wasn’t close. As I said, in ‘68, I wasn’t even in the Congress.
I was a state senator. So it was just kind of a different relationship. You know, people in public
43
Nicholas Begich (1932-1972) represented Alaska’s At-Large District in the U.S. House of Representatives from
1971 until his presumed death, along with Congressman Hale Boggs of Louisiana, in a plane crash over Alaska in
1972.
44
Checkpoint Charlie was the name given by the Western Allies during the Cold War to an area in Germany where
East Berlin and West Berlin met in the neighborhood of Friedrichstadt.
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office didn’t join—if they’re on the same level, they can get together a lot easier than people on
lower levels.
ALLISON: Who were you supporting in ‘68?
MOAKLEY: McGovern. Yeah. Was it McGovern in ‘68?
ALLISON: Well he came in after Bobby Kennedy’s assassination. Was it McCarthy or
Humphrey?
MOAKLEY: Must have been Humphrey.45 But I was with McGovern when he ran the
presidential primary up here.46
McETTRICK: Yeah, that was ‘72.
MOAKLEY: It was ‘72. Yeah.
(interruption)
ALLISON: And what effect did this have on the party in Massachusetts or in the country?
MOAKLEY: Well, in ‘72 McGovern took Massachusetts by storm, and I happened to be with
McGovern, because I was, you know, not taking the orthodox route to the Congress. I was
running as an Independent, and I can remember talking to some of the senators. And they said,
“Have you lost your mind? He hasn’t got a chance.” Then the day after election, they’re all out,
and I’m in, you know?
45
Hubert Humphrey (1911-1978), a Democrat, represented Minnesota in the U.S. Senate from 1949 to 1964 and
from 1971 to 1978. He served as vice president under Lyndon B. Johnson from 1965 to 1969. He was the
Democratic presidential nominee in the 1968 election, but lost to Richard Nixon.
46
George McGovern (1922- ), a Democrat, represented South Dakota’s First Congressional District in the U.S.
House of Representatives from 1957 to 1961, and then represented South Dakota in the U.S. Senate from 1963 to
1981. He was the Democratic presidential in the 1972 election, but lost to incumbent Richard Nixon.
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But he was very exciting. A lot of people think he was just a peacenik, but he was a bomber in
World War II. He had earned his stripes, but that was a very different type. I remember we
started with Lindsay47 and then Lindsay gave up, and then McGovern—and it did change, and I
guess the only state McGovern took was Massachusetts.
McETTRICK: You know there’s so many things to really ask you about. One topic that we
put on our list was, if you could just tell us about the Big Dig;48 your involvement with that.
There are so many federal projects that you’ve had a hand in, in Massachusetts, and it all has to
go through those funnel points in Congress, but the saga with the Big Dig I think, is something
that people will be talking about for years, both in its origins and now in its completion. What
can you tell us about that?
MOAKLEY: Well, remember, in the eighties when Fred Salvucci49 came down and talked to
O’Neill and myself about the Big Dig, and he says, “This is great. It’s only going to cost 2.9
billion dollars.” So we weren’t too happy with that; that was like a lot of money; and then as it
escalated, the problem was, it wasn’t—it was that nobody had the ability to predict the cost at
that stage of the program. It hadn’t even started.
And here you are in the year 2000—well that year was 1980—you’re talking about going under a
city that was established in 1630 and all the problems that that presented, but we worked back
and forth. In fact, the Third Harbor Tunnel50 was involved in that thing and Tip and I were not
too crazy about the Third Harbor Tunnel, because Tip felt that his people in East Boston would
be dispossessed and I felt my people in South Boston would be removed. But he said, “No. No.
They won’t.” So he said, “Just give me a chance, and if at any stage of the game, before the bill
47
John V. Lindsay (1921-2000), originally a Republican, represented New York’s Seventeenth Congressional
District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1959 to 1965, then served as mayor of New York City from 1966
to 1973. He changed his political party to Democrat in order to run in the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination,
but lost to George McGovern.
48
The Big Dig, or Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T), was the largest public works project in U.S. history and
involved the replacement of downtown Boston’s elevated highway with a tunnel. The project began in 1991 and
ended in 2007.
49
Frederick P. Salvucci served as secretary of transportation for Massachusetts under Governor Michael Dukakis
from 1975 to 1978 and 1983 to 1990.
50
The Third Harbor Tunnel project, part of the Big Dig, involved the construction of a tunnel connecting South
Boston to Logan Airport in East Boston. It was completed in 1995 and named the Ted Williams Tunnel.
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takes effect, either one of you say, ‘Stop’, that’s the end of the Third Harbor Tunnel.” So we
were bartering on that, bartering on the Big Dig.
END OF PART 1
MOAKLEY: As the project progressed, of course it went up because all these new innovative
types that they had to take. My greatest wish that--when they were investigating it, that if the
overruns were overruns because of the inability to, you know, look forward at that time, rather
than fraud. There was no fraud, no criminality. And that’s what I was happy about. But at the
end when the cost overrun is going on, I’m dean of the delegation and I’m being called on by
some of the people down there, “Hey, you said it was going to cost this.” I said, “Look, I was
just talking what they told me.” But I think it’s near completion and it’s probably three or four
years away. The federal government put a total of 8.5 billion dollars into it, and that’s the cap;
that’s all they’re going to put into it. So any more money has to go into it has got to be state
money.
McETTRICK: Well, it has certainly created a lot of jobs. The environment has changed almost
completely as a result—
MOAKLEY: The city of Boston needed something like that because it’s so small and so
clustered and so many streets intersect. I don’t know if you do, but I remember before we had a
Southeast Expressway. I mean, you almost had to stop at every corner in Boston to get through.
So it is going to be great. In Boston, you can only really appreciate the greatness of Boston
when you go outside of Boston. We’ve got a great city. I know people that have their kids at
school here, just dying to come up and visit their kids so they can eat in one of the restaurants up
here and do whatever else they can do up here. But we do have a great city and the Big Dig is
going to make it that much better.
McETTRICK: One of the changes seems to be the waterfront, really, right from East Boston
over to South Boston. How much has the waterfront changed as you think about it, when you
were growing up? What was it like, and what’s happened?
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MOAKLEY: When I was a kid, I can remember thousands of clam diggers, digging clams at
Carson Beach, and then the pollution came and stopped the clam digging, and then the algae and
everything else. In fact, one time, if somebody said, “Where is the harbor?” You’d—(sniffs)—
you’d direct them by smell. I mean it was a smelly place, and then a few years ago, when Bush
called it the dirtiest harbor—and Ted Kennedy and I decided we were going to do something
about it.
Through the MWRA [Massachusetts Water Resource Authority], we got almost a billion dollars
outside of the MWRA to clean up the harbor. We’ve got a clean harbor today, and because it’s
clean, the fish are back, the dolphin, the phytoplankton. The beaches are open, the water—the
MWRA, the water is almost 80 percent pure when they put it into that pipe and spew it out, nine
miles out.
And now those islands will come into being since the harbor has been cleaned up and in fact, this
is one of the places that you’ll take off to go out to the islands, some of those rafts out here.
We’re going to have a visitor center in the lobby of this courthouse. So it’s changed completely,
and I—some of the tourist people tell me that one of the attractions that bring people to Boston
are the harbor islands, the proximity to the harbor islands, and I just can see them being part of
an educational program in high school. I know that a couple of years ago we put a triumvirate
together with the city, state, and federal government to make these islands be under the control of
the three. And we’ve got some money for it, and we’re going to still continue to do it. So I think
that we live in a great city. We live in a city that’s got these islands that very few—nobody else
has got. And I just think we will be so modern, so ahead of everybody else when we finish the
Big Dig, that this will be the place to visit.
McETTRICK: How did all this change affect South Boston? You mentioned that when you
were younger a lot of dads were longshoremen, you know, worked in factories or whatever, and I
guess the port really slowed down. What was the effect in South Boston? How was that? How
did that change the community?
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MOAKLEY: Well, this area down here there’s been a thousand acres of land that’s been used
for low-grade commercial uses and really not used for its best potential. Twenty-five years ago,
I tried to get mass transit down here. And I made the best case I could, and they said, “Look,
we’re not going to send mass transit down there to take care of two restaurants and a couple of
office buildings.”
So I knew I needed a very weighty project. So when this courthouse came on the scene, I was
the only guy in America, if you may recall in the newspapers, that wanted it here. I was accused
of all kinds of terrible things to get this project here, but what I said then, and it’s recorded in the
newspaper, I said, “You get that courthouse down on the Fan Pier, and we will get mass transit
down here the following year.” I said, “And you will be able to develop a thousand acres of land
that are only used for low-grade commercial uses. This will be the hottest part of the city of
Boston.”
I said, “This will be a great source of revenue with the hotels and with the condominiums,” and
that’s happened. But there’s also a payback, because everybody wants to move down here, and
some of these condos are going to go for a million dollars apiece, and there aren’t too many
people that can afford that. Everybody wants to move as close to the waterfront as they can, so
that’s why the prices in South Boston and the North End are going sky high, because that’s
where people are going to locate. And that’s—the bad side of it is some of the people that
currently live in those areas will not be able to stay in those areas, because it’s just going to be
priced out of the market. That’s why when they talked about some of these Betterment Trusts51
and other things to take care of the people who live there, I thought the idea was great.
ALLISON: Do you see any other solution for the problem?
MOAKLEY: Well, affordable housing—how do you get there, you know? It’s a phrase
overused, but under-worked. But you’ve got to take care of Mrs. O’Leary and the three
51
The South Boston Betterment Trust was formed in 1998 to provide funding, through donations by developers, for
affordable housing in the neighborhood.
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daughters that live in South Boston. You can’t throw them out because somebody can pay twice
or three times the rent that they can pay.
McETTRICK: There’s been a lot of talk lately about Social Security reform and the budget and
you hear this periodically, but I can remember hearing the story that back in the Ronald Reagan
era that there was an assault, if you will, on Social Security, and Tip O’Neill played a major role
in the policy—
MOAKLEY: That’s right.
McETTRICK: Can you tell us a bit about what that was all like?
MOAKLEY: Well, Tip O’Neill grew up in the depression and every once in a while when he
and I would get together and just want to get a little melancholy, he’d throw his feet up on the
desk and light up a cigar; he’d talk about the people, the old people going over the hill to the
poorhouse. How terrible it was, and he said, “Social Security is the only way we’re going to
keep them from not going there,” and so he was a staunch defender of Social Security. And, you
know, he—in fact today the fight is still O’Neill’s fight. What to do with the surplus.
The Democrats want to put it into Social Security and Medicare and prescription drugs in the
Medicare, and then whatever we have left over, just give a tax break; but some of the
Republicans, their bill is they give the big tax break, and then they’re going to put the budget
together and figure out how much they need—that’s not really the way to do it.
And once you do that, if you are short, you’re not going to take the tax breaks away you’re going
to take some discretionary fund money away. So Tip was right then and he did fight Reagan. In
fact he used to say—he’d say, you know, “Look, were a couple of Irishman, but he kind of left
us behind I think.”
McETTRICK: Of course, that was a Democratic Congress.
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MOAKLEY: Oh, yeah.
McETTRICK: And that really had Democratic control.
MOAKLEY: That’s right. Yeah.
McETTRICK: Now there really isn’t!
MOAKLEY: There’s no—it’s all Republican. Republican House, Republican Congress,
Republican president.
McETTRICK: Yeah.
MOAKLEY: But I still think that we’re going to win on that fight. Because I think the people
are just paying too close attention to it. I mean President Bush was able to get his tax bill
through the house, but he’s not going to get it through the senate that quickly and I think there’s
going to be a lot of negotiation, a lot of changing.
McETTRICK: The mission that’s sounding now is, you know, clean elections and election
campaign finance reform, and one thing that we learned was that you haven’t really used
television, for the most part, to run for Congress.
MOAKLEY: With this face, would you? (laughter) Actually, I grew up in the pre-television
era. In fact, I didn’t even have a press agent or whatever they call them, until I went to Congress,
and I just got them to be defensive. So when newspapers call me, then he can talk to them. And
they say that a press release from Joe Moakley is a very rare item, which is so.
It’s—I don’t know. It’s changed. A lot of people write a nice press release, file a bill, speak on
it about a week, and then forget and do something else. Some of the causes that I’ve been
involved in—hey, it’s fire-safe cigarettes; it started in 1975 or six, and I’m still fighting it and—
but I was fighting it when the tobacco industries were eight hundred-pound gorillas. Now that
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they’re softening up, it looks like my bill will get through. I passed about three or four pieces of
it, but I could never get the final piece of it. But the secret of this business is you’ve got to stay
with it. But there are so many things that pass your scope that it’s very hard to keep focused, and
we try and sometimes we’re successful.
McETTRICK: Do you think the democracy is in trouble, because of the cost of campaigning?
MOAKLEY: No. I don’t think it’s in trouble.
McETTRICK: Do you think we’re going to be okay?
MOAKLEY: I don’t think we’re in trouble. The worst thing that I have to do, and I never get
used to it, is asking for money in campaigns. I wish there was some other way. I wish they
could either limit it, the size of the campaign, the timing of the campaign; but the money, you
know, it costs so much to run. I mean the rates for politicians in radio and TV are higher than
other rates. And, you know, some people can use TV. Some people can’t.
I mean this is a very expensive TV market up here. I’ve used radio, because I could saturate a
radio, but I couldn’t afford to saturate TV. No. I think the Feingold-McCain52 is starting to
move, and I think something will be done. I don’t know if it will get exactly the whole piece, but
I would like to see some real restriction. The soft money is what kills you, where people can
spend a million dollars on an ad, and kick the hell out of you, and never have to report to
anybody, as long as they don’t mention the other candidate. They can say, “Vote against Joe
Moakley, because he did this, da da da. He voted against this. He did”—and that’s the end of
the ad, and nobody knows who put it up there. It’s soft money. And that’s what they’ve done,
they’ve abused the soft money situation.
52
The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, or McCain–Feingold Act, enacted in 2002, is a United States federal law
that amended the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which regulates the financing of political campaigns.
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ALLISON: Well, we were talking about some other personalities, people you had known and
other—some public figures in Boston and Massachusetts politics, some current and some not,
and I wondered if you’d tell us something about some of these people?
MOAKLEY: Well, you know, despite my public persona, I’m really not—I’m kind of a solotype guy. Tip and I were very close, and that was it. I mean other members, hey I work with
them. I have a lot of fun and everything else, but the bell rings, “See you later.” I go home.
So I don’t get into a lot of the party stuff or the embassy stuff, because it just never did anything
for me. I was voted the most popular congressman in the Congress I think three years in a row,
and I think I’ve only had meals with probably a half a dozen congressmen. I work with them,
and we work well, but, you know, when that bell rings it’s, “See you later.”
McETTRICK: One issue that we wanted to ask you about was your involvement with El
Salvador and the investigation, the Jesuit priests. How did you get involved in that issue to begin
with?
MOAKLEY: Well, you know, of all the issues that I’ve been involved with; I mean it was
probably when I got involved with it, it was a no-win issue, because—I know when I first got
involved with it, I was getting calls from my constituents, “Hey, what are you doing down there
with them, if you want to bring people in this country, what about the Irish and the Italian?” You
know, I’d get—that wasn’t a win.
What happened is I have post office meetings and town hall meetings and—where I send a card,
“Anybody got any problems, come in.” So in Jamaica Plain this group of people come in one
day, and they started talking about El Salvador, talking about the killings and the death squads
and how at that time fifty thousand noncombatants were killed. And this is a country the size of
Massachusetts, a population the size of Massachusetts.
Well, I hadn’t heard those things before, so I got Jim McGovern, who is now the congressman
from Worcester, but he was my lead guy at the time. I said, “Would you check this thing out?”
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So he checked it out, and he said, “That’s right.” He says, “These people from El Salvador are
just getting killed, because of the military down there is so tough and if you’re on the street in the
wrong time, your throat is slit. If you’re out organizing coffee pickers, you know, you’re killed.”
So I tried to change the law.53 I wrote to Meese,54 and it was under Reagan’s administration, to
change the immigration law, so that it allowed the El Salvadorans who were in this country to
stay under a limited extended volunteer departure and give them green cards so they could work
over here.
Well they wouldn’t hear of it. So then I passed legislation, and we got to conference. Meese
called up Rodino, who was the chairman; he said, “Look it, if Moakley’s amendment goes
through, the whole bill is dead.” So Rodino said, “Joe, what am I going to do. There’s a lot of
good stuff in here for the Irish, the Italians and so on and so on, and even some Hispanic.” I
said, “Okay. I’m not going to kill the bill, but I want to be sure that I’m the first one out of the
box the next time this immigration comes up.” And Alan Simpson55 was there, and I says, “Alan
I don’t want you giving me any parliamentary roller coaster rides over at the Senate when it gets
there.” He said, “Okay.”
So anyway, a couple of years later, we get it there. We’re in the same spot, and there were about
hundred-fifty people in the room. The theater was great. The senators were on one side; the
house members on the other side. So Jack Brooks56 was in charge of the House members and
Alan Simpson was in charge of the Senate members. So the bill comes up, and then they’re
trying to work it out, so they go through amendment by amendment. So every rep would get up
and say, well, “Senator, I’ve got a bill.” “No. We’re not going to break. Take it in.” So they
kept this, “Nope. Nope.”
53
Starting in 1983, Congressman Moakley introduced legislation to protect Salvadorans in the U.S. using the
“Extended Voluntary Departure” provision that allowed a temporary stay of deportation and work authorization.
Moakley was finally able to pass legislation that granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Salvadorans in the
Immigration Act of 1990 (PL. 101-649). TPS grants temporary legal residency and work authorization to
immigrants fleeing civil wars, natural disasters or other conditions in their home country for a set period of time. In
El Salvador’s case, TPS has been extended several times since 1990. The TPS designation has been used by other
countries experiencing civil unrest and is administered by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
(See http://www.uscis.gov.)
54
Edwin Meese III (1931- ), a Republican, served as Attorney General of the United States from 1985 to 1988.
55
Alan K. Simpson (1931- ), a Republican, represented Wyoming in the U.S. Senate from 1979 to 1997.
56
Jack Brooks (1922- ), a Democrat, represented Texas’ Second Congressional District in the U.S. House of
Representatives from 1953 to 1965 and its Ninth District from 1965 to 1995.
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So he comes to mine. He says, “No. We’re not going to do it.” I said, “Well if you’re not going
to do it, you’re not going to have a bill.” He says, “You wouldn’t do that; would you?” He says,
“A lot of good stuff in here for the Irish.” I says, “Yeah. I know it, but there’s no stuff in here
for the El Salvadorans.” He says, “You’d jeopardize the bill?” I says, “You bet your ass.” I
says, “I’ve been here two years before. This is the last time.” Let me tell you, “It has to come
back to my committee and the Rules Committee before he gets final approval. It’s not going to
get final approval unless this amendment is in there.” Well they recessed. They got on the
phone with the president back and forth; finally—I was looking for a thirty six month extended
volunteer departure. They come back with eighteen months. So I said, “Okay.” So we worked
it out, and what it meant is that the half a million El Salvadorans who were in this country could
stay there.
Up until then, they were—the immigration would just throw them right back, and as soon as they
got back, they’d be incarcerated or tortured, or something else. So that was that part of it. A
couple of years later these Jesuit priests, six Jesuit priests the housekeeper and her daughter were
killed.57 There was a lot of press over who did it, whether it was the military, whether it was the
FMLN [Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional or Farabundo Marti National
Liberation Front], which was the rebel group, and back and forth; and Bush was making a
statement that the rebels did it. And someone else, so finally we were—got from some of the
people we dealt with, we got some information that the rebels didn’t do it, it was the military.
So Tom Foley58 called me. I was down in Florida, giving a speech to the laborer’s union or
something. He said, “Joe,” he says, “I don’t like the way that investigation is going down there.”
He said, “I want you to handle it.” I said, “What do you mean handle it?” He said, “I want you
to be chairman of the committee and task force.” I said, “Mr. Speaker, if you’d put a list—if
57
On November 16, 1989, six Jesuits priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter were murdered at the University
of Central America in San Salvador.
58
Thomas S. Foley (1929- ), a Democrat, represented Washington State’s Fifth Congressional District in the U.S.
House of Representatives from 1969 to 1995. He served as Speaker of the House from 1989 to 1995.
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you’d put a request on the bulletin board, you’d have 434 members, but you wouldn’t have me
on it.” He said, “I know, that’s why I’m calling.” I said, “All right. I’ll take it.”59
He said, “I wanted somebody who didn’t have a bag full of baggage; all their other foreign
affairs meanderings.” So we went in there and didn’t cost a penny; I just worked out of my
Rules Committee thing and went down there, did our own investigations. The embassy kept
putting us on the sanitation road, you know, didn’t want us to get near anything. And it was
very, very awakening. I’ll tell you, frightening at times. I mean a couple of times I thought I
was going to get killed, because we ended up in the car with big machine guns, and I wasn’t sure
who they were. But it turned out all right, and we were able to put the Moakley Report into
the—right into the case against them, part of the evidence.
ALLISON: So you found out who had done this?
MOAKLEY: Yeah. We found out through—who had been there. So they indicted twenty-six
military people. You know, about four of them were found guilty, but up until then no military
men had ever been found guilty of any crime for a civilian. But the whole thing changed around,
and then we did a real job on—you know, our country spent six billion dollars on military aid to
El Salvador in a ten-year period. It was the largest military money to any country with the
exception of Israel. And it was a country the size of Massachusetts. So we ended up passing
legislation to cut off the aid, so when the aid was cut off, there was nothing else to fight for; so
they got together, and the people who were shooting against each other and working against each
other are now serving in the parliament down there. We had a lot of very scary moments.
In fact, the last time I went down, I was invited down to speak at the tenth anniversary; the State
Department says, “There’s been a death threat on your life.” I said, “Okay.” He said, “No. This
is real. We know who the people are, and they can do it.” I said, “So what do you want?” He
said, “We don’t think you should go.” I said, “BS. If they’re going to keep me away by a death
threat, then, you know, what good is this whole thing?” He said, “Well if you go, you’re going
59
In December of 1989, Speaker of the House Thomas S. Foley appointed Moakley as chairman of a committee to
investigate violence in El Salvador, specifically the Jesuit murders. The committee is commonly referred to as the
Speaker’s Task Force on El Salvador or the Moakley Commission.
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to have to bring—we’re going to have to go with you.” And so I said, “Okay.” So they put a
couple of guys with me, and we went down there, and they got the guy that made the threat. And
he said, “Well, he says he said it, but he really didn’t mean it.” But, you know, he happened to
be the head of a big kind of a—almost like a National Guard unit, so I mean he had the ability to
do it, but we went down there, and it turned out all right.
McETTRICK: Did anyone ever figure out exactly what the motivation was? Was this some
political retaliation?
MOAKLEY: Killing the Jesuits?
McETTRICK: Yeah.
MOAKLEY: Oh, yeah.
McETTRICK: It seemed such a grotesque thing to do.
MOAKLEY: Well the Jesuits were teaching liberation theology.60 And that theology doesn’t
go over well in those countries. And the military regarded that as aiding the enemy. And it was
just—they couldn’t see it any other way, but the people they killed were six internationally
known educators. I mean these people weren’t just village priests. I mean these were Jesuits,
Spanish Jesuits also.
It was a terrible thing. What they did is the Atlacatl Battalion,61 which was the crack battalion,
trained in North Carolina, trained in human rights, okay? They were in the area, and they went
through like the day before or two days before the killings, to check out the unit. What’s going
on—and all this stuff and they knew where everybody was. What happened in the meantime,
after they had left, there was a husband and wife and their daughter who came and asked them if
60
Liberation theology is a school of thought that focuses on using religious faith to combat poverty and oppression.
It has been popular particularly among Latin American Catholics. (See http://www.liberationtheology.org)
61
The Atlacatl Battalion was a Salvadoran army battalion that was formed and trained at the U.S. military’s School
of the Americas, which trains mainly Latin American military groups in security and defense tactics. Members of
the Atlacatl Battalion were found to be responsible for the Jesuit murders.
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they could live there—stay overnight, because their house had been blown up. So they stayed in
the place just a little away from everybody else. The military didn’t know this, so when they
went through shooting up, these people are looking out the window and, you know, seeing. And
they tried to suppress the girl’s evidence. The FBI tried to suppress it. Okay?
I mean we were fighting our own country on this one. So they tried to suppress it, and they got a
hold of it, and then she told me, “Oh, they wanted to suppress it,” because they said her stories—
they asked her once, and she gave one set of stories, asked her a second time, they gave another
set of stories. Her name was Lucía Cerna, and she got high blood pressure.
So we had her in the office. We got her in, and I asked her I said, “How come you told one story
one time, and the other story?” So she says, “Well, the FBI brought me into Miami. They asked
me to tell the story, and I told the story. Then after I told the story—a colonel from El Salvador
came into the room, and says, “I hope you know what you’re saying. You know, you still got
your family down there.” He intimidated her. Now there was no report and no activity that this
fellow walked in the room. But he was telling her, so then she changed the story. But nowhere
did it appear on the FBI records that this happened.
In fact, there was another thing that happened. We had information that a lieutenant in the
American Army, Buckland, bonded with a lieutenant colonel, named Aviles, in the El Salvador
Army, and they became very friendly, and Aviles told him about the killing of the Jesuits. So
Buckland thought he owed this fellow some kind of allegiance, so he didn’t say anything, but it
got to him in about a couple of weeks, then he finally went to the U.S. Embassy and said, “Hey,
look it, I got this information.”
(interruption)
MOAKLEY: All right. So this General Buckland bonded with Lieutenant Colonel Aviles, and
the Lieutenant Colonel Aviles told him about the killings of the Jesuits and how it happened. So
he held it about two weeks, and he couldn’t hold it anymore. So he goes to the U.S. Embassy
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and the ambassador is not there. So he meets the U.S. military guy, so when he tells him the
story, he says, “Wow.” He says, “Come on. Let’s go and see General Ponce.”
Now General Ponce is the minister of defense for El Salvador. So he tells him the story, and
Ponce says, “I can’t believe that. I know Colonel Aviles. He would never say anything like
that.” He said, “Well he did say it.” He says, “Well if you want to insist on that, why don’t you
write a note, and get the note to me.” So he wrote the note. You know, the average fellow, if a
guy says, “I don’t believe it. Would you write a note?” that would have been the end of it. He’d
figure, “This guy is not going to believe me.” So he wrote the note and the State Department got
wind of it, because the American military man was there. In fact, he sent a copy of the note, I
guess, to his sister to make sure he wasn’t going to get killed.
So that note was there, and it explained everything. So when I went down there, I got wind that
there was some kind of correspondence between Buckland. So I stood up; I said, “Mr.
Ambassador, that letter that Buckland wrote to General Ponce,” I says, “I’d like to take a look at
it.” He said, “Okay. We’ll let you see it tomorrow.” So tomorrow comes by, I said, “I’d like to
see that letter.” He said, “Well, the secretary of state said it’s classified against you.” I said,
“Look it, this is part of the investigation—this is the investigation. I need that letter.” “I’m
sorry, it’s classified.” So I said to McGovern, “Let’s go.” So we went to the El Salvador CIA
equivalent. I saw the top guy, and I said, “Look it, I want to talk about Buckland and the letter
that he talks about Colonel Aviles and the killing of the Jesuits.” He says, “Okay.” I said, “I left
it at the hotel.” I said, “You got a copy?” He says, “Yeah. I’ll get you a copy.”
So he runs off a copy and I said, “Geez, I left my glasses,” so that’s how I got the copy. I
couldn’t get it from our own place, but the whole thing was the same way. I’d tell the State
Department—“Oh, yeah, we sent that down.” We’d find out they never sent it down. They just
were stalling, because they just couldn’t tell the American people that we’ve spent six billion
dollars to a military group that killed priests, sodomized churchwomen, you know, and did all
these terrible things. Because they just thought they were immune to any kind of prosecution.
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McETTRICK: Well, you know, over the years there’s been a connection, really between
Boston and the West Indies, Cuba, sugar trade back and forth, and the First National Bank was
big down there. What do you think the future is with respect to our relations with Cuba? How
do you think that’s going to go?
MOAKLEY: Well President Bush just appointed a fellow to represent—our representative to
Cuba, who has got a record of being very-very much anti-Castro. So it doesn’t look like much is
going to happen. And that’s a terrible thing; the people in Cuba love the American people, the
only people who have problems are the governments.
I’m just sorry to say that our government has still got the 1959 mentality. I mean you got to
forget and start somewhere. When I talked with Castro, you know, I don’t say he’s the best guy
in the world—when I think of Cuba, I don’t think of Castro. I think of this three-year-old kid I
saw in a pediatric hospital with a tracheotomy that lost a lung because they didn’t have this
plastic shunt that was so available ninety miles away in Miami. I mean people with malnutrition
down there. This country sends them all the insulin for their diabetic people. Their
pharmaceuticals are almost nothing. In fact, I had a group down there a couple of years ago and
we set up some kind of liaison between some of our Massachusetts pharmaceutical people and
them, and Schepens Eye Institute is now giving a Cuban doctor a fellowship to study some of the
eye diseases. So little by little we’re doing it, but the administration has got to go.
In fact, last year or the year before, we passed a law that says American citizens could travel
there. We didn’t pass the law. We passed it in the House that American citizens could travel
freely and they could spend money, and the farmers could give wheat loans, but the Republicans
just pulled it out at the last minute. And I just think it’s so terrible. It’s a country ninety miles
away. We don’t need to make an incendiary relationship with a country ninety miles away, but
that’s the Cuban Americans.
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I think the Elian Gonzalez62 case clearly showed the horrendous power those people have. I
mean they alone are responsible for the embargo still being on all these years. If you can’t cure
something with an embargo after five or ten years, you got to go somewhere else. And the
problem is every other country in the world is trading with Cuba, but us. And we could clean
their clock, because we’re only ninety miles away.
McETTRICK: How did you have occasion to meet Castro? How did you get down to meet
him?
MOAKLEY: He sent for me. Yeah, as a result of my work in El Salvador, I met some of the
rebels that I dealt with, evidently were connected with his people. So after we kind of put the El
Salvador situation to bed, I just got a liver transplant in July, and this was about AugustSeptember, so McGovern walks over to the office. He says, “Castro wants to talk to you.” I
said, “I don’t need any couches.” He said, “Not that Castro, the Castro in Cuba.” I said,
“What’s he want to talk to me about?” “I don’t know, his man said that you had talked with
Villalobos63 and a few other people and that you talked with Juan Tung (??), and he’d just like to
talk with you.” I said, “Jim, I’m not feeling well.” He says, “Well just think about it.”
So that following January, Castro is coming to New York. We get another call. So McGovern
said, “Look, I want you to go up and meet him.” I said, “Okay.” So I go up and Jesus, there’s
thousands of people around throwing rocks. “You Castro Communist lover!” I said, “What the
hell did you get me into?” So anyway, we went inside and Castro made the rounds of everybody
in the room, and when he got to me and he was introduced to me, he grabbed me by the lapel,
and he kissed me on the cheeks, and he said through an interpreter, “Very nice to meet you.” He
said, “I want to talk to you.” I said, “Okay.” He said, “I want to talk to you in my country, in
Cuba.” I says, “Fine.” (phone rings)
62
Elian Gonzales is a Cuban boy who fled Cuba in 1999 with his mother and several other people in a small boat
headed for the United States. After the boat sank and most of the people aboard died, Elian and two survivors were
found my some fishermen and turned over to the U.S. Coast Guard. A custody battle ensued between Elian’s uncle
in the U.S., who thought he should remain there, and his father in Cuba, who claimed Elian was taken by his mother
without his knowledge. A district court in Atlanta ruled that Elian’s uncle could not claim asylum for him, and after
the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, Elian was returned to his father in Cuba.
63
Joaquin Villalobos (1951- ) led El Salvador’s People’s Revolution Army, one of the five groups that joined in
1980 to form the FMLN.
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So he says, “You’ll come?” I says, “Yeah.” He says, “When?” It’s not like dropping in for a
cup of coffee. I says, “I don’t know.” He says, “Could you get down?” I said, “Okay.” So I
come down. So I brought—at that time I think I did bring down some human rights people.
(phone rings)
MOAKLEY: He grabbed me by the lapels, so he said, you know, “I want to see you down
there.” I said, “Okay. Okay.” He said, “When?” I said, “I’ll make some time.” He said,
“Soon.” I said, “Okay.” So we went down there, and we brought these human rights people. In
fact, the State Department didn’t want to let us go. So they said, “You can’t bring them because
they’re businessmen.” I said, “Well who can I bring?” He says, “Human rights experts.” So I
made them all human rights experts. “So then if you go there, you can’t visit the tobacco—you
can’t tour the tobacco companies.” So I said, “Okay.” We didn’t tour them. We just visited
them.
Then if you meet with the ministers, you have to bring all the dissidents with you. I says, “For
Christ’s sakes, that’s like bringing all your girlfriends when you propose to your wife. Give me
a break, will you?” But they kept throwing these obstacles, obstacles. In fact, we didn’t get the
ticket, we didn’t get the permission to visit Cuba—now this is the first legitimate trip to Cuba
authorized by the State Department—we didn’t get the authorization until the plane that left
Boston landed in Florida. Now those guys didn’t know it, or they probably wouldn’t have gotten
on the plane, and that’s when we got it. But they just threw every kind of thing—it’s just
terrible. It’s all fear of that Cuban militia down in Florida.
McETTRICK: So how is it physically when you went to visit? Heavy security?
MOAKLEY: No. It’s great. I mean they opened up—we could go any place we want. There
was nothing—in fact McGovern and I met with Castro and an interpreter in a room about three
or four times as long as this, and one table between us. We just had a nice conversation back and
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forth and talked about everything. And finally I said, “Look it, if you—they’re working on a bill
now that’s going to make trading with Cuba almost impossible, the Helms-Burton bill.64 I said
“I think if you say you’re going to order free elections, if you’re going to free the dissidents and
if you can just be a little bit more open in your policy,” I said, “it might be enough to forestall
that.” He said, “We’ll see.”
(interruption)
MOAKLEY: We met about eleven o’clock. We finished up at one o’clock. I mean, he’s a
vampire. He has these nocturnal meetings, and when we got through, he said through an
interpreter, he said, “You know”—here’s an atheist. He said, “God must have wanted us to be
friends or why would he only put us ninety miles apart?” Then we had some fun. We gave him
a Red Sox jacket and gave him all this stuff. I have a picture of it. In fact, I had him sign a
baseball, because he was a baseball player at one time. Then I went down when the Pope was
there. Then I went down one other time. So I’ve been in Cuba three or four times.
McETTRICK: How was the Pope greeted in Cuba?
MOAKLEY: Oh boy! I’ve never seen such an outpouring. In fact, Castro said that Cuba will
never be the same, because all these people came out; you know, for a while there, Castro had
discontinued the saying of Mass or observing any Catholic rites, and now when the Pope came,
he backed down again.
McETTRICK: You had occasion to meet the Pope, too, recently didn’t you?
MOAKLEY: Yeah. I traveled with Speaker Hastert,65 and we presented him with the Medal of
Freedom for his work in human rights, and he was great. He’d give you the blessing. He said, “I
bless not only you, but I bless all your constituents.” Then when he was leaving he said, “God
64
The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, or Helms-Burton Act, was passed in 1996 to strengthen and
continue the United States embargo against Cuba.
65
John Dennis Hastert (1942- ), a Republican, represented Illinois’ Fourteenth Congressional District in the U.S.
House of Representatives from 1987 to 2007. He served as Speaker of the House from 1999 to 2007.
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bless America.” In fact, the Pope doesn’t take honors. He took this because he felt that we were
the peace-loving country dedicated to eradicating human rights abuse. So therefore, he would
take the award.
McETTRICK: It must have been quite an honor, quite an experience.
MOAKLEY: Oh, it sure was, and he was great. You know, usually when people say, “I had an
audience with the Pope,” they’re one of four hundred people in a big room. Every one of us
knelt and kissed his ring and had our picture taken doing it, it was great.
McETTRICK: How would you say the district has changed since you became a congressman?
It’s been a long time now almost thirty years? Of course, it wanders around geographically from
one redistricting to the next. But in terms of the people and it’s—is it much the same or is it a
different situation?
MOAKLEY: Well, I read somewhere that since 1980 South Boston has changed 50 percent.
So that people do change, and I think the reason for that is because people have been offered so
much money for their homes. I mean homes that were probably selling for fifty-thousand dollars
a few years ago, you can get two-hundred fifty thousand dollars now for them now. So that’s
pretty hard to say no to, so people take it and run.
McETTRICK: But the issues that go across your desk are still really much the same?
MOAKLEY: Yeah. People are people. Yeah. Crime was big for a while, but it’s not.
Education is one of the top things now. People want the best schools for their kids. That’s about
the main issue.
McETTRICK: So there will be other congressmen from Massachusetts going down and trying
to deal with these problems. What advice would you be giving to them? You’ve been on the
watch for so long. What should they look out for? What should they do for the people of
Massachusetts when they get down there?
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MOAKLEY: Serving in Congress is like living in the neighborhood. You can’t impress your
neighbor unless he’s got some faith in you. You’ve got to build up relationships. You’ve got to
let people know you. You’ve got to do a lot of listening, and you’ve got to realize that nobody
has a monopoly on new ideas. Some of the best ideas could come from outside of the system.
But just listen. I mean most people in public life like to talk, but I mean if you do more listening
than talking, I think you’re ahead of the game.
ALLISON: It could be why you’re the most popular member of Congress.
MOAKLEY: Because I’ve listened a lot, yeah. Sometimes it’s tough—the problem with public
life, a lot of egos get in the way. I mean some people get such gigantic egos that everybody is
afraid to make that first step, ask the first question or—because it looks like a sign of weakness,
you’re asking for something. I’m not. I’d just as soon walk across the aisle anytime, ask
anybody for anything I wanted to, but I think that a lot of that has to do with growing up on the
street corners and knowing, what can be done; what can’t be done. Growing up in the projects,
living together like the guy upstairs, downstairs and over the back fence; and in that upstairs,
downstairs and over the back fence, that becomes maybe the next city or the next town, the next
state, the next country. But people are people.
McETTRICK: The same principle!
MOAKLEY: That’s right.
McETTRICK: Are there other areas that you wanted us to get into? I mean we’re having the
chance to put everything down on tape. You’ve got a pretty good working over here.
MOAKLEY: You know, when you talk for fifty years, there’s so many ways you can go. I’d
just as soon be answering questions.
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�OH-001 Transcript
ALLISON: I’m just thinking about some of the personalities who have been involved in
politics—when you were—James Michael Curley66 once represented the Ninth District.
MOAKLEY: Yeah. No. He was Tip O’Neill’s district.
ALLISON: But actually in 1914, he represented this district, then Gallivan67 took his seat when
he became mayor. I’m not confusing the subject.
MOAKLEY: No. But I thought that—
ALLISON: He represented both districts.
MOAKLEY: Oh, okay.
ALLISON: Way back. Do you remember him?
MOAKLEY: I remember him as a kid starting out, you know, I was in politics when he was
leaving. In fact, my office in D.C. is the—or was where James Michael Curley had his office.
Yeah. He couldn’t exist in today’s thing, but for those days, maybe that’s what they needed. It’s
a different world.
ALLISON: And you said that you regarded Speaker McCormack as something like a saint?
MOAKLEY: Oh, absolutely.
ALLISON: What kind of contact did you ever have with him? How did you see him when you
were growing up in South Boston?
66
James Michael Curley (1874-1958), a Democrat, served as mayor of Boston for four non-consecutive terms: 1914
to 1918, 1922 to 1926, 1930 to 1934, and 1946 to 1950, and as governor of Massachusetts from 1935 to 1937. He
also represented Massachusetts’ Twelfth Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives from
1911 to 1914 and the Eleventh Congressional District from 1943 to 1946. He served jail time in the late 1940s for
official misconduct, but remained in office as mayor during that time.
67
James A. Gallivan (1866-1928), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Eleventh Congressional District from
1914 to 1928.
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�OH-001 Transcript
MOAKLEY: Well, when I was one, Speaker McCormack was elected to Congress. When I
was forty-two he stepped down, so he was the only man I ever knew as a congressman. I
thought “congressman” and “McCormack” was synonymous, you know? But he always had a
very saintly attitude, and the way he treated women, I mean he just put every woman on a
pedestal, and he would never use a nickname, like Tip O’Neill was always “Thomas.” And Joe
Moakley was always, “John.” I mean he just didn’t go for any of those things.
A very bright fellow, good memory, good congressman, but much to himself, though in his off
hours. Like Tip is just the opposite. Tip is gregarious. I mean you walk down, everybody
knows Tip. I mean he’s probably the most visible speaker ever, and it was partly done because
Reagan made it so, because the fights that he and Reagan had together. I remember being in
China with O’Neill on the Wall and some of the Chinese people pointing to him, knowing he
was somebody, but probably didn’t know exactly who he was.
McETTRICK: What were you doing in China? What was the contact?
MOAKLEY: We went over and met with Deng Xiaoping and some of the ministers—and this
was back in 1980—went to the Forbidden City, talked about trade policies. Went to Hong Kong
and Singapore, and it was quite a swath.
McETTRICK: What were your impressions of Cardinal Cushing?68 He was another son of
South Boston.
MOAKLEY: The best. He could have been the best politician in the town rather than the best
Cardinal.
McETTRICK: He may have been.
68
Richard Cardinal Cushing (1895-1970), who was raised in South Boston, was a cardinal of the Roman Catholic
Church. He served as Archbishop of Boston from 1944 to 1970 and became a cardinal in 1958.
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58
�OH-001 Transcript
MOAKLEY: Okay.
McETTRICK: Well, I think that’s good. We’ve covered a lot of ground. Thank you. We
appreciate your time. It was very enjoyable. It was an honor, really.
MOAKLEY: Maybe if my memory gets better, maybe we can talk about something else.
END OF INTERVIEW
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59
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers, 1926-2001
Subject
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Boston (Mass.)<br />Legislators--United States <br />Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001<br /> South Boston (Boston, Mass.)<br />Legislators. Massachusetts<br />Politicians--Massachusetts
Description
An account of the resource
The paper of Congressman John Joseph Moakley are housed at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.<br /><br />The sample of items from the Moakley papers exhibited on this site are used courtesy of the Moakley Archive and Institute. The full collection documents Moakley’s early life, his World War II service, his terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate, and his service in Congress. The majority of the collection covers Moakley’s congressional career from 1973 until 2001. A <a title="Moakley papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> the the collection is available online. <br /><br />The collection is open for research. Access to materials may be restricted based on their condition. Please consult the <a title="Moakley Archive" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/moakley" target="_blank">Moakley Archive and Institute</a>, Suffolk University for more information.
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Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001.
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers (MS 100), 1926-2001. View the <a title="John Joseph Moakley Papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
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Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
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1926-2001
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Items highlighted from the Moakley papers in this online collection are made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. <br /><br />Copyright is retained by the creators of items in the Moakley papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
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<div>
<div>
<p>Moakley Papers: Moakley Oral History Project<br />Enemies of War Collection (MS 104)<br /> Jamaica Plain Committee on Central America Collection (MS 103)</p>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
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Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University.
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300.7 cubic feet (521 boxes)
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English
Type
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Text
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Identifier
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MS 100
Coverage
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Boston, Mass.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Allison, Robert J.
McEttrick, Joseph
Interviewee
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Moakley, John Joseph
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Note: Original video recording is available for viewing at the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Duration
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1:48:47
Time Summary
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Part 1
Growing up in South Boston p. 3 (00:02)
Military service p. 9 (10:29)
State political career p. 12 (16:05)
Member of Congress (1973-2001) p. 19 (29:30)
Evelyn Moakley p. 25 (41:24)
Suffolk University Law School p. 26 (43:34)
Thoughts on political figures p. 30 (47:58)
Improvements to Boston p. 36 (1:00:30)
Part 2
El Salvador involvement p. 43 (13:55)
Cuba p. 49 (29:09)
Reflections of almost fifty years in public office p. 53 (39:07)
Location
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District office of Congressman John Joseph Moakley, South Boston, Mass.
Transcription
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See PDF transcript
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Transcript of Oral History Interview of Congressman John Joseph Moakley
Subject
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Boston (Mass.)
Busing for school integration
Cuba
El Salvador
Massachusetts--Politics and government
Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
O’Neill, Tip
South Boston (Boston, Mass)
Suffolk University. Law School
United States. Congress
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Congressman John Joseph Moakley, who represented Massachusetts' Ninth Congressional District from 1973 until his death in 2001, discusses his life and political career. While he only reflects briefly on Judge W. Arthur Garrity's 1974 decision in the case of Morgan v. Hennigan, which required some students to be bused between Boston neighborhoods with the goal of creating racial balance in the public schools (see transcript, page 18), the interview provides significant insight into Moakley's character and political views. He also discusses his childhood in South Boston; his military background; his experiences at Suffolk University Law School; his career in both state and national politics; and some of the issues that have been important to him during his career, especially in regards to human rights violations and injustice in El Salvador.
Creator
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
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Moakley Oral History Project
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
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Kintz, Laura
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Copyright Suffolk University. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
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Moakley Oral History Project: http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/collections/show/1
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English
Type
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Oral history interview transcript
Identifier
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OH-001
Date
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April 2, 2001
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/15912/archive/files/c505db4270f60c9b5d2eada946c28a4d.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=VqI%7EUNoSDtmIFtggMwTb5ySygZuriakAVjvZX7GEmLsQ5rkORSDexsWZhpRkChwK6xr-JlLf53naxnFPiBji5wbkLnxmoAHhJZkcgerh4GXkmLXxBA2HTqwy8Pl4rjvI5J%7EgbvcQEcaRNZn5trIzt5IqkaMIvlT8oWNUzC8d5JTYIOMTww4xE9LOyYZcoqt5CJlMCe4EYn6G8hS-D4xb3pyaGbJWmUxcHRa3WaMMb48qDueCwzh8rH0jpk4FlQKk2ygpUdkve45J3QAjYqTNsi3yM%7EWh1mQ7zyYuwwGC1jPqBYuqDZp6J5g%7ERHRdUAvZJrfToszEWo3QOJprgbQICA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
b4f3fa54eff5204b840b474199c437ad
PDF Text
Text
Oral History Interview of Robert Moakley and Thomas Moakley
(OH-003)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Oral History Interview of Robert F. Moakley and Thomas J. Moakley
Interview Date: April 29, 2003
Interviewed by: Robert Allison, Suffolk University History Professor and Joseph McEttrick,
Suffolk University Law School Professor
Citation: Moakley, Robert F. and Thomas J. Moakley. Interviewed by Robert Allison and
Joseph McEttrick. John Joseph Moakley Oral History Project OH-003. 29 April 2003. Transcript
and audio available. John Joseph Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston,
MA.
Copyright Information: Copyright ©2003, Suffolk University.
Interview Summary
Robert and Thomas Moakley discuss the life and career of their late brother, Congressman John
Joseph Moakley. This interview covers growing up in South Boston in the thirties and forties;
how military service helped shape their perspectives on life; their parents; what political
campaigning was like in the fifties; how Joe Moakley enjoyed public service; their brother’s
work in El Salvador; their thoughts regarding Boston school desegregation in the1970s; what it
was like to be related to a respected member of Congress; how politics has changed since their
brother began his career. They end by expressing their hope that others can learn from the
example their brother demonstrated through his entire career.
Subject Headings
Boston Harbor Islands (Mass)
Busing for school integration
El Salvador
Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
Moakley, Sr., Robert F.
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
1
�Oral History Interview of Robert Moakley and Thomas Moakley
(OH-003)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Moakley, Thomas J.
South Boston (Mass.)
Table of Contents
Part 1
Growing up in South Boston
p. 3 (00:24)
Military service
p. 12 (17:01)
Family background
p. 15 (22:55)
Involvement in local politics
p. 18 (28:02)
Part 2
El Salvador involvement
p. 24 (12:44)
Staff relationships
p. 25 (15:36)
Congressional campaigns
p. 26 (18:38)
Part 3
School desegregation
p. 34 (05:39)
Thoughts on political figures
p. 37 (12:28)
Improvements to Boston
p. 41 (21:38)
Congressman Moakley’s health (1995)
p. 44 (27:10)
Part 4
Change in politics
p. 45 (00:09)
Congressman Moakley’s legacy
p. 46 (01:35)
Interview transcript begins on next page
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
2
�OH-003 Transcript
This interview took place on Tuesday April 29, 2003, at the home of Thomas J. Moakley.
Interview Transcript
PROFESSOR JOSEPH McETTRICK: Well, gee, this is really a privilege. I’ve been looking
forward to this. I think this should be a really fun interview.
THOMAS J. MOAKLEY: Well, I hope we can make it worthwhile, anyway.
McETTRICK: I’ve always wondered what my brothers would say about me, so this is sort of
an experiment.
PROFESSOR ROBERT ALLISON: So thank you for giving us the time to talk to you. And,
I think some of the things we’re really interested in are what it was like to grow up in South
Boston in the thirties and forties. So any memories you have of the neighborhood, and things
you might do for fun, what your family life was like.
T. MOAKLEY: Well, when we were younger, boys didn’t stick much together. Everyone had
their own game. Bob had the barn boys, what we called them. You didn’t have to see them, you
could smell them before they came. No offense. (laughter)
McETTRICK: You’ll get equal time.
ROBERT F. MOAKLEY: I hope so.
T. MOAKLEY: And of course, Joe had his crowd, and I had my crowd. And of course, we
were always busy outside. But I remember growing up. And of course, everybody was poor, but
nobody knew it because everybody was the same. But they used to make the rounds when they
had the barrels out, to pick up baby carriages to make carts and trucks, stuff like that. Then, to
make money, I used to sell papers, or shine shoes, or sell papers down at the beach. But I always
kept busy, anyway.
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
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�OH-003 Transcript
McETTRICK: So how many different addresses did you live at in South Boston? Was it just
one? Or did you move around the town?
T. MOAKLEY: Oh, I didn’t realize how many times we moved until I—first, we started in
Dorchester Street, 291 Dorchester Street. Then from there, we went down to Bateman Place,
which is now Bantry Way. Then from there, we went to Old Harbor Village. And from Old
Harbor Village, we went to Frederick Street. Then from there, we went to the corner of Mercer
and Dorchester Street; always in the same ward, though.
McETTRICK: And what were your relative ages, and who was the oldest?
T. MOAKLEY: Joe was the oldest. He was a year and a half older than I was. I was in the
middle. And Bob is a year and a half younger.
McETTRICK: So you weren’t really that far apart. But it makes a difference, I guess, with
what you—
T. MOAKLEY: Exactly, yeah. Even a year makes a big difference. I mean, if you’re a year
older, hey, you’re an old guy now.
McETTRICK: And did you all go to the same elementary schools? Or did you have different
places?
T. MOAKLEY: Yeah, pretty much so. We went to the [Thomas N.] Hart School. We used to
call it Tony’s Nut House. (laughter)
R. MOAKLEY: Then went to the Nazareth [High School] for a while in grade school.
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�OH-003 Transcript
T. MOAKLEY: That’s when you used to go to school, when you talked in school, the nuns
would get the pencils and break them over your knuckles, and you had to pay for them.
(laughter)
McETTRICK: But at least they were cheap then.
T. MOAKLEY: A penny a piece. But a penny was a lot of money in those days.
R. MOAKLEY: When we moved up to Bateman Place from what they called the Lower End in
Southie [South Boston], in those days, up to the Point, we transferred from public school to
parochial school. And the nuns were very genteel. I remember my nun stood me up at the front
of the class. It was in the middle of the school year. And she said, “This is Robert. We’ll have
to be patient with him. He transferred in from the public school.” (laughter) They introduce you
as though you’re a moron. (laughter)
But later on I won the spelling bee, when the bishop came around. I won the spelling bee, much
to her chagrin. Then I won the history test. But what really topped it off was I won the religion
quiz after coming from a public school. (laughter) So, needless to say, she had a big smile on
while the bishop was there. But I had a miserable year after that. (laughter)
McETTRICK: Well, you must have been in different parishes then, too, if you were moving
around.
R. MOAKLEY: Yes, oh yeah.
T. MOAKLEY: Well, first of all, we were in Saint Augustine’s. That’s where we were
baptized. Then from there, we went to—
R. MOAKLEY: Saint Brigid’s.
T. MOAKLEY: Saint Brigid’s, that’s right. I eventually got married from Saint Brigid’s.
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�OH-003 Transcript
R. MOAKLEY: And Saint Monica’s after that, and back to Saint Augustine’s.
ALLISON: So, when did you meet Doris?1 Was it when you were in school?
T. MOAKLEY: In high school. I was a senior and she was a junior. And I was in junior
English. I always had a problem with English. But then I went in the service and started writing
back and forth. Been going with her since she was sixteen years old. So we had our fiftieth
anniversary—actually, fifty-one is this Saturday, fifty-first anniversary this year.
ALLISON: Congratulations.
T. MOAKLEY: Thank you.
R. MOAKLEY: As Tom mentioned, when we got a little older, we all kind of went our
separate ways. But when we were small, when we still lived on Dorchester Street, we spent most
of the time together because we were small. We were the little kids in those days.
So there were things that we did. And it was only because of the way the economy was. There
was a barrel factory out in back of our house. And they used to make barrels and store them.
And Baker’s Chocolate used to use this particular barrel company; they had wooden barrels.
And our first taste of chocolate had splinters in it. We used to go over and break a stave out of
the barrel. And you’d be sitting on the curbstone chewing the chocolate off it. And that was the
first time we had chocolate, I think, was off Baker’s—
McETTRICK: Well they did make good chocolates.
R. MOAKLEY: They did. They made excellent chocolate.
1
Doris is Tom Moakley’s wife.
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�OH-003 Transcript
McETTRICK: Did you have neighbors upstairs and down or side by side? Or was it a single
house?
R. MOAKLEY: Well, we lived over a hardware store, actually. And our aunt lived upstairs
from us. We lived with our grandmother. And in those days, multi-family homes were quite
common. And when a couple would get married, they’d move in with the parents on one side or
the other.
ALLISON: Was that your mother’s mother or father’s mother?
R. MOAKLEY: My mother’s mother, yes. She was the only grandparent that we ever met.
The other three were dead before any of us were born.
T. MOAKLEY: And she didn’t speak that great English. She was Italian. But she knew
everything you wanted. She used to take us to the movies, even though she didn’t understand
English. She used to take us downstairs in the cellar, and when she made the wine, and gave us
our wine with about this much sugar in it (gestures). So, that’s our first taste of wine. And she
used to make the scooters for us, and used to have the two-by-four boards, and attached the roller
skates to your scooter. She used to make them for us. But she was really good.
McETTRICK: Now did you have a special spot in the neighborhood where you’d try those
out? Or did you have a nice incline someplace that you could use them?
T. MOAKLEY: No, actually, you just have a sidewalk out in front, with all the cracks in it.
And every time you went over a pebble or something, you went head over heels.
R. MOAKLEY: So it was relatively no traffic in those days. We have a picture of the three of
us standing out in front of our house on Dorchester Street, which is one of the main drags in
Southie. And you could see probably three and a half or four blocks up the street. And there
was one car in the whole picture.
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�OH-003 Transcript
McETTRICK: So it was fairly safe?
R. MOAKLEY: So there was very little traffic in those days. In fact, in the winter, they used to
block off Telegraph Street for coasting. And you could coast from up at Dorchester Heights, up
at the top of the hill, all the way down, and down Dorchester Street to make the turn. There was
no traffic at all.
T. MOAKLEY: It took you about ten seconds to get down, and about twenty minutes to walk
up. (laughter) It was good times then, you know, didn’t have to worry about anything.
McETTRICK: Did you get down to the beach much? Did you do much on the water?
T. MOAKLEY: Oh yeah. Well, we’d always go down the beach, and get cooked down there.
R. MOAKLEY: In the summer, we’d get up in the morning and all we’d put on is our bathing
suits—no shoes, socks, shirts or anything—go to the beach, spend the day at the beach.
T. MOAKLEY: Like I say, in those days, sports weren’t really organized the way they are
today. And used to go around on a Friday night to get a football game for a Saturday. And you
had to get down the park early enough to map out a space big enough to play football because
there were so many other kids around, you had to get a spot. And that’s the way we always did.
And most times, when the kids were playing football, they might have one piece of equipment,
or shoulder pads, or a helmet. That’s why most of the kids went out and played high school
football; so they could have football equipment to play for their teams. So it was good fun in
those days.
R. MOAKLEY: And the park, which is now Joe Moakley Park, that’s where we had our first
cookout. We used to bring a potato with us, and light a fire. (laughter) And it would be a raw
potato or it was black on the outside, basically, and you’d eat that. And we’d have a little piece
of wax paper with salt in it to sprinkle on. But that would be our lunch.
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8
�OH-003 Transcript
ALLISON: That’s while you were playing football.
T. MOAKLEY & R. MOAKLEY: No.
R. MOAKLEY: From the beach, instead of going on.
T. MOAKLEY: Oh, it was good. Used to do a lot of crabbing down at City Point there. The
head house used to be the base. It used to be a bridge at one time. Of course, it’s all filled in.
And you used to make a crab net, and go down crabbing. And even in those days, when
everybody used to go down to Carson Beach2 at night, and get a gang of kids, and just kick the
water, and used to kick fish enough right into the sand, and cook the fish there.
R. MOAKLEY: The way we used to get bait to go fishing was, and it shows you how much the
harbor has changed. Two of us would stand in water up to our knees, and you’d hold the towel
underwater. And the minnows would swim over it, and you lift it up. And you’d have minnows.
And we’d put them in an old French fry box or something, and use those as bait later. But, there
were that many fish around in those days.
ALLISON: And would you have fishing rods at all?
R. MOAKLEY: No. Drop lines.
T. MOAKLEY: Fishing lines.
R. MOAKLEY: A drop line, I think.
T. MOAKLEY: I don’t think too many people had rods.
ALLISON: Would you catch a lot?
2
Carson Beach is located on the South Boston shoreline of Dorchester Bay.
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
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�OH-003 Transcript
R. MOAKLEY: Yeah. Well the crabs were plentiful. The old wooden pier, we used to go out
from where the World War II memorial is now. And we’d go up and we’d get a barrel hoop and
an old burlap bag, and you’d stretch that over the barrel hoop, and tie it with clothesline rope, put
a sidewalk brick and the fish head in there, lower it down to the bottom. And you’d only have to
leave it down five or ten seconds, and pull it up, and there’d be eight or ten crabs in there. And
you’d just take the big ones, throw the little ones back in.
McETTRICK: Was there an army camp over there, Camp McKay?
R. MOAKLEY: Camp McKay was over where Bayside Expo is now. It started out as an
American army camp. The troops were waiting there to be shipped overseas. Boston was a port
of embarkation in those days. And then later, during the war, as the war progressed, it became
an Italian prisoner camp. They had the Italian POWs there. And they were probably the
happiest people in the country.
T. MOAKLEY: You didn’t even have to close the gate. They wouldn’t go.
R. MOAKLEY: They used to take them out on work details. This was before the housing
projects were built. They had knocked some of the houses down where the D Street project is
now. And they used to take the Italian prisoners over there to clean up, and pick up, and
everything.
And everybody would be talking to them. On weekends, all the Italians from the North End, and
everything, would go down to the fence and give them food. Nobody stopped them from doing
anything. They used to get weekend passes. In fact, one of our cousins met one of them at a
dance at the Bradford Hotel, didn’t even realize he was an Italian prisoner. Had met him there
for about six weeks in a row, and they started dating. Then she realized he was a lieutenant in
the Italian Army. She ended up marrying him. She was one of our Italian relatives. And she
ended up marrying him.
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ALLISON: Did he stay here?
R. MOAKLEY: Yes.
T. MOAKLEY: Yeah, they stayed.
R. MOAKLEY: He was a war bride. (laughter)
McETTRICK: In fact, I think they used it as public housing after the war. Because I had some
friends who lived at Camp McKay before they moved out to Hyde Park.
R. MOAKLEY: Yeah, it was just wooden barracks. It was not built as a permanent fort or
anything. They were just wooden barracks raised up off the ground, and no foundation to speak
of or anything.
McETTRICK: Did you have much of an opportunity, the three of you, to get part-time jobs?
T. MOAKLEY: Oh yeah.
McETTRICK: Did you have any good places to go, snow shoveling or anything.
T. MOAKLEY: I worked for the Crown Laundry, in the middle of summer, taking clothes out
of the dryer. It used to burn your hands it was so hot. Then the Royal Crown Cola Company
was down on Columbia Road there, Old Colony Boulevard. Then used to sell newspapers or
shine shoes.
R. MOAKLEY: Tom had mentioned earlier that I was a barn boy. I actually hung in the livery
stable. The kids I hung around with used to be down Ninth Street, and they had horses and
wagons there. And we started off by going out with the peddlers or whoever, working for them,
and they would give you a day’s pay for working for them. Then once we were like thirteen of
fourteen, up to that age, if we had enough money we would rent a horse and wagon, and we’d go
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out ourselves and make money. And then in various ways, some not too honest. (laughter) But
we used to go junking, you know, pick up scrap metal. As I said, they were knocking a lot of
houses down. We’d go in and take all the plumbing, the lead pipes, and the old cast iron stoves
and things, and sell it for junk.
McETTRICK: This was early recycling?
R. MOAKLEY: Yes. And we’d make good money like that. Then they had the Pony Boy Ice
Cream, and they kept the ponies there, and we used to work those wagons, too, selling ice cream.
McETTRICK: Now, did your brother Joe have any many of these jobs? What did he like to do
for a little spare change?
R. MOAKLEY: Joe had worked at the South Boston Market for a while. And one of the
ironies was, Joe loved potato salad. In fact, sometimes he would stop and buy a tray of potato
salad—they came in little paper trays in those days—and sit down and eat that, rather than a
meal. He loved potato salad so much. And he got this job up in Broadway at the South Boston
Market, and he was working in back at like the meat counter or deli counters—all the same in
those days. And the guy that was making the potato salad had a cold, and he kept going like this
(gestures), wiping his nose with his finger, and mixing the potato salad. And Joe never ate
potato salad again after that. (laughter) And he was addicted to it, but he could never eat potato
salad again.
T. MOAKLEY: But that would kind of cure you though.
McETTRICK: So what was it like as the older brothers became military age, and you started
going off when the war started? I suppose you saw a lot of that, as you guys are getting older.
But Joe, I guess was the oldest, and went in when he was really pretty young. So tell us how that
worked to your advantage?
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R. MOAKLEY: Well, in Southie, it was a disgrace to get drafted. In fact, they’d talk about
somebody. They would say, They had to draft him. It was a disgrace to get drafted. Everybody
joined as soon as they were eligible, unless they had something wrong with them. And a lot of
them went in underage, as Joe did. And what kids used to do was, if they were too young to go
in and their parents wouldn’t allow them to go, they would register for the draft and say they
were eighteen when they were fifteen or something. And they’d get drafted. But that was okay
if you got drafted like that.
In fact, my father had me ready to go. I was going in the navy at that time. I ended up going in
the army. But when I was fifteen, which was June of ‘45, I turned fifteen. I had a phony birth
certificate. He took me over to join the navy. I signed up for the navy, but it ended in August, so
I never got called. But I left on my seventeenth birthday for the army because he was singing the
Marines’ hymn in my ear. So the day before I turned seventeen, I went over and enlisted in the
Army, and left on my seventeenth birthday. And Tom had already gone into the Coast Guard.
T. MOAKLEY: Well, at first I started for the navy. I went to the navy. At that time they had
so many kids signing up. I had a slight overbite, so they rejected me, of course my father didn’t
know about it. One day in May, the year I was graduating, I was coming out of the school and
my father was there to pick me up. He drove me over to the Coast Guard recruiting station. I
got signed up for three years. He said, “When are you guys going in the Coast Guard?” because
that’s what he was in. And that was my first summer vacation away from home, doing boot
camp.
R. MOAKLEY: It was funny. After the Korean War had broken out, I had already been in and
out of the service. They had eighteen-month enlistments when I went in. And I was considered
to be a World War II veteran, even though the war was over when I went in. So I wouldn’t have
got drafted or anything. And I was in the Longshoremen’s Union at the time, during the Korean
War. And I used to go over to Charlestown to work the paper boat every Tuesday. And big
reams of paper would come in that went to the [Boston] Globe and to the [Boston] Herald, and
all the newspapers. And I used to work that every Tuesday, and work in Southie the rest of the
week.
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But I was on the subway going over, and I ran into this kid I grew up with. And I said to him,
“What are you doing up so early?” He says, “I’m going over and join the army.” He says, “I’m
going back in the service.” Then he started talking about how he wasn’t getting along at home
and all of this. So I started thinking. At the time I was still single and kicking around. I said,
“I’ll go over with you.” So I went over with him, and they turned him down and took me.
(laughter) So I ended up back in the army for three years.
So I was on my way to Korea. I was on the Korean route, and I ran into him at Wallace’s Sport
Light on Old Colony Avenue. And he said to me, “Geez, I’m glad I didn’t go. I met a nice girl,
and I’m thinking of getting married.” I said, “You son of a b,” I said, “I’m going over to get my
fanny shot off, and you’re telling me how good things are.” (laughter) So that’s how I ended up
back in the service.
McETTRICK: So what was the family reaction when Joe had his military vocation? I guess
everybody was going, so it was just really pretty much expected?
R. MOAKLEY: Yeah, it was expected and accepted. And when he came home, of course, he
had dropped out of school early. So he went to prep school to build up his high school credit and
everything so he could attend college. He went to Miami University first, and he played football
and boxed down there. He was a good boxer. He boxed in the light heavyweight division. And
they used to call him the “Boston Bull,” because he was a bull. He was one like Rocky
Marciano.3
T. MOAKLEY: He was so hairy, he looked like an ape. He had hair all over his back and his
arms.
ALLISON: He boxed here too, or in Boston too?
3
Rocky Marciano (1923-1969) was a boxer from Brockton, Massachusetts, who was the heavyweight champion of
the world from 1952 to 1956.
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R. MOAKLEY: No.
T. MOAKLEY: No.
ALLISON: He took it up down there?
R. MOAKLEY: Yes. Just in college. We had all boxed as kids. They had boxing programs in
the park department.
T. MOAKLEY: My father had—
R. MOAKLEY: Boxing gloves—
T. MOAKLEY: Boxing gloves and speed bag down in the cellar—
R. MOAKLEY: And a heavy bag.
T. MOAKLEY: And a seed bag filled with sand. It was like—
R. MOAKLEY: That was the heavy bag.
T. MOAKLEY: It was like hitting a brick wall. And he used to do push-ups with the three of
us sitting on his back. I remember one time he caught me. I had a pack of cigarettes, and he
said, “Put the gloves on.” So I put the gloves on, and he pasted me. I slid right across the floor.
R. MOAKLEY: My father was a big man. He was taller than any of us are now. And his ring
fit on my thumb. I’ve got big fingers, but you could drop a quarter through his ring that fit on his
finger. A quarter would fit through his ring.
T. MOAKLEY: He was tough.
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McETTRICK: Was he a member of the union? Was he on the Longshoremen’s?
R. MOAKLEY: No. He was in the Teamsters Union. He got into the bar business young. He
drove a laundry truck when he was first married and all of that. And then later he got into the bar
business. But he never gave up his union book. He paid his union dues right up till he died.
McETTRICK: When did your dad die?
R. MOAKLEY: Just before Joe went into the Congress. He died in ‘71.
ALLISON: Do you know how your parents met?
R. MOAKLEY: No. It was a really strange coupling. My mother was very timid, very
religious person. Went to communion every day, one of those types of people. And my father
couldn’t say three sentences without cursing. I don’t know if he could say one. No, he was a
rough and tumble guy, just the opposite of her. When they say opposites attract, that was—
T. MOAKLEY: That was the main attraction. Like he said, my mother was a saint. She would
go help everyone. My father would, too, but he’s the rough and tumble guy. I remember when
he had the bar on Tremont Street across from the old Hotel Bradford. I was sitting at the bar
having a beer. I think I was about twelve. I think Bob was there then. He said, “Quick, jump in
the car.” So we jumped in the car, and he drove around to Washington Street where the furniture
stores used to be. There was a guy walking down the street. He got out of the car and pasted
him. Then he got back in the car and drove away.
R. MOAKLEY: Well, there was a little conversation before that. (laughter) The guy had
passed a bad check on him in the joint. So I heard him, he went up to the guy. He says, “Hey,
what are you doing hanging wallpaper on me?” That’s the way he talked. And the guy put his
hand on his shoulder and said “Joe.” Then he said, “Don’t push me.” Bam. One punch, the
guy’s out cold. The guy came out of the furniture store and says, “You going to do something
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about that?” He said, “Do you want a spot beside him?” (laughter) He got in the car and drove
away.
T. MOAKLEY: He said, “The guy gave me a rubber check.” They never went to the police.
They took care of their own problems.
McETTRICK: That’s what you call a non-judicial sanction.
T. MOAKLEY: Well, the same thing happened when they had the place on Dorchester Avenue
near South Station. A fellow was coming over the bridge. He stops the car. He opens the thing,
he got a couple of bottles; it was his bartender. Now, the guy was an ex-con. He gave him a
break. Needless to say, he said, “I’m glad you appreciate it.” He pasted him, and that was the
end of him. That was the way it was.
R. MOAKLEY: I remember we were in the car with him once, and it was pouring rain. He had
a place out in Savin Hill at the time. And we were near there. And there was a priest walking
down the street, and it was pouring. So he pulled over and he said, “Get in, I’ll give you a lift.”
So the priest got in, looks at him, and he said, “You’re Joe Moakley, aren’t you?” And he said,
“Yes.” He said, “I really don’t approve of what you do at the bar,” he said, “those women
drinking up there and everything.” He says, “Father,” he says, “it’s a tavern. No women are
allowed in there. No women drink up there.” And he said, “Well,” he says, “I still don’t like it,
people going up there and blowing their paycheck on booze.” He says, “I shut them off if I think
they had too much.” He said, “I know my customers. I’m not going to.” And he kept on them.
So he finally pulled over and he says, “If you didn’t have your shirt on backwards,” he says, “I’d
take you down to the Mile Road and punch the shit out of you.” The Mile Road is where
Columbia Point project is now. He says, “Get out and walk!” (laughter)
T. MOAKLEY: My father was very generous. At that time, there was Camp McKay, an army
camp there, and he had a bunch of guys, and they used to have like softball games every
weekend. And he used to supply the food and the drinks and everything. And he sponsored a
football team there. He was always great for people being in sports, always supported them.
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McETTRICK: So what was it like when Joe came back from the war, and I suppose all of his
contemporaries did? And everybody was back in South Boston. They were trying to get their
lives started. It was ‘45, ‘48. What was the town like then?
T. MOAKLEY: Of course, all the guys that were getting out of the service all got together, and
some of Joe’s friends said, “Geez, Joe, why don’t you run for office?” I mean, he never talked
politics before. I guess they talked him into running. And the first time he ran for rep, I think he
lost by 198 votes.
ALLISON: Now were either of you involved in the campaign?
R. MOAKLEY: Yes.
T. MOAKLEY: Yes. Just writing postcards, and those days you had torchlight parades, and
knocking on doors and talking to people. That’s the way you used to do it in those days.
McETTRICK: Who did Joe rely on to do things in that first campaign, to knock on the doors
and distribute literature? There’s usually a knot of people that really arm your campaign.
R. MOAKLEY: We had a pretty good organization because they were looking for a veteran,
really. All the young guys that had come home from the service and everything. And the guys
over in the office had been in for a dozen years or so, all through the war and everything. So he
had a pretty good organization of young people, but not much political savvy. But that came
with the campaigns.
END OF PART 1
(interruption)
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T. MOAKLEY: The friends he used to hang with ended up being his campaign managers and
good workers. Of course, most of them had gone. Like Sleepy Lynch4 who is—
R. MOAKLEY: Congressman Lynch’s5 uncle.
(interruption)
T. MOAKLEY: Well Sleepy Lynch, who was very active in Joe’s campaign, who is now the
congressman’s uncle, he was my class president up in Southie High. It’s funny, there’s a
cemetery up the street here. Of course, we have our stone up already, save the kids department,
Who’s behind me? Sleepy Lynch. (laughter) I can’t get rid of him.
McETTRICK: He was always close. Who are some of the other names that come to mind?
T. MOAKLEY: Davy Keefe, Looper Doherty
R. MOAKLEY: Joe Murphy—
T. MOAKLEY: Herbie Arrigal, Paul O’Donnell was involved.
McETTRICK: So I suppose not everybody had a telephone, not everybody had a car. So
campaigning certainly was different. But at least everything is close together.
R. MOAKLEY: As Tom said, we used to do the street corners. They’d have a pickup truck in
the procession. And when you’d stop at a corner, Joe would get off, and they’d give him a mike,
and he’d say a few words. Then you’d go on to the next place. So, Herbie Arrigal you’ve seen
introduced Joe, and Joe, at the time, was not much of a public speaker. He hated to get up and
say anything in front of people. So the first stop, Herbie got up and said, “Now, I’d like to
4
John “Sleepy” Lynch (1929 -) was a volunteer on Moakley’s 1950 and 1952 state representative campaigns, as
well as a lifelong friend of Moakley’s. He is an uncle of Congressman Stephen Lynch. OH-011 in the John Joseph
Moakley Oral History Project is an interview with John Lynch.
5
Stephen F. Lynch (1955- ), a Democrat, has represented Massachusetts’ Ninth Congressional District in the U.S.
House of Representatives since the death of Joe Moakley in 2001.
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introduce the next representative from Ward 7, Joe Moakley!” And Joe would take the mike and
say, “Thanks very much, Herbie.” He says, “My name is Joe Moakley. I come from South
Boston. I’m a World War II veteran of the navy. I served on the South Pacific. And I’ll
appreciate your vote.”
And then we go on to the next corner. And Herbie would introduce him. “I’d like you to meet
Joe Moakley, a World War II veteran. He served in the South Pacific, and he’s looking for your
vote.” And he’d say, “Thanks very much, Herbie. I’m active in the Ward 7 Democratic Club.
And I promise, if I’m elected, I’ll do my best to make sure that things in Ward 7 improve. “
And Herbie would get to the next corner. “I want you to meet Joe Moakley, a World War II
Navy veteran, an active member of Ward 7 Democratic Club, who will get things done,” and so
forth. So, at the end of the night, Herbie would be giving a half hour speech, and Joe would be
saying, “Thank you.” (laughter) He would copy everything that Joe said at the previous stop.
ALLISON: Had you been involved in politics before Joe ran?
T. MOAKLEY: No. Well, my father was. Johnny Kerrigan,6 he was the mayor years ago.
And we used to have like parades. He used to march around the streets with banners and stuff
like that. That’s the only politics we’ve ever done before.
R. MOAKLEY: Actually, my father worked in Governor Hurley’s7 office for a while.
Governor Hurley was a Democratic governor of the state. Hurley liked guys from South Boston.
He liked them hanging around. They were like his bodyguards. And it was he and a couple of
other people from Southie, including Jack Crimmins, who later traveled with Ted Kennedy and
everything. He was a friend of my father’s. They hung around these young guys together. And
so during the Hurley campaigns, he’d put sandwich boards on us, with Hurley signs on both
6
John E. Kerrigan (1907-1987) was first elected to the Boston City Council in 1933, serving three terms as its
president. He was a member of the council for a total of thirty years and served twice as acting mayor of Boston, in
1938 and 1945. He also served two years in the State Senate.
7
Charles F. Hurley (1893-1946), a Democrat, served as governor of Massachusetts from 1937 to 1939.
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sides, and have us walking around. We were six, seven, eight years old, and walk around down
the beach or wherever, with sandwich boards on. So that was our first involvement with politics.
McETTRICK: Was there a vacancy that Joe was after in 1950, or was it just a big—
R. MOAKLEY: No. There were two incumbents. There were two reps in Ward 7 at the time,
and one in Ward 6. And he was running against an incumbent. But then when he ran again the
following year, the one he came close to didn’t run for re-election again. He knew that he would
get tipped over that time. So he got a job someplace else, and Joe was elected. Joe topped the
ticket the second time. He beat the other incumbent.
McETTRICK: So he really had a lot of momentum from the first one, and people that helped
him and so forth?
R. MOAKLEY: Right.
McETTRICK: So were you surprised when he ran and won? Or was it, you figured he, you
never know, but it looked pretty good.
R. MOAKLEY: When he was elected, I had already gone back into the service. The Korean
War had broke out after his first campaign. I’d gone back in the service. I had been in Korea.
And I still had two years to do after I finished my time in Korea. So rather than come back to the
states, I put in for Japan. Because state-side duty was not good. You’re always better off
overseas. So I was in Tokyo, actually, when Joe was elected. And I have a telegram at home
that he sent me in Tokyo, which I probably should have brought here today, saying that he had
been elected, and what the vote was. And he listed all of the candidates, and how many votes
they got. So I was in Tokyo when he won his first fight.
ALLISON: Do you have any idea why he topped the ticket, what made him so popular?
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T. MOAKLEY: Well, of course, being young going into the service and all, and the veterans,
and he was a new face, the other reps were in there for quite a few years, and nothing really
happened.
R. MOAKLEY: Plus, he became very active in the community. As I said earlier, he had gone
to school in Miami. So now he was back in Boston, and he was going to Suffolk, actually,
nights.8 And he was working as a lifeguard down the beach, and he was helping coach some of
the local football teams, and things like that. So he was active in the community. And he was
much better known his second term.
T. MOAKLEY: He was very active in the community. One night he babysat for my wife and
myself. We went to the movies. At that time we only had one son, my oldest son, Jackie. And
he used to come up our house and study while he was going to school. And I guess my son did a
load in his drawers. He calls up Evelyn in Cambridge. She came all the way over from
Cambridge, to change the diapers. (laughter) That was an experience. That’s probably why he’d
never have any kids after that. Then at Christmas he used to come around dressed as Santa
Claus, and Evelyn had the bunny rabbit outfit on, and he used to make the rounds to all the
people he knew.
R. MOAKLEY: As Tom had mentioned earlier, we have Italian blood in us, as well. And in
South Boston, the name Moakley was good enough. It was a good Irish name. But then, once he
started running for the Senate, it took in the North End. So we had to let them know that we
were half Italian, that our mother’s name was Scappini. And we got the word out pretty good
down there that he was half Italian. Plus, we had some cousins that lived over there.
So after he was in the Senate a couple of terms, I was walking through the North End at one of
the festivals. We used to go to a lot of the festivals in the North End. And we were eating some
sausages or something, and this little Italian guy comes up and he says, “Hey, Joe,” he says. “Is
that right what I hear about you?” And Joe says, “What’s that?” He says, “Are you half Irish?”
(laughter) So I guess the word was out pretty good by then.
8
Moakley attended Suffolk University Law School from 1952 to 1956, taking classes at night.
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McETTRICK: Now was your mother still alive when he was campaigning, or had she passed
away?
R. MOAKLEY: No, she died. He was elected rep—he was still a rep, when she died. She died
in the fifties.
T. MOAKLEY: Like you said, by today’s standards, she would still be alive, with the
improvements they’ve made in medicine. She died on Mother’s Day, too.
McETTRICK: So did Joe really like the job? Did he really like rep? Did he take to it like a
duck to water?
T. MOAKLEY: Joe would work in politics for nothing, because he really enjoyed helping
people. That’s what was amazing. He was a people person. Like even as a congressman, he
probably wouldn’t turn around if anyone said “Congressman.” Everyone calls him, “Joe.” I
remember when I visited him in Washington. We’re walking along the halls. He knew the
people running the elevators by name, the people sweeping the floor. He knew everybody by
name. He had a terrific memory for names. Like during the funeral, everybody had a personal
story to tell about him. I didn’t realize he touched so many people, really.
McETTRICK: What did people need, do you think, from the reps? What sorts of requests do
you think he would get as representative? Because you’ve got the big political issues—
T. MOAKLEY: Social Security checks.
R. MOAKLEY: Tom had gotten married, and Joe and I was still single. Neither of us had
gotten married yet. And we were living with one of our aunts. My mother had died—no, it was
before she had died. She was in the hospital, though. And the doorbell would start ringing about
six o’clock in the morning on Saturday, people looking for things; a thirty-day appointment, or,
Get my sidewalk fixed, anything, anything that was wrong on earth. So I used to say to him,
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because I was working hard in those days—I was doing physical work, longshoreman—I said,
“Joe, why don’t you get a real job (laughter), where people aren’t going to be coming to the
house waking us up on the weekends.”
But he loved it. Joe was happiest when his phone was ringing or somebody was looking for
something to do. In fact, I’m sure you’ve heard many times during the course of interviewing
the office staff and everything, he’d get on the phone himself when somebody would call him
with a problem. Where most pols are trying to duck it. Let somebody else handle that. He’d
want to get on and talk to the people and say, “Look, I’ll find out about it. I’ll get it done.” He
loved helping people. I don’t know if it was a flaw, but it was good for everybody else. I don’t
know how good it was for Joe. It kept him very busy. But he really loved to do things for
people.
McETTRICK: He certainly accomplished so many different things. What do you think he was
the proudest of? What do you think was really the most fun for him, or the best thing he did?
T. MOAKLEY: I think the proudest thing for him was the El Salvador situation, where he was
so insistent on getting the right people.9 He said there’s a lot of people they said did it, but he
knew they weren’t the ones. They had a couple of funny stories about it when they were going
through the streets in El Salvador. They were in a jeep, and they were going to meet somebody
that was going to give them important information. And there was a fellow with a machine gun
in the jeep, and the guy’s going like hell in the streets back and forth. And he taps the guy on the
shoulder and said, “I don’t care if we come in second.” He always tried to lighten the situation.
R. MOAKLEY: In El Salvador, he was not only coping with the El Salvadoran government, he
was coping with ours. Because the State Department didn’t want to look into it. They were
trying to cover it up because all the military, the people that were involved, were trained by us.
They had the place where they trained all, and not only them, but [Manuel] Noriega and all of
9
In December of 1989, Speaker of the House Thomas S. Foley appointed Moakley as chairman of a committee to
investigate violence in El Salvador, specifically the November 16, 1989, murder of six Jesuit priests, their
housekeeper and her daughter at the University of Central America in San Salvador. The committee is commonly
referred to as the Speaker’s Task Force on El Salvador or the Moakley Commission. The Moakley Commission
investigation revealed that the Salvadoran military was responsible for the murders.
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those guys, they were trained by us. And the State Department was trying to blame it on
somebody else. They were giving Joe all of the wrong information.
And he was persistent. He knew that it wasn’t right, what he was being told. And that’s why
Speaker Foley10 sent them down there. He knew he wouldn’t let go once he put him on the job.
He knew he would get to the bottom of it. So he ended up getting apologies from the State
Department and everything else when it was over. But if that hadn’t happened, that regime down
there never would have been toppled, and the way of life down there would never have changed.
Even at his service at the state house, there was some clergy from El Salvador who had come up
because of that.
T. MOAKLEY: He had the funding stopped, too. At the time the United States was still
sending money down to El Salvador. And he had the funding stopped when they found out what
the real story was. So I think that was his proudest. Like he said, his only time with foreign
politics was going to East Boston for a submarine sandwich.
McETTRICK: I suppose, when you have a lot of constituents asking you to do things and try to
get things accomplished, that you really need help at the other end. And who would you say
would be the people that Joe would have to turn to then to try to get things accomplished? Who
did he feel the most comfortable with?
T. MOAKLEY: His office help was great because when you called his office, you never got a
tape recording. If you called his home, you never had an answering machine. If he was there, he
would answer it himself. And he directed different people; one person take care of people, for
Social Security, another one for immigration. And all of these people he had complete faith in.
And if they couldn’t do it, they would tell you. They wouldn’t say, “Well, call me back later.”
If they couldn’t do it, they would let you know right away. And that’s what everyone
appreciated about the office.
10
Thomas S. Foley (1929- ), a Democrat, represented Washington State’s Fifth Congressional District in the U.S.
House of Representatives from 1969 to 1995. He served as Speaker of the House from 1989 to 1995.
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R. MOAKLEY: His staff was like family to him. In fact, a lot of them called him Uncle Joe.
They went to work there as kids. And he’d keep them on. He’d try and make sure they could
handle the job that they had the resources to do it. And when he announced that he was not
going to run again, he got them all together, the office staff, and told them, “Look, now is the
time to get a job some place else. You let me know what you want to do, I’ll help you get a job.”
Not one person left until after he died. None of them would leave while he was still alive.
T. MOAKLEY: As a matter of fact, while we were at the hospital in Washington, most of the
staff stayed overnight. There was a woman that was supposed to go on vacation; she canceled
the vacation. Another one didn’t even go to her anniversary party that she had. She stayed at the
hospital.
R. MOAKLEY: And Tom and I were down there. We spent four or five days there at the
hospital with Joe before he died. And even the hospital staff, let alone the office staff—he was
in Bethesda Naval Hospital, and there was a young girl there, Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx.
And she was spending her days off there helping Joe, rather than go home. She liked him that
much. And there was a young naval officer who was being transferred to Alaska. And he came
in on his day off, before he left. And Joe had slipped into a coma by then. But he saluted him
and said a prayer. The people in the hospital loved him as well. He was good to them.
T. MOAKLEY: And in fact, the last week before he died, in the hospital, he was on the phone
and he got some young girl into a college that she wanted to go to.
McETTRICK: I bet that made his day.
T. MOAKLEY: Yeah.
McETTRICK: What do you recall about the point where Joe decided that instead of serving in
the state legislature, that he was going to go for the congressional seat? Do you think that was
just a natural decision? Did he have to think about? Was it a struggle for him?
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R. MOAKLEY: What happened was John W. McCormack11 retired. So the vacancy was
created. He would not have opposed John W. He had the greatest respect for John W. And he
would not have opposed him for the seat. But that seemed like the natural place for him to go
because of his legislative experience. That was his ambition, really. We used to kid about it
when he was a state rep, Someday you’ll be another John W. McCormack.
T. MOAKLEY: But John McCormack was in Congress when Joe was real young, and stayed
there.
ALLISON: He was about a year old when John was elected. What about in 1960, he ran
against John Powers. 12 Were either of you involved in that?
T. MOAKLEY: Yes.
R. MOAKLEY: Yes, but very deeply involved in that. What happened was, if you recall, that
was the year of the presidential election. And Johnny Powers was supposed to go to work for
Jack Kennedy.13 He was supposed to get a cabinet job or something. And the reps in the
senatorial district got together. At the time, John Tynan was a rep at the time in the district, and
the rep from Roxbury and all the wards that were on the senatorial district got together and
selected who would be Powers’ predecessor, not predecessor—successor. But they decided Joe
should be it because his was the most populous ward, and he at the time was the whip in the state
legislature.
So Joe said okay. He got out and started his campaign. And then, maybe halfway through the
campaign, Powers decided he was going to run again. I guess whatever he was supposed to get
11
John W. McCormack (1891-1990), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Twelfth and, after redistricting, Ninth
Congressional Districts in the United States House of Representatives from 1928 to 1971. He served as Speaker of
the House from 1962 to 1971.
12
John E. Powers (1910-1998), a Democrat, represented South Boston in the Massachusetts House of
Representatives from 1939 to 1946 and in the Massachusetts State Senate from 1947 to 1964. He served as Senate
President from 1959 to 1964.
13
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Eleventh Congressional District in the
U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953, then represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate from 1953 to
1960, when he was elected president.
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fell through. So he got back in the fight, and that’s how that happened. It was not a nice contest,
either. And Powers became very bitter towards Joe, even though he was the one that put the
word out that he was not going to run again.
McETTRICK: So then Powers did vacate the seat eventually.
R. MOAKLEY: Yes. He became clerk in the courts, and then Joe ran again.
ALLISON: What did he do in the years between when he—
R. MOAKLEY: He was a lawyer. Joe had a law practice. In fact, I don’t know why he got
back into politics. He was doing very well in his law practice. More money than he could ever
make in politics.
ALLISON: Probably the thing the South Boston state senator is best known for is hosting the
Saint Patrick’s Day Breakfast. Can you tell us anything about that experience?
T. MOAKLEY: Bob was a good writer. Bob used to write a lot of material.
R. MOAKLEY: Joe used to host a—Johnny Powers had started it, and then Joe, of course,
followed him into the Senate, and he hosted it. It used to be at Dorgan’s in those days, which is
gone now. Dorgan’s was down near the beach. It was much smaller than the hall they have it in
now. And the place would be packed to the rafters from all over. And I used to write the
parodies. They used to have parodies there, and Paul O’Donnell, who Tom had mentioned, was
an entertainer. He was a singer and banjo player, and he had an accompanist on the piano. And
I used to write political parodies, which they sang there, and write one-liners for Joe to use at the
head tables.
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So it was fun. It was a fun time. Then they’d go from that into the parade. And then when Billy
Bulger14 took over after him, then it became like a one-man show with Billy. But before it was
like a variety show. It was a different format. But Joe really enjoyed doing that.
ALLISON: Did you write parodies for other things? Were you naturally a writer, or just a fun
guy?
R. MOAKLEY: Or unnaturally. (laughter)
T. MOAKLEY: Actually, I think the time when Joe ran the second time for Congress, when he
was going against Hicks,15 I think it was kind of your idea for him to run as an Independent.
Because once in a crowded field, Louise was going to get back in again. So if he figured a oneon-one shot—
R. MOAKLEY: I would have actually told him to do it the first time, but nobody had done it,
and he thought that it would hurt him in the Democratic Party. One of the reasons I used to write
them was I was very political. And I knew everybody in politics. So I could work those kinds of
things into songs or whatever. But I was very close to Joe politically, too, in helping them make
decisions on different things. Not policy issues, so much. Joe had a knack for his own policy
issues. But on how to handle different districts or people within the district that they were trying
to win over, and things like that. So we were very close, politically and friendship-wise too. As
Tom said, we never really got close until we all came home from the service. That’s when we
became close. We all went our own ways as teenagers.
14
William M. Bulger (1934- ), a Democrat, served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1962 to
1970, in the Massachusetts State Senate from 1970 to 1978 and as State Senate President from 1978 to 1996.
15
Louise Day Hicks (1916-2003), a Democrat, served on the Boston School Committee from 1962 to 1967 (serving
as chair from 1963 to 1965), ran unsuccessfully for the mayoralty of Boston in 1967 and in 1971, and served on the
Boston City Council before being elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1970. She represented
Massachusetts’ Ninth Congressional District for one term. It was in the 1970 election that Moakley lost his first bid
for Congress, in part because Hicks was an outspoken critic of forced busing in Boston, while Moakley did not take
a strong stand on the issue. Moakley defeated Hicks in the 1972 congressional election when he ran as an
Independent so he wouldn’t have to run against Hicks in the democratic primary.
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T. MOAKLEY: Bob and Joe were the bachelors, and I was married then. And my time was
consumed a little differently.
McETTRICK: You had pointed out that, of course, John McCormack had been the
congressman forever and Louise Hicks got the seat. And then there was a rematch between Joe
and Louise. Were people surprised that that happened, or was everybody expecting that there
was going to be an Act Two?
R. MOAKLEY: Believe it or not, Joe would have won the first time, even as a Democrat, if
David Nelson16 had not gone into the fight. Joe actually beat Louise Day Hicks in South Boston,
Dorchester, and all those places. And David Nelson, who was a black attorney—of course, the
blacks were anti-Hicks because she was a great anti-busing advocate.
So he brought Coretta King into Boston election eve, and had made it a black and white fight,
actually. That’s what happened. He polarized everybody. It was, Then you either have to vote
Hicks or Nelson. That’s what it came down to.
T. MOAKLEY: Was there somebody else, too the guy that became—
R. MOAKLEY: That was Dave Nelson. He became a judge afterwards.
T. MOAKLEY: No. I think there was somebody else who was in the court system, too. I can’t
think of his name now, but I’m pretty sure there was another candidate.
R. MOAKLEY: No, that was the next time, Jimmy Hennigan. That was the point that he ran as
an Independent.
McETTRICK: When Nelson did that, that changed the whole situation.
16
David S. Nelson (1933-1998) was the first African American to serve as a judge of a federal court in Boston. He
was appointed to the position in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter.
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T. MOAKLEY: Oh, yeah. It took all of the Moakley votes away.
McETTRICK: Sure. So you could really see pretty clearly the opportunity was there—
R. MOAKLEY: We tried to explain that. Dave Nelson is a nice guy. And I knew Dave before
that. His law partner was Joe Oteri at the time, and Joe Oteri was a friend of mine. I had gone to
school with Joe. I grew up with him. But he couldn’t understand that he was the spoiler in the
fight. He didn’t want to hear that Joe could beat her and he couldn’t. And then afterwards he
said that he did his own people a disservice. He admitted it.
McETTRICK: It’s going to be difficult to make those decisions.
R. MOAKLEY: It is, it’s tough. Anybody who gets into a political campaign can rationalize in
their own mind why they’re going to win, or they wouldn’t be in there.
McETTRICK: Everybody could see clearly the second time around, where all the cards were
and how this would actually break.
ALLISON: Did you ever think of running for office?
R. MOAKLEY: No, in a word. (laughter)
T. MOAKLEY: No. I’ve worked with him, but I wouldn’t want to be in politics. I don’t have
the patience to be in politics.
R. MOAKLEY: In fact, a lot of people had tried to push me into going for Joe’s seat after he
died. Of course, I’m too old to start in that game, anyway. But I have no interest in becoming
the office holder. I have a great interest in what they do, but I don’t want to be the guy doing it,
really.
ALLISON: The doorbell being rung at six in the morning on a Saturday.
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END OF PART 2
McETTRICK: You could lead us. I mean you were there.
T. MOAKLEY: Well first of all, about Joe helping people; even on the weekends when he used
to come home, he used to park his car on Castle Island in a certain spot. It was just like having
office hours. People knew he parked there. They’d go down there, go over to it, “Joe, could you
do this for me?” “Can you do that?” He had his book. I mean he just liked being near people,
and taking care of them. And he really enjoyed that.
McETTRICK: And John McCormack was the primary political figure for so many. What was
that like? And how do you think that effected Joe, and how Joe did the job when he became
congressman?
R. MOAKLEY: Well, I think Joe had the greatest respect for John W. McCormack. And,
nobody ever mentioned his name without saying his middle initial, John W. They sometimes
would omit the last name, but not the middle initial. And he was considered to be a guy that—
the rags to riches story—a guy who grew up in Southie and became a member of Congress.
And Joe had the greatest respect for him, and greatest admiration for him. And that’s why I say
he aspired to that seat, too. I think every kid who ran for politics in Southie hoped to someday
do that; become a member of Congress just because John W. had done it.
T. MOAKLEY: It’s funny, he never had any desire to be the House Speaker, but he did want to
be the chairman of the Rules Committee,17 because that’s a very important part, and it has a lot
of power. And he figured he could do more for the area if he was the chairman.
17
The House Rules Committee is responsible for the scheduling of bills for discussion in the House of
Representatives. According to the Rules Committee website, “bills are scheduled by means of special rules from the
Rules Committee that bestow upon legislation priority status for consideration in the House and establish procedures
for their debate and amendment.” (See http://www.rules.house.gov/) Congressman Moakley was a member of the
House Rules Committee from 1975 to 2001 and served as its chairman from 1989 to 1995.
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R. MOAKLEY: And Tip wanted to make him like a floor leader, or something, in the House,
or he’d be in the line for the Speaker’s job after he got out of there. And Joe didn’t want it. He
said, “I’d rather stay in the Rules Committee because every piece of legislation comes through
there.” And that’s where you can do some good; affect every piece of legislation.
T. MOAKLEY: A matter of fact, before he died, he spoke to Gephardt,18 and made sure that
McGovern19 could get on the Rules Committee to be from the Massachusetts delegation, and he
wanted somebody on the Rules Committee. And that’s another one of his last- minute things he
wanted to get done.
McETTRICK: So that was the same tradition. That’s what had happened to Joe when he
arrived.
T. MOAKLEY: Yeah, but Tip O’Neill20 got him on the Rules.
McETTRICK: So, how was the transition when he first went to Washington? I suppose it’s a
whole new ballgame. It’s not the state house anymore. What was that like?
R. MOAKLEY: What happened was he went as an Independent. But he had told Tip before he
was elected, he said, “Don’t worry. As soon as I’m seated, I’ll be seated as a Democrat,” which
he was. And he hit it off with Tip right away. They became really good friends, socially as well
as working. He spent most of his holidays, because Tom and I were married, and had our own
family. And he spent most of his holidays with Tip and Millie. They’d go down the Cape for
Thanksgiving and things like this.
18
Richard Gephardt (1941- ), a Democrat, represented Missouri’s Third Congressional District in the U.S. House of
Representatives from 1977 to 2005.
19
James P. McGovern (1959- ), a Democrat, has represented Massachusetts’ Third Congressional District in the
U.S. House of Representatives since 1997. He was a member of Moakley’s congressional staff from 1982 to 1996.
20
Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill (1912-1994), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Eleventh and, after redistricting,
Eighth Congressional Districts in the United States House of Representatives from 1953 to 1987. He served as
Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1977 to 1987. He also served in the Massachusetts House of
Representatives from 1936 to 1952.
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Because Tip had lived in Washington most of his life. His family was up here. And he and
Eddie Boland21 roomed together. And then after the kids all got married and everything, then
Millie and he started living together because Millie was taking care of the kids.
But Joe and Evelyn22 spent a great deal of time with them. And they were really good friends.
And they played in all the golf tournaments. And the funny thing, I ran into Ray Flynn23 one
time. And Ray had been in one of the golf tournaments with him. And he said, “Gee, I used to
read about them being in all these golf tournaments.” He says, “I thought they were good
golfers.” He said, “They stink.” (laughter) Which they did, I think. I don’t think either of them
were great golfers, but they had a lot of fun doing it. And they did a lot of golf charity
tournaments that helped a lot of people.
T. MOAKLEY: A matter of fact, the O’Neill family let Joe do the eulogy when Tip died. I
mean other people requested it, but they said, No, Joe Moakley is going to do it. And that’s how
close they were.
McETTRICK: So then Joe just barely got settled in Congress, and then the upheaval started in
Boston with the busing and so forth. How did that affect Joe, as community leader?
T. MOAKLEY: Well, I think the busing was going on long before that. I think most of the
local politicians were very vocal in that. Well Joe, more or less, stayed kind of away because
these guys were making their own name for themselves up there.
R. MOAKLEY: Well, what happened was you had some—and I don’t want to mention
anybody’s name. But there were people that would get up in front of the people at different
rallies and things, and tell them, No buses are going to roll in South Boston. Your kids aren’t
going to be bused, and things like this.
21
Edward P. Boland (1911-2001), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Second Congressional District in the
U.S. House of Representatives from 1953 to 1989.
22
Evelyn (Duffy) Moakley (1927-1996) was Congressman Moakley’s wife. They married in 1957.
23
Raymond L. Flynn (1939- ), a Democrat, represented South Boston in the Massachusetts State House of
Representatives from 1971 to 1979. He later served on the Boston City Council from 1978 to 1974, then as mayor
of Boston from 1984 to 1993.
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Joe was really, Joe was anti-busing, and voted against busing. He wasn’t going to be a hypocrite
about it. And when they asked him, they said, “It’s the law.” He said, “Tip passed that law.” I
said, “There’s nothing that anybody is going to do to stop this.” And they didn’t want to hear
that.
And people later in life realized that he was telling the truth and the others weren’t. But in the
heat of the passion over having your kid taken from your neighborhood and bused to another
neighborhood, they felt like Joe had deserted them. And these people were helping him. But,
the other people were just using them, actually, building support from him.
T. MOAKLEY: Yeah, just making a name for themselves.
McETTRICK: So, he was really frustrated by that—
R. MOAKLEY: Oh, it really hurt him because people that he really liked, that were friends,
some of them turned against him. And in fact, he even lost South Boston in one election. And
he came back to win it again after that. But yeah, it hurt him because he was telling them the
truth, and—
T. MOAKLEY: They didn’t want to hear it.
R. MOAKLEY: Well, everybody else was telling him something else that wasn’t true. And
unfortunately, they then thought it was him, that it was his doing.
ALLISON: Were you guys living in South Boston then?
T. MOAKLEY: Oh yeah, we were living in South Boston. The thing is that, I think most
people, even most of the blacks, didn’t want to get bused either. But you had a group of blacks
and group of whites that were just disturbing and making a lot of noise. Some people were
making money on it, other people were making a name on it. So they kept the thing going.
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R. MOAKLEY: Yeah. There was a fellow whose name I can’t even think of at the time, but a
very prominent—Mel King.24 Mel King used to run for office all the time. And he made the
statement that the people in Southie and Roxbury had more in common than they do differences.
It’s outside forces that are controlling them. And they were pitting the poor against the poor, the
people who had no voice and no power against each other, unfortunately. And it was a sad thing.
ALLISON: And were your children in school at the time?
R. MOAKLEY: Yes.
ALLISON: And where were they going?
T. MOAKLEY: Well my kids were doing triple classes up at Southie High. So when I was
living in Southie, they were coming down to Sacred Heart in Weymouth. Of course, my older
son was out of school. And my second oldest boy finished Southie High. But my girls ended up
going down here because the classes were so long. And people from other areas were coming to
Southie High. And they kept on making bigger classes and adding hours on. And they weren’t
getting the education. So we sent them to parochial school down in Weymouth. So they went
from Southie to Weymouth on public transportation to go to school.
R. MOAKLEY: I had a daughter that was also in Southie High. And they ended up sending
her to English High School downtown. And she didn’t like the idea of being sent someplace
else, but she went. And then one day, she came home. And she said she used to have lunch
every day with these two black girls. They were twins. And she really liked them. She got to
know them, and she really liked them. And everyday she’d have lunch with them. And she said,
one day, she went to sit with them, and one of them said to her, the brother said, “We can’t sit
with you anymore.” So what it was supposed to accomplish, bringing the kids together, caused a
schism within the school rather than just within the city. And that hurt her because she said, she
24
Melvin H. King (1928- ) is a community activist in the Boston area. He ran unsuccessfully three times for the
Boston Community and once for mayor of Boston in 1983. He served in the Massachusetts State House of
Representatives from 1973 to 1982.
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knew they liked her and she liked them. And it was just the kids in the school. They weren’t
going to segregate themselves.
T. MOAKLEY: Because years ago, when you wanted to go to a different school, like if you
wanted to study electricity, you went to Charlestown High. If you wanted to study mechanics,
you went to another school. I mean they did that on their own. And there was never any
problem. But when people force you to do something that you don’t want to do, then you have
your problems.
R. MOAKLEY: As I said, I used to come up with schemes. I had come up with that idea for
Boston. And everybody pooh-poohed it, Mayor White,25 the school committee, everybody else.
And, it later became known as the magnet school.26 And they use them out in the Midwest and it
worked. But nobody wanted to do it here. And I said that. Because they did it for trades, so
they could have done it for academic reasons as well, if you were interested in a certain field of
study. But, they just pooh-poohed it here. Another city picked it up a few years later and ran
with it, calling it magnet schools.
McETTRICK: Well, you must have had a chance—being the family of a congressman who
was well-placed in Congress—you must have had an opportunity to go to a lot of exciting
functions, and meet people that you never really would have seen otherwise, because Joe seemed
to have a way of getting to know some of the presidents and the powers that be. Tell us a little
bit about that. What’s it like to have your brother be a leader in Congress? And how did that
affect the two of you?
T. MOAKLEY: Well, people start noticing you, anyway. (laughter) But you know, Bob and I,
we’re never name-droppers or anything. You go some places and they call you, or you go
someplace, you wait your turn. I was never one to say, “Geez, can I get here? My brother is a
25
Kevin White (1929- ), a Democrat, served as mayor of Boston from 1968 to 1984. He ran unsuccessfully for
governor of Massachusetts in 1970.
26
Magnet schools are schools offering special courses not available in the regular school curriculum and designed,
often as an aid to school desegregation, to attract students on a voluntary basis from all parts of a school district
without reference to the usual attendance zone rules. (Definition from the Library of Congress.)
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congressman,” or something. I was always kind of laid back. And people say, Geez, you’re
stupid. If my brother was that, I’d do this and do that. But that wasn’t our way anyway.
But we went to a couple of the big events in Washington a few years back. And they had a big
party for Joe when he finally solved the El Salvador thing. That place was huge, and every seat
was taken. And then you had your picture taken with [President Bill] Clinton and all that. So it
was very impressive.
Then, of course, the latest thing when [George W.] Bush signed the bill making the courthouse
Joe Moakley.27 And he’s signing the bill, and my brother is over his shoulder saying, “G-E.”
(laughter) So, he says to the president, “Can I have the pen?” And he says, in his Irish voice,
“You only have one pen? I know you’re trying to cut the budget, but do you have to start with
the pen?” And he said, “I have two brothers.”
R. MOAKLEY: Normally, when a president does sign a bill, they use as many pens as there are
people in the room. He uses one pen.
T. MOAKLEY: Of course, it was his first bill, I think, he ever signed out in the Rose Garden.
R. MOAKLEY: It was. That was his first Rose Garden ceremony. And after the bill signing,
Joe called us and our wives up on the stage to have a picture taken with the president. So when
we got up, I said to Tom’s wife and my wife—of course, Evelyn was already deceased—I said,
“Why don’t you two stand with the president? And Tom and I will get on the outside.” And the
president said, “Yeah, these Moakley boys are real ugly.” (laughter)
T. MOAKLEY: Yeah, but he was good. After the ceremonies, we saw Andy Card.28 And
Bob’s wife was talking to him. And we wanted to see the Oval Office. So we finally got in
there. And we’re in there. He’s showing us all around. And who walks in a couple of minutes
27
On March 13, 2001, President George W. Bush signed Public Law No. 107-2 naming the U.S. courthouse on
South Boston’s Fan Pier the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse.
28
Andy Card (1948- ) was White House Chief of Staff under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006.
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later but the president. And geez, we had to break away from him. He kept on talking. And he
asked us about our father. He is a good politician. He’s really very easy to talk to.
R. MOAKLEY: Well, he’s a well-met guy. I don’t agree with most of the political decisions.
But, socially he’s—I’ve been fortunate enough, I’ve met every president since Harry Truman,
and mostly because of my work. And I go to a lot of functions for veterans and things like this.
And I speak at the national conventions and things like that.
But he’s a very sociable, down-to-earth guy. And, of course, he came to Joe’s mass, too. And
he was very nice about that. And he sent us notes afterwards, after the mass. And he’s a nice
guy. But, as I say, politically, I don’t agree with lots of things he does. But socially he’s a nice
guy.
T. MOAKLEY: It’s funny that Joe used to call up my wife every once in a while. And when
he’d get a new joke, he’d call up and say, “Do you know any new jokes?” and stuff like that.
Afterwards, one thing Evelyn was telling us was one night—of course, she didn’t see Joe that
much. And she used to watch C-SPAN. And she saw Joe with a couple of congressmen, telling
one of his jokes, like it was about a guy that was in a nursing home, and they wouldn’t let him
fart. So, she saw him going like (gestures). She called up Joe. She said, “People know that
joke. You’re going to tell it.” (laughter)
There was something else that he did that I don’t, like when he was sitting on the stage at one of
these colleges, and getting one of these doctorates from there. And some fellow behind him
says, “Mr. Moakley, what did you major in college?” He says, “Sheet metal.” (laughter) Yeah,
always had a wisecrack, to help things. But he was funny.
R. MOAKLEY: Yeah. I remember when he got his first doctorate degree. And he went home
to Evelyn, and he said, “Well, you’re going to have to call me ‘doctor’ now.” And she says,
“Okay doctor, take the dog out.”
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McETTRICK: Did he have much occasion to deal with President Reagan? I know it’s unusual
for congressmen to really see the president that much. But did he have much contact with
Reagan?
R. MOAKLEY: Yeah, he did. Reagan used to love Saint Patrick’s Day, and Irish jokes, and
stuff like that. So he and Tip O’Neill would be around—he’d invite them over around Saint
Patrick’s Day all the time to joke and kid about—do Irish jokes. But there was another guy, a
very well-met guy with a good sense of humor, but didn’t agree with any of his politics either.
In fact, Tip told me one time that he had a group down there from the AARP when he was trying
to cut benefits for the elderly and everything. And Tip said, “I said to the guy, ‘Don’t worry, I
won’t let that SOB cut anything. And he said, “Look, don’t badmouth Reagan. He’s a nice guy.
We just wanted you to protect our benefits.” (laughter) And he had that effect on people. He’d
be killing them financially, but they liked him.
McETTRICK: Didn’t Reagan come up, and did he have a drink at the Erie Pub in Dorchester?
R. MOAKLEY: Yes.
ALLISON: And we do have a picture, actually. It must have been one of the Saint Patrick’s
Day functions at the White House with Reagan, and Joe, and Tip.
T. MOAKLEY: Yeah. Yeah, I saw that picture.
ALLISON: A lot of bottles of beer on the table. The flipside of this, the whole idea of being a
congressman’s brother, you said how he liked to help people. And you mentioned, after you got
the license plate, you were worried about parking at Castle Island. Would people ask you to help
them with things because they knew you were Joe Moakley’s brother? Or did you stay out—try
to distance yourself?
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R. MOAKLEY: Oh, they’d use us as a conduit to get to him, people that didn’t know him,
naturally, yes. And, of course, I had enough people after me anyway. I had an office in the JFK
Building for many years. And Joe, he had an office there, but he’d be in Washington. So they’d
all end up in my office.
And, of course, Joe used to call me for a lot of things, too. If it had anything to do with veterans,
he’d call me, and I’d know who to get in touch with on it to help out in that respect. But yeah, it
wasn’t a downer. It wasn’t that bad that you had to have an unlisted phone or there were lines
outside our doors or anything. But sometimes people just wouldn’t know which course to take.
And they’d call you for advice or, you know, Would it be okay if I called Joe? Can I use your
name? Things like that.
T. MOAKLEY: Yeah, it wasn’t abused. I got a few calls, but really not enough to disturb you.
They kind of respected your privacy, too. It wasn’t overdone.
McETTRICK: So now that we’ve almost finished the Big Dig,29 I guess that was another big
story of Joe’s career, really, getting that launched, and Tip O’Neill. And that was really a team
effort. It seems to be one of the big impacts, really, that Joe had on the city, the Big Dig and the
waterfront. It must be amazing to drive around and just look at all of this.
T. MOAKLEY: Well, I remember when I was walking along Castle Island with Joe once. And
I said, “Geez, the water looks great. Look at the color.” He says, “You’re welcome.” (laughter)
R. MOAKLEY: Joe was the only Massachusetts politician invited to the first Earth Day that
was held at Harvard.30 In fact, there were only two politicians invited there. And one was
Senator Muskie31 from Maine and Joe. Because that far back, he had already filed legislation to
clean up Boston Harbor, to preserve the island. He had a lot of foresight when it came to the
ecology.
29
The Big Dig, or Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T), was the largest public works project in U.S. history and
involved the replacement of downtown Boston’s elevated highway with a tunnel. The project began in 1991 and
ended in 2007.
30
The first Earth Day was held at Harvard University on April 22, 1970.
31
Edmund S. Muskie (1914-1996), a Democrat, represented Maine in the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1980.
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And there are bills up there now that they still refer to as the Moakley Bills, that he had filed
back in the fifties and sixties. And they’re becoming national kinds of things now. In fact,
there’s a cigarette bill up there they refer to as the Moakley Bill.32 It’s a self-extinguishing
cigarette that will go out, if you’re not puffing on it, to prevent fires. There were so many people
burning themselves to death. And that’s just been revived this year, I think. And they’re
referring to it as the Moakley Bill. But he had filed that when he was in the state legislature that
long ago.
ALLISON: What made him interested in the harbor and the islands?
R. MOAKLEY: He was aware, as Tom and I had said earlier, the minnow used to be
swimming around our ankles down there. You could see the fish. At night, you could actually
see fish glistening. The streetlights would hit them. And, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that
they’ve been depleted.
At one time, they were talking about putting the World’s Fair in Boston Harbor.33 And they
were going to link up piers from the island back into the shore, where you could go out, and
they’d be all over the place. And Joe opposed it. He said, “All we’re going to be left with are
floating popcorn boxes and stuff like that. It’s not going to do us any good here.” They’d end up
polluting it even worse than it was. But yeah, he was very conscious of what had happened.
Since we were kids, he could see the difference.
McETTRICK: And I guess there was the difference between state and federal involvement
because Deer Island34 was a state operation, and some of those Harbor Islands were with the
32
After a family in his district died in a fire that was caused by a cigarette, Congressman Moakley obtained passage
of the Cigarette Safety Act of 1984, which established Congressional committees to determine if a fire-safe cigarette
was technically feasible, and the Fire-Safe Cigarette Act of 1990, which required the government to develop a test to
assess how “fire-safe” a cigarette was. As of 2008, there was still no federal law mandating fire-safe cigarettes, but
sixteen states, including Massachusetts, have regulations in place.
33
In the late 1960s, a proposal was made to bring a World’s Fait to Boston, specifically to the area surrounding
Boston Harbor, as part of the nation’s bicentennial celebrations in 1976. The proposal was not successful.
34
Deer Island, once of the Boston Harbor Islands, is home to the Deer Island Waste Water Treatment Plant.
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state. But I guess Joe really felt that it was time for the national community.35 Do you recall a
history of that at all and how that affected him, or how he got engaged in it?
R. MOAKLEY: Well, he was always interested in the islands. And he always talked about
them. But I think one of the big things, too, is when Dukakis36 was running for president. And
his opponent came and said, “Look at the harbor.” It looked like a big mud bath there. And of
course, that probably had some effect on Joe, also.
McETTRICK: Of course, you look at Spectacle Island,37 and that’s just completely different.
It looks different.
R. MOAKLEY: They’ll have a ski slope there. But that used to actually glow at night. There
was trash burning there for years. That was a dump years ago. And it was always smoldering
continuously.
T. MOAKLEY: There was an old schooner that was tied up there that was rotted away, a real
mess years ago when we were kids.
R. MOAKLEY: There was a lady; a Portuguese lady lived on it. And her family had all died, I
guess. And she was still living on there.
ALLISON: Did you ever go out to the islands as kids?
R. MOAKLEY: Just to Thompson’s Island.38 That was the only one they used to let people on.
35
Throughout his political career, Moakley lobbied on behalf of the Boston Harbor Islands, his efforts culminating
with the creation of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area in 1996, which put the islands under the
control of the National Park Service.
36
Michael S. Dukakis (1933- ), a Democrat, served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1962 to
1970, then as governor of Massachusetts from 1975 to 1979 and from 1983 to 1991. He was the Democratic
presidential nominee in 1988, but lost the presidential election to Republican George H.W. Bush.
37
Spectacle Island is one of the Boston Harbor Islands and features a marina, visitor center, cafe, a life-guarded
swimming beach, and five miles of walking trails.
38
Thompson Island, another of the Boston Harbor Islands, is now home to and operated by Thompson Island
Outward Bound, a non-profit educational organization that teaches leadership and other life skills.
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T. MOAKLEY: They used to have some picnics from the yacht club that used to go out there.
ALLISON: Now did you join the yacht club as you—
T. MOAKLEY: Yeah. I had a big, sixteen footer.
R. MOAKLEY: Joe had become commodore of the Columbia Yacht Club. While he was in
between the House and Senate terms, he became commodore of the yacht club, the Columbia.
We all belonged. Our kids all learned to swim down there. And we used to put a rope around
their waists and throw them over the side of the raft, and hold the rope, and let them swim.
T. MOAKLEY: My son is a captain in the navy now. That’s where he got his first sea duty,
sticking his head out of the porthole.
McETTRICK: When you think back over your life and in Joe’s career, how do you see him in
your mind’s eye? What are the critical moments? And when you think of Joe being in
Congress, what associations come to mind, the triggers that you have when you think about him?
R. MOAKLEY: I think probably the greatest defining moment was him seeking reelection after
Evelyn died. And that was Evelyn’s doing. I was actually overseas when Joe got very sick.
T. MOAKLEY: I used to contact him.
R. MOAKLEY: And I came home to try to talk him out of running again because Joe was in
poor health, and Evelyn was dying. And I said, “Joe, you should spend some time together,” you
know. “And you’ve done a lot for a lot of people. Take care of yourselves. Spend what time
you have left together.” I was that concerned about his health and, of course, Evelyn’s as well.
So, Evelyn died. And I was on a little island. And my wife couldn’t even reach me. They didn’t
even have telephones there. So by the time I got back to Manila, it was the night before the
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funeral. So I couldn’t make it. There’s no way you can get back in time. It’s twenty hours to
get to the West Coast from Manila. And people don’t realize how far away it is.
But anyway, I called Joe and apologized and everything else. But before Evelyn died, she said to
Joe, “I want you to promise me you will run again. I don’t want you dropping out of office on
my account. I want you to promise me you’ll run again.” So Evelyn was the one that made him
run again. And, as it turns out, it was the best thing that ever happened to him.
T. MOAKLEY: I think that’s what made him last.
R. MOAKLEY: His most productive years were after all his illnesses and Evelyn’s death.
That’s when he got most of the things accomplished. So that was probably the defining moment,
and Evelyn talking him into running again. That was probably one of the defining moments of
his life.
T. MOAKLEY: Yeah. It was kind of iffy because, at that time, after his operation, they were
giving him different medications. And sometimes he was all over the place, you know. And I
was thinking, Geez. I called Bob, I said, “I don’t know what’s happening to him.” But once
they got the medication settled, he was fine.
R. MOAKLEY: Because I flew home after I had talked with Tom.
END OF PART 3
McETTRICK: One question I had for both of you is, you’ve seen fifty years of government,
and politics, and campaigning. So you’ve really had a very special opportunity that many people
don’t have. And I was wondering if you had any reflections on how politics has changed, or how
people’s expectations of politicians have changed, or how politicians may have started to do
things differently. What do you see in terms of change? And is the change good or bad? Where
are we?
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T. MOAKLEY: In the olden days, there wasn’t all this fancy communication, like answering
machines, e-mail, and stuff like that. I think everything was on a personal note. And people
were close to their constituents. But today, it’s e-mail and answering service. My brother Joe
never had any answering service, always had people answer the telephone, which is a great thing.
As you know, when you call up places, you get a whole index of things that really irritate you
anyway. And Joe always said that the people are his boss, not vice versa. That’s why he always
stayed close to people. He knows what they want and knows what they’re thinking, and tries to
do it the best he can for them.
R. MOAKLEY: And I think the politicians themselves have changed, and a lot of it due to the
technology, but most of it due to personal attitude. When Joe first started in politics, and when
we were kids growing up, the politicians were there to help the people, and they knew that. They
knew that’s why they were there.
When you see pictures of Mayor Curley39 or Honey Fitz,40 they’re always doing something.
They’re getting turkeys for Thanksgiving for poor people. They’re getting food for families
whose houses burned down. They’re doing things like that. And the local politicians, at least in
the city of Boston, which they were the only ones we were really aware of at that time, did the
same thing. They were there to help their constituency.
And Joe entered politics with that mindset. This is what I’m here for. I’m here to help the
people who put me in office. But even though that is a noble purpose, he went beyond that
because he went beyond his constituency. He never asked anybody that called the office, “Do
you live in my district?” Or he didn’t care that the people in El Salvador couldn’t vote for him.
39
James Michael Curley (1874-1958), a Democrat, served as mayor of Boston for four non-consecutive terms
between 1914 and 1950, and as governor of Massachusetts from 1935 to 1937. He also represented Massachusetts’
Twelfth Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives from 1911 to 1914 and the Eleventh
Congressional District from 1943 to 1946.
40
John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald (1863–1950) served in the Massachusetts State House of Representatives, in the
U.S. House of Representatives, and as mayor of Boston during his political career.
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So, he was there to serve whoever needed help. He was there not just to make life better for the
people in his district, but for people in the country, and the people in other countries who needed
his help. And he was very unselfish. Joe never cared about anything. He’d like you to tell him,
“That’s a nice suit,” or something like that. But he was not a selfish person. He didn’t care too
much about anything else. He cared more about other people, how other people felt, how they
were doing. He’d be visiting sick people when he was probably in worse health than they were,
and trying to cheer them up.
I had told Bob [Allison] this story one time that we were at the dedication of a senior center.
And he got up, and he was speaking to the people in the building, and thanking them for paving
the way, and making life better for us, and helping to get things done so that we’d enjoy a better
life than we do. And he went through this whole ritual of thanking them for paving the way.
And when we got through, this little old lady came up to Joe and said, “Joe, I remember when I
was a little girl, and you were a lifeguard down the beach. You used to pick me up and rub me
against the hair on your chest.” And this other guy came over and he talked about when he was a
kid, that he used to watch him play football.
So it turned out that we were older than most of the people who were in this senior citizens
center. But you forget that the clock is ticking for you as well. And, he’s thanking them for
paving the way. And he had not only paved the way for them, but they were enjoying some of
the benefits of his legislation through healthcare and things like that.
So he was very unselfish and very giving. And, that’s a trait I’d like to see re-instilled. We still
have many politicians like that. But unfortunately, nobody wants to print good news in the
newspaper. Most people never heard of Joe Moakley until he announced that he wasn’t going to
run again because he did not seek headlines and he didn’t do things for the publicity that was
involved. He did it because he felt it was the right thing to do.
So there are a lot of good people out there whose names you may never hear, but they’re doing
good things. Unfortunately, we hear of the ones who are doing the bad things, and are not
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improving the image of the elected officials or public servants. So I think we should re-instill the
values. And probably, the press should play up some of the good things that some of these
people are doing rather than the negative things.
T. MOAKLEY: Yeah, Joe was a very humble guy. And as Bob said, he never called for press
conferences. As you know, some of these politicians, every time they do something, they want
fifty cameras in front of them. Joe was never—he just did his work quietly, and he knew the
people appreciated it. And that’s all he wanted. His greatest thing in life was doing things for
people. And he said, “If God gave me one thing to do, he can let me do, let me stay where I am
and help people. That’s all I want.” And it’s nice having a famous brother, too; proud of him.
R. MOAKLEY: The strange thing is, though, the press all knew him. And that’s how they
knew him. He never bothered them for anything. Last year—Joe died on Memorial Day, and
last year was the first anniversary of his death. And I got a call from a TV reporter, a Boston TV
reporter, whose name I don’t want to mention, very nice person. And she asked if she could
come over and talk to me. So, I said, “Sure.”
So she called the house, and she says, “I couldn’t help thinking about Joe.” She said, “I know
it’s a year. And he was so nice.” And it was refreshing to have somebody come over like that.
And we had a little conversation about him. And then she asked me where he was buried. She
was going to go visit his grave. So the press remembers him but, as I say, not because he called
press conferences, only because he treated them like he treated everybody else. He treated
everybody with respect. And people like that.
McETTRICK: You must have a lot of conversations like that now where people will mention
something that you didn’t really know about that Joe had done. Those are interesting moments.
R. MOAKLEY: As Tom pointed out, everybody that came through that line had a story about
something that Joe had done for somebody in their family. And it was amazing. About two
weeks before he died, Tom and his wife, and Joe, and my wife and I had dinner at my place.
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And we were just sitting around talking. And you’d never know he was sick. He acted normal,
never, Why did this happen to me? or anything else, laughing and joking, and everything.
And he had told us a story, and he had told it before, about this woman who was going to have
her electricity shut off. And he went to Edison about it. He went to visit the woman. He got her
address, went to visit the woman. And all she had in the house was a table and chair, and a box
to sit on, or something. They had taken her furniture, repossessed everything. And the poor
woman was handicapped. And they were going to shut off her electricity as well.
So he went to Edison and he said, “Look, you can forgive these big corporations for hundreds of
thousands of dollars, and settle for pennies on the dollar on them. Why don’t you forget this?”
So he got them to forget about her electric bill. And she was allowed to remain in the house,
didn’t get evicted or anything.
Now, he had discussed her, a couple of times, only because he was so impressed at this poor
woman. But when Joe died, we came back on the plane with his remains to Logan Airport. And
when we arrived there, we were told that the woman was there, that she wanted to see Joe. Of
course, she never got down to where we were or anything. They didn’t allow her down.
And we learned two things that day about her that Joe had never mentioned. Number one is she
didn’t live in his district. Number two was she was black. And he didn’t mention either of these
things because it didn’t matter to him. It was a person in need. And it was not part of his story,
that there was this poor black lady who doesn’t live in my district. That wasn’t the way Joe
talked. He had respect for everybody. And it was amazing. She said, “He’s my only friend,” or
something to—that was the remark that was attributed to her in the next day’s newspaper.
ALLISON: You talked about the need to instill this idea, this attitude in others. What was it
that made Joe Moakley like this? And where did this come from for him?
T. MOAKLEY: I think his mother.
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R. MOAKLEY: Well, both of our parents, really. We didn’t know until our mother died—
when we were at the funeral home when our mother died, more women came through that door
that we had no idea who they were, who said, “Your mother used to come and do my laundry
when I was sick. She used to feed my kids.” We didn’t know she was doing this. She was out
all day helping other people.
One woman came in walking with a cane, said, “I was never supposed to walk again. Your
mother made me get up and hold the back of a chair. And she’d move it, and make me move my
legs.” She said, “I was never supposed to walk again.” Now, we didn’t know our mother was
doing this. She never mentioned where she was. And we never questioned, Where were you
today or what did you do? And that’s what she was doing. She was out helping people.
And my father, even though he was a rough and tumble guy, hated bullies. That was one thing
he could not stand was a bully. And you probably heard Joe tell the story about when we were in
the car, and there were two kids fighting. And my father stopped the car and said, “What do you
see there?” He said, “Two kids fighting.” He said, “What do you see there?” He said, “Well,
it’s a big kid beating up a little kid.” He said, “What are you going to do about it?” He said, “I
don’t know them.” He said, “Never mind you don’t know them.” He said, “Get out there.” And
he made Joe go out, two strangers, and stop the big kid from beating up the little kid.
So, those were the kind of values my father had. He didn’t like to see anybody being victimized.
And he had done that to all of us at one time or another, made us get involved in things we would
have rather ignored.
T. MOAKLEY: Like going to boot camp. (laughter)
R. MOAKLEY: Those are life’s little lessons.
T. MOAKLEY: All in all, the politicians today are a little more distant. Like Bob said, there’s
a lot of good ones. I remember talking to Steve Lynch before my brother even announced that
he was retiring. I said, “You remind me a lot of my brother, Joe. You’re quiet. You never call
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press conferences. You just do your work.” And he said, “Thank you, that’s quite a
compliment.”
McETTRICK: A lot to be said for that. I don’t know if there’s any other anecdotes either of
Joe and constituents, or maybe things from childhood that we haven’t really had a chance to talk
about that you wanted to allude to. I mean we’ve had a pretty thorough conversation. But I
don’t know if there were any moments growing up that you wanted to allude to.
R. MOAKLEY: Well, when we grew up down in what they call the Lower End, every day was
a confrontation. It’s like dogs meeting on the street. You don’t just walk by. If there was a kid
you didn’t know, you ended up, “Who are you? What are doing?” It was always a
confrontation. And so, we all learned to take care of ourselves, and handle ourselves pretty well.
And we moved up to City Point which, anyplace else, the kids up City Point would be
considered tough kids, but not to kids from the Lower End. They’re considered sissies to kids
from the Lower End. (laughter)
But the first day we went out up there, the three of us, three kids came walking over towards us.
And he says, “Bobby, you fight the small one. Tom, you fight him. And I’ll fight the big one.”
He’d think we were going to have to fight them because they were coming. (laughter)
McETTRICK: There are three of them?
R. MOAKLEY: But that’s the way we grew up in the Lower End. Everything was a
confrontation everyday.
T. MOAKLEY: Until you got to know the kids, then you became friends.
R. MOAKLEY: Yeah, they would become your best friend, the kid you had a fight with. But it
turned out these kids just came over to say hello. Who are you? We didn’t have to fight them.
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T. MOAKLEY: I remember when we lived down the Point, I had a scooter. My brother, Joe,
and I were on it, and hanging on to the back of a bus. Went over a sewer. I landed. I broke my
front tooth. And I shouldn’t have done that one. And Joe always said he was a mechanic,
remember?
R. MOAKLEY: Yeah.
T. MOAKLEY: One Christmas, he got a nice brand new bicycle. He took the back wheel apart
and apart. He couldn’t get it back together again.
R. MOAKLEY: Yeah. I remember my father saying to him, “There’s only two people that take
the back off a watch, a jeweler and a fool.” (laughter) In those days, you didn’t replace
batteries. Everything was gears, and springs, and everything. But that’s what he said to him,
“You shouldn’t take anything apart you don’t know anything about.”
ALLISON: And he did take things apart?
R. MOAKLEY: Yeah.
T. MOAKLEY: Could never put them back together.
R. MOAKLEY: Very inquisitive. There were always parts left over. It might work, but there
were always a couple of parts left over. But I remember my father saying that, though. “Only
two people, a jeweler and a fool.”
McETTRICK: Well I’ve enjoyed having the chance to chat with both of you.
T. MOAKLEY: It’s been nice talking about him.
McETTRICK: It’s a great subject, too.
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�OH-003 Transcript
T. MOAKLEY: Well, it’s nice that people still remember him. I think he’d be kind of
embarrassed with all the things that are still going on.
McETTRICK: So what do you think about the Archives and what we’re supposed to do in the
future? What would you like to see happen? And how do you see all of this shaping up in terms
of Joe’s legacy?
T. MOAKLEY: Well, I think it’s a wonderful thing, if it can inspire somebody to get into
politics. Of course, like Bob said, usually politicians don’t get very good write-ups. But if
someone sees this and says, “Gee, he did an awful lot. Maybe I can make a difference in the
world,” hey, you never know.
R. MOAKLEY: Tom and I serve as members of the [John Joseph Moakley Charitable]
Foundation, the scholarship awards. And the applicants who apply for the scholarship money
from it have to write an essay as to public service they’ve been involved in. And it’s amazing
how many nice young people there are out there.
And some of them are absolutely tragic. You read the stories. They’ll come from a house where
the father is dead and the mother is disabled. And they’re straight-A students in school. And
they’re out feeding people at Pine Street41 and doing things like that as well. So there are people
out there who care.
And I think sometimes suffering helps you care and realize what people are going through. If
they’ve suffered a little, it gives them a better awareness of what it’s like not to have things, if
you’ve been without. Like somebody from a very well-to-do family thinks hunger is if you
hadn’t had something to eat in a couple of hours. And you have to really witness it or have
experienced it yourself.
Not that I wish that on anybody, but at least the awareness should be there, that there are people
in need, and that there are people who need help. And I think that is a great function of the
41
The Pine Street Inn is a non-profit support organization for Greater Boston’s homeless population.
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�OH-003 Transcript
Archives and the displays I’ve seen. Tom and I have attended the displays when they’ve been
set up in other places as well as Suffolk. And it’s always a good display showing that people
need assistance and need help. And it creates that kind of awareness.
T. MOAKLEY: And you can also make something of yourself coming from a humble
beginning.
McETTRICK: Sure.
T. MOAKLEY: Like when you stop and think you didn’t start with too much, in your fondest
mind, you’d never think you’d end up where we did.
McETTRICK: Well, that’s quite a mission. And I hope our interview is part of that. And
maybe we’ll have a chance to chat some more. But I think we covered a lot of ground today.
Thanks for your help.
T. MOAKLEY: Well, I hope we helped in some way.
ALLISON: Thank you very much.
T. MOAKLEY AND R. MOAKLEY: Thank you.
END OF INTERVIEW
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�
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Title
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers, 1926-2001
Subject
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Boston (Mass.)<br />Legislators--United States <br />Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001<br /> South Boston (Boston, Mass.)<br />Legislators. Massachusetts<br />Politicians--Massachusetts
Description
An account of the resource
The paper of Congressman John Joseph Moakley are housed at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.<br /><br />The sample of items from the Moakley papers exhibited on this site are used courtesy of the Moakley Archive and Institute. The full collection documents Moakley’s early life, his World War II service, his terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate, and his service in Congress. The majority of the collection covers Moakley’s congressional career from 1973 until 2001. A <a title="Moakley papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> the the collection is available online. <br /><br />The collection is open for research. Access to materials may be restricted based on their condition. Please consult the <a title="Moakley Archive" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/moakley" target="_blank">Moakley Archive and Institute</a>, Suffolk University for more information.
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Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001.
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers (MS 100), 1926-2001. View the <a title="John Joseph Moakley Papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
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Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
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1926-2001
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Items highlighted from the Moakley papers in this online collection are made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. <br /><br />Copyright is retained by the creators of items in the Moakley papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
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<div>
<div>
<p>Moakley Papers: Moakley Oral History Project<br />Enemies of War Collection (MS 104)<br /> Jamaica Plain Committee on Central America Collection (MS 103)</p>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
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Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University.
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300.7 cubic feet (521 boxes)
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English
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MS 100
Coverage
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Boston, Mass.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Allison, Robert J.
McEttrick, Joseph
Interviewee
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Moakley, Robert
Moakley, Thomas
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Home of Thomas Moakley, Braintree, Mass.
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See PDF transcript
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Note: Original video recording is available for viewing at the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Duration
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1:50:11
Time Summary
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Part 1
Growing up in South Boston p. 3 (00:24)
Military service p. 12 (17:01)
Family background p. 15 (22:55)
Involvement in local politics p. 18 (28:02)
Part 2
El Salvador involvement p. 24 (12:44)
Staff relationships p. 25 (15:36)
Congressional campaigns p. 26 (18:38)
Part 3
School desegregation p. 34 (05:39)
Thoughts on political figures p. 37 (12:28)
Improvements to Boston p. 41 (21:38)
Congressman Moakley’s health (1995) p. 44 (27:10)
Part 4
Change in politics p. 45 (00:09)
Congressman Moakley’s legacy p. 46 (01:35)
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Transcript of Oral History Interview of Robert and Thomas Moakley
Subject
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Boston (Mass.)
Busing for school integration
El Salvador
Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
South Boston (Boston, Mass.)
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Robert and Thomas Moakley discuss the life and career of their late brother, Congressman John Joseph Moakley. Among other topics, they reflect on the impact of Judge W. Arthur Garrity's 1974 decision in the case of Morgan v. Hennigan, which required some students to be bused between Boston neighborhoods with the goal of creating racial balance in the public schools, since the issue was a significant one in the course of the Congressman's early Congressional career. They also discuss their family life in South Boston, Mass.; the issues that were most important to the Congressman during his career, especially human rights violations and injustices in El Salvador; the ways in which they've seen politics change over the years; and their late brother's legacy.
Creator
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Source
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Moakley Oral History Project
Publisher
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Date
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April 29, 2003
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Kintz, Laura
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Copyright Suffolk University. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
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Moakley Oral History Project: http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/collections/show/1
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English
Type
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Oral history interview transcript
Identifier
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OH-003
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/15912/archive/files/9e2113b4ce0e6453203ae6b794b8c0b7.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=kE2ZCl6plYNpsFhgs-ZSDW7Qi3fRcYeWe3F-XH8ygq0dWbjoGgXaORWkblIL%7EhtpfhnL2prGozFWPFl9e74zfjlltrha7Pcw1zxlEbEBsrJ45iD4wuMsmv-G3qp9lpcma8SssgSU20o6ASt1h0tNkPkbULOEiz-LUcadSLchdx53FifBRxqF4R-HhU5MIWx5W8eN1f4B3u6OKh7CPnBvx%7E3JRuWB9ItPkCqiNSHSf8Ux0oPyqfIVPMa%7E-nx2lPeKTJRuEiKzzk2lOHdTG754I03PJkg2CAM9yxztqtjlgK1ObWMyX9pFSlxDxztz7cE9Hyk484cGdhWv0f0FLH3dGQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
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PDF Text
Text
Oral History Interview of Sean Ryan (OH-004)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Oral History Interview Sean T. Ryan
Interview Date: April 18, 2003
Interviewed by: Paul Caruso, Northeastern University student, HIST 4263- Spring, 2003
Citation: Ryan, Sean T. Interviewed by Paul Caruso. John Joseph Moakley Oral History Project
OH-004. 18 April 2003. Transcript and audio available. John Joseph Moakley Archive and
Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Copyright Information: Copyright ©2003, Suffolk University.
Interview Summary
Sean Ryan, a member of Moakley’s congressional staff from 1992 through 2000, discusses his
time as a congressional aide; his observations about Congressman Moakley’s work to improve
the city of Boston; Congressman Moakley’s relationship with his colleagues in the House and
Massachusetts delegation; his thoughts regarding the Boston school desegregation in the 1970s;
Congressman Moakley’s work to help improve conditions in El Salvador. He concludes by
talking about Congressman Moakley’s work on the House Rules Committee.
Subject Headings
Boston (Mass.)
Busing for school integration
El Salvador
Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
Speaker’s Task Force on El Salvador (Moakley Commission)
Ryan, Sean T.
United States. Congress. House. Committee on Rules
Table of Contents
Working for Congressman Moakley (1992-2000)
p. 3 (00:04)
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�Oral History Interview of Sean Ryan (OH-004)
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archives@suffolk.edu
Moakley’s relationships with members of Congress
p. 6 (11:23)
Improvements to Boston
p. 11 (25:08)
Busing for school integration
p. 12 (29:14)
Moakley’s involvement in El Salvador
p. 14 (36:41)
House Rules Committee
p. 16 (44:50)
Interview transcript begins on next page
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�OH-004 Transcript
This interview took place on April 18, 2003 at the law offices of Donoghue Barrett & Singal,
P.C., One Beacon Street, Boston, MA.
Interview Transcript
PAUL CARUSO: We’ll get started. I was wondering if we could start off by you telling us how
you met Congressman Moakley?
SEAN RYAN: Absolutely. It was really by accident, almost. I had graduated from college,
worked for about a year at a job that I hated. I had always wanted to go to Washington and work
on Capitol Hill and work in politics but I didn’t know anybody. So one day I just got frustrated
with this job and had friends in Washington, and I went down and started sleeping on their couch
and started looking for work. And actually when I met Joe, when Joe hired me, I was a nightclub
bouncer is what I had been doing for about six months. And just by chance, through a friend of a
friend, knew someone in the office and knew that somebody was leaving.
It was just luck—I was just in the right place in the right time and I don’t know how much Joe
was really involved. I suspect little or not at all in my initial hiring. When I went to work for
him he was more—I knew of him by reputation, having grown up in Massachusetts. There
wasn’t any personal connection at that point, but after I did go to work for him we hit it off very
well, and we had a relationship that really grew into a very close and almost familial type
relationship over the years. But it was just an accident; he hired me off the street.
CARUSO: And when was this?
RYAN: This was—it would have been in early 1992.
CARUSO: And what was your first function with his office?
RYAN: I was the lowest person on the totem pole. So I was a legislative correspondent—
actually, even before that he had me on for a while as sort of part-time person for a couple of
months. And then when someone left I was hired on as legislative correspondent which was, as
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the title would suggest, you are moving a lot of paper around, making sure that the mail gets
answered, supervising [interns]. We usually had five or so interns at any given time.
That was my first job with him and I was fortunate in a way because a lot of people—he had
very little turnover in his office because he was really the type of guy that tended to breed a lot of
loyalty and I happened to hit there at a time when a fair number of people who had been there for
some time left to do other things. So I was in a good position, because he and I had hit it off
well, that I sort of moved up and had different responsibilities very quickly.
But Kelly Timilty1 was a former aide who came up here [who left to run for and now] sits on the
Governor’s Council; Jim McGovern2 had already started to—he hadn’t left, but for his first run
for Congress which was unsuccessful. Now of course he has been in Congress for six or seven
years, but back then was when he was first thinking about it. And one or two other people who
had been with him for a significant period of time. So I was—it was all being in the right place
at the right time
CARUSO: Yeah, truly, truly. Did you work for him directly, or did you report for someone else
in the office?
RYAN: Well to the extent—It was a loose office and he used to like to brag that in forty or fifty
years of public life he had never held a staff meeting. So it was fairly freewheeling. We had
assignments, responsibilities, and when I worked in Washington it tended to be broken down by
issue areas. You were essentially responsible for whatever the realm of issues you handled was
and you reported directly to him. But there were other people; there was a chief of staff, there
was a press secretary if there was a [press] component. But it was a lot of time directly with him.
1
Kelly Timilty was a member of Congressman Moakley’s congressional staff from 1988 to 1993.
James P. McGovern (1959- ), a Democrat, has represented Massachusetts’ Third Congressional District in the
U.S. House of Representatives since 1997. He was a member of Moakley’s congressional staff from 1982 to 1996.
2
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CARUSO: So it was not a very hierarchal environment?
RYAN: No, not at all, to the point there was almost no structure to it. Somehow it worked very
well. Probably not how the Wharton School of Business would tell you to set up your office, but
I think given his personal style it worked very well.
CARUSO: Sure. What were your first impressions of the congressman? When you first
interacted with him do you remember what stuck out in your mind?
RYAN: Yeah, he was a—and I do remember this very vividly. He was one of those people—he
had the rare gift that you just loved to be around him. And it had nothing to with his stature or
power at this time. When I first met him he was the chairman of the House Rules Committee,3
had been for a couple of years—which really [made him] one of the most powerful members of
Congress, and so to the extent that everyone in Washington was so deferential to him it wasn’t
that. It wasn’t that he was just this important guy. There is a culture down there where people
tend to feed off how important somebody is. He was just, you know his sense of humor, his
sense of decency; it was just this overriding sense that you were with someone who was
completely on the level in a very likeable decent way.
That was my first impression. I will say that I told him this when I left his office, and he laughed
because when I told him the first part of it he said, “Where is this going?” But sometimes when
you, at least I found this in Washington, sometimes you can know somebody by reputation or
reading about them in the newspaper and get a very high opinion of them. You respect what
they do, as politicians or in public life. But then as you tend to get to know them better, as you
3
The House Rules Committee is responsible for the scheduling of bills for discussion in the House of
Representatives. According to the Rules Committee website, “bills are scheduled by means of special rules from the
Rules Committee that bestow upon legislation priority status for consideration in the House and establish procedures
for their debate and amendment.” (See http://www.rules.house.gov/) Congressman Moakley was a member of the
House Rules Committee from 1975 to 2001 and served as its chairman from 1989 to 1995.
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do working on Capitol Hill, you tend to be a little disappointed when you really get to know
them better, and you find out that they are very human after all.
With him it was the opposite. I went in there with a very high opinion of him, and the day I left
working for him it was with a much higher opinion of him. And I saw—the good times, some
very bad times I was through with him, the warts and all. I just respected him and liked him
even so much more the day I stopped working for him, and right through to the end.
CARUSO: Now were you a student of political science or politics prior to coming to
Washington?
RYAN: Yes. I was at Wesleyan University and majored in government, and always loved
politics, loved government, and I like domestic issues, I like international issues, and that was
always what I wanted to do. But like a lot of young people, I wasn’t overly focused on how you
actually get these jobs and go about doing it. But that was absolutely my background.
CARUSO: Did you have any perceptions of the Congressman prior to meeting him that proved
to be untrue, or were reinforced after you had met him?
RYAN: Yes and no. I knew him to be—had a reputation as an exceedingly fair person and an
exceedingly decent person and that absolutely was borne out to be true. I think what I was so
pleasantly surprised with is he had a reputation, in some circles anyway, as being a pretty
parochial guy, South Boston politician, a guy that was very much focused on bringing money
back to the state.
In certain elements—I think that this is something that he never really got a lot of credit for, I
think that up until he died a lot of people just saw that element [of his career] in him. But what I
was somewhat surprised by, and give him so much credit for, is that in a lot of ways he was a
visionary, and a guy that really did have a big picture sense of the world. And on a lot of issues,
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whether it was here in Massachusetts, or overseas or his work in El Salvador, he [demonstrated]
a lot of vision. And I think in some ways I guess it frustrates me that he didn’t always get credit
for that side of him.
And that was partly because of his style. He wasn’t—he was never really perfectly comfortable
with public speaking. I always thought he was very good at it, but he wasn’t all about giving
policy speeches. He wasn’t home at night necessarily writing pieces for the editorial pages. But
in spite of that maybe that not being his style, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t thinking in a very
visionary way.
CARUSO: Sure. You mentioned that he got credit, and justifiably so, for bringing money and
programs back to the district. How was his relationship with the rest of the Massachusetts
delegation?
RYAN: I think very good, very good. He was [the dean of the delegation for] the entire time I
worked for him. I think the Massachusetts delegation had for many years been incredibly
powerful, and he was an important part of it at that time. But throughout the seventies and the
eighties you had Tip O’Neill,4 you had Ted Kennedy5, for him to work with, you had Silvio
Conte,6 Congressman Boland7 from western Massachusetts. So there were some people who had
been in congress for a long period of time, had a lot of seniority, and were extremely influential.
By the time I started working for him, with the exception of Senator Kennedy, all of those folks
[were gone], and I think Congressman Conte had died the year before I started.
4
Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill (1912-1994), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Eleventh and, after redistricting,
Eighth Congressional Districts in the United States House of Representatives from 1953 to 1987. He served as
Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1977 to 1987.
5
Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy (1932- ), a Democrat, has represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate
since 1962.
6
Silvio Conte (1921-1991), a Republican, represented Massachusetts’ First Congressional District in the U.S. House
of Representatives from 1959 to 1991.
7
Edward P. Boland (1911-2001), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Second Congressional District in the U.S.
House of Representatives from 1953 to 1989.
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CARUSO: Yeah, that is right.
RYAN: But that was a shift. Instead of Joe being an important part of what was a larger group
of extremely influential senior people, he all of a sudden became—you know, the most
influential or certainly the most influential in the House. So it was a little bit different dynamic.
He went from being one of sort of group of peers to becoming really the most important figure
on the House side and it was a role I think he played very well.
Because of his stature, because of his power, he really saw it as part of his job to help the rest of
the delegation. And this—he was not just about trying only to take care of his district. He was
somebody whose door was always open and was extremely helpful to everybody else in the
delegation. And I think that bred a lot of loyalty, a lot of good will, and they were able to work
together very effectively. But because he could really [call the shots] there was no question
about who the leader was, there was no question that if they were going to do anything
collectively he had to make the call. He would organize the meeting; he would implement
whatever they collectively decided to do on an issue. So he balanced being the boss and being a
leader, but also in very benevolent way that everyone found mutually beneficial.
On the Senate side, and I think I was really there for this, I think he always had a good
relationship with Senator Kennedy [but became closer in the 1990s]. He used to talk about how
he was elected in ‘72 to help Ted Kennedy pass health care reform. That’s something you see
often repeated in different biographical pieces about him. I think he and Senator Kennedy
became much closer over time. You know, particularly, I think they found themselves, by the
1990s, as being two folks who had been there for such a length of time because of their
respective stature in each body. They really formed a very formidable team when they put their
sights on something. With Senator Kennedy shepherding so much through the Senate, and Joe
was handling things in the House. So that was a relationship that I really think I had the
opportunity to see blossom, and get the sense that they shared a perspective that only two people
who had been at something for a long time could share.
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CARUSO: And truly two lions of the Congress, I mean you know, not just personalities because
that falls so short, but real focal points of congressional activity and action.
RYAN: Yeah that’s right. They were two people who could really get something done. They
were, if you were to ask anyone down there who were the most influential people in the House
Joe’s name was always going to be on that list, and Senator Kennedy’s name was certainly
always going to be on that list in the Senate. So that was the dynamic. Now when the Congress
turned in ‘94, the dynamic shifted surprisingly little, at least in terms [of their ability to get things
done for Massachusetts]. Obviously Joe was no longer chairman of the Rules Committee. One
of things that I was [frankly surprised] by was how much clout he continued to retain and I think
again a lot of it went to how fair he was as chairman, and as a colleague.
And, much as he had done with so many members of the Massachusetts delegation; to the extent
a colleague, whether a Republican or Democrat, had a problem and came to him, and asked for
his support, or asked for his assistance; if he could do it he would. And I think all of these years
of operating in that way [greatly benefited him when the Democrats became the minority party].
It was surprising to see how much power he retained in the minority party and how little his
ability to get things done was actually affected by that. In some ways he became almost more
important within the Massachusetts delegation because he had those relationships, and he had
that stature and respect with his colleagues.
CARUSO: It’s usually convenient but not necessarily accurate to think of a collection of
congressmen by state—you have the Massachusetts delegation or the Texas delegation—but it
doesn’t always break out that way. Did you notice relationships, common relationships with a
broader or more narrow group of congressmen?
RYAN: I think what was tough for him in some ways; Tip O’Neill was his best friend, certainly
his best friend in Congress. He and Tip loved each other’s company. And I think for the first
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fifteen or sixteen years of Joe’s congressional career, they were both constant social companions.
I think he really enjoyed that interaction, and I think they had a broader circle as well socially. I
do think, and I heard him remark quite often that a lot of the fun went out of the job when Tip
left. That’s not to say that he still didn’t love the job, and found it very meaningful, but in terms
of personal types of relationships, I know that he missed Tip O’Neill quite a bit after Tip retired.
I just think they were two like-minded people with personalities that enjoyed each other.
So by the time—fast forward to the early nineties he had tremendous I think respect and good
personal relationships [with his colleagues] because of how he treated people as a chairman and
as a colleague [not because he socialized frequently with other members of Congress]. In fact
the first year I worked for him, Roll Call8 might have done a survey of who was the most popular
member of the House, and he won. But that wasn’t—it was because of what he did during the
day. It wasn’t because he was out to dinner with these colleagues at night and doing that type of
thing.
I think he felt like the collegiality, the [mutual] respect; the ability for members, particularly
across party lines, to let things go at the end of the day is really something that was lost. And I
know [he felt that] with the whole Newt Gingrich9 mentality, and with a lot of the people that
became important in the Republican Party, the whole dynamic [as to how members interacted
with each other] shifted. And I really think he felt like something was lost. So while he
continued to have very good relationships, the institution had fundamentally, I think, changed by
the mid nineties and the late nineties. And I think that was something that saddened him in some
ways.
CARUSO: I can see that. Did he have any particular friends within the Congress?
8
Roll Call is a newspaper that publishes congressional news and information.
Newt Gingrich (1943- ), a Republican, represented Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District in the U.S. House of
Representatives from 1979 to 1999. He served as Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999.
9
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RYAN: Within the Massachusetts delegation, of course, Jim McGovern who was like—in many
ways like a son to him. You know, Congressman Neal10 of Springfield was somebody he
absolutely thought the world of. But many other people—and he had relationships with people,
and would always go out of his way to learn the names of some of the new members of Congress
and develop relationships with them. So that’s something that I think—it was something he
enjoyed but it was something that he found was wise [politically] over time. That he would
develop relationships before these folks became household names. So he continued to do it. But
certainly, he really had good relationships. Barney Frank11 was someone he always thought was
one of the funniest people that he absolutely ever met. I know he enjoyed him. He had good
feelings for everyone.
CARUSO: That was absolutely my next question. The Massachusetts delegation has had its
share of characters, and I say that with no pejorative meaning whatsoever, just individuals who
are genuine characters. Who stands out in your mind as being truly individualistic—Barney
comes to mind immediately, Gerry Studds12 from the Cape, Peg Heckler13 certainly before both
of our times.
RYAN: Well that’s right and Joe was—all types of people Joe enjoyed. It wasn’t—he might
have enjoyed Tip O’Neill because they had a lot in common, I think they were both sort of urban
people from similar backgrounds and he enjoyed that. But that wasn’t the only type of
personality that Joe enjoyed, and I think one of the things, again this is something that always
struck me about him, was his open-mindedness. And he was extremely respectful of, and
10
Richard E. Neal (1949- ), a Democrat, has represented Massachusetts’ Second Congressional District in the U.S.
House of Representatives since 1989.
11
Barnett “Barney” Frank (1940- ), a Democrat, has represented Massachusetts’ Fourth Congressional District in
the U.S. House of Representatives since 1981.
12
Gerry Studds (1937-2006), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Tenth Congressional District in the U.S.
House of Representatives from 1973 to 1997.
13
Margaret Heckler (1931- ), a Republican, represented Massachusetts’ Tenth Congressional District in the U.S.
House of Representatives from 1967 to 1983.
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enjoyed, I think, very good relationships with female colleagues, Louise Slaughter14 who sat on
his committee. And people with different lifestyles, I know, for instance Barney Frank and
Congressman Studds, the fact that they were gay didn’t bother him in the least. And, in fact, he
really respected and you know worked very well with both of them.
CARUSO: I think we’ll change the tape over before we get into the next segment.
(interruption)
CARUSO: I’d like to move away from the mechanics and the relationships to some of the
issues. He truly was a proponent to some very consistent issues throughout his career. Do any of
those stick out in your mind in memory?
RYAN: There are a lot of them, but something, and it goes back to what I said about his being a
visionary and maybe not being as appreciated, as he should be for it. I think if you—certainly a
lot people deserve credit for it, but if you look at the city of Boston or a picture of the city of
Boston when he was first elected to the state legislature, or even the State Senate15 or even
Congress, and then you look at it now—how dramatically, how it’s changed and improved over
the years. You can really tie so much of that back, and sometimes in subtle ways, back to him.
It’s probably—nowhere is it more evident than a lot of what’s gone on with development on the
South Boston waterfront and that whole area.
And it really goes back to his days, I think, in the state house, but more specifically in the State
Senate. He had a committee assignment, was chairperson of the committee that had
environmental responsibilities and also had some authority over some development-type issues.
And you know, he started with what at the time were incredibly progressive proposals, and saw
14
Louise Slaughter (1929- ), a Democrat, has represented New York’s Twenty-eighth Congressional District in the
U.S. House of Representatives since 1987.
15
Moakley served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1953 to 1960 and in the Massachusetts
Senate from 1963 to 1970.
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them through. And really saw a lot of good, responsible development throughout his entire
career.
And you know, maybe one place to look at was the Harbor Islands. He was insightful enough to
pass legislation while he was in the State Senate, transferring ownership of those islands to the
state to preserve them as a natural resource. And then it was, you know, over twenty years later
that he was working with Congressman Studds and actually made them a national—federal a
federal park. But, I mean those are the types of things we normally don’t see somebody who is
able to work on an issue for thirty or forty years and really see it through to a final result and he
was able to do it. And the cleanup of Boston Harbor, sitting the federal court house right along
the harbor, what he was able to do in terms of extending mass transit down to that waterfront, but
also expanding the commuter rail and so many of those projects.
To the Big Dig, to the Third Harbor Tunnel, I mean this was really someone who looked at the
potential the city of Boston had, and in a very focused, deliberate way went about putting all of
these pieces together that were necessary to set the table to improve the city to what it has been
today. And it’s—he deserves a lot of credit for it because he went about it in a very workmanlike way over a long period of time and he changed the whole face of the city.
CARUSO: The congressman was a political figure on the Boston landscape during a very tough
time for the city, the busing crisis.
RYAN: Yes.
CARUSO: Did he speak about that?
RYAN: He would in sort of private discussions. It was something he didn’t talk about publicly
because I think it was a very [difficult time for him]. In fact he didn’t speak about it [often]
publicly later because I think it was personally a very painful time for him. When he first ran for
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Congress, Louise Day Hicks16 was successful the first time. They ran—she of course ran on a
strong anti-busing platform, and was considered by many to be a racist, and really played those
types of racial politics. Of course, Joe was successful in unseating her in 1972. But he really
didn’t win—I don’t think it was until the eighties that he actually won his hometown of South
Boston. And a lot of—and of course this is a town he had represented in the state legislature
since 1952, and it was his hometown that he loved so dearly. And he is now considered—he and
[Richard] Cardinal Cushing were given the award as being South Boston Citizens of the Century.
But lost in all of that there was a very painful period during busing. He once told me that he
thought busing was wrong, and that he didn’t think it was sound policy. But he thought throwing
rocks at buses was more wrong. And I think it boiled down—it was that simple in his mind. But
at the same time it was very [difficult]—he had marched in the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade with
people who were screaming at him.
People that [were old friends]—someone he took to a prom shouting epithets at him. Just a
really difficult and personally painful time, but a time that really shows what character is all
about. You know I think he could have taken—the easy thing for him to do would have been to
play to that, lead the marches, and that would have been a politically expedient thing to do. But
he wasn’t comfortable with it. While he was opposed I think to busing he was not comfortable
with the approach that so many other people who were opposed to it were taking.
And I think he took a lot of personal and public criticism for that among the people that he really,
in a lot of ways, cared about [the most] and were closest to home. So, a very tough period for
him, and I think that the fact that he was able to get through it is just a testament to who he was,
his ability to stay true to himself. But tough, tough times and I think by the time I worked for
16
Louise Day Hicks (1916-2003), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Ninth Congressional District in the U.S.
House of Representatives from 1971 to 1973. It was in the 1970 election that Moakley lost his first bid for Congress,
in part because Hicks was an outspoken critic of forced busing in Boston, while Moakley did not take a strong stand
on the issue. Moakley defeated Hicks in the 1972 congressional election when he ran as an Independent so he
wouldn’t have to run against Hicks in the democratic primary.
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him he was this revered figure in so many ways, but talking to folks that were with him through
some of those tough times, that wasn’t always the way it was for him politically. And I think
that in terms of how that shaped him, I think that period was never entirely out of his mind.
CARUSO: Sure.
RYAN: That did play a role in who he was later in life.
CARUSO: The busing issue was a civil rights issue, regardless of what you think of the
manifestation of that. How did that impact his performance as a legislator going forward? Did
he take that experience with him to Washington? Did that push him in any policy areas? Did
that send him off in any directions? Knowing that this solution was clearly imperfect, where did
that take him?
RYAN: Yeah, I think—it was frustrating. That was an issue to which there were no easy
solutions. Court ordered busing was going on here and in other places. You’re right, no matter
what you think of it, whether you think its right or wrong, it’s tough to argue that how it was
fundamentally implemented by the courts up here was particularly successful. I’ve heard very
few people argue that. But to the extent that it was something that he was in a position to
influence one way or another, I think it was probably frustrating because in many ways, because
he was very limited in what he could do.
So I think it was difficult. I think to the extent that—it influenced him. I think he saw the
victims in the whole thing that you had by and large, you had poor white people and poor black
people who I think he fundamentally saw these people have the same issues and the same
concerns; they want a better life for their kids, they want to be able to educate their children, and
then provide them the best life they can. And this brutal situation had developed.
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I think that core, What is it all about, and, What is it all about to be a congressman and a
legislator? I think it was always about trying to help those people, regardless of color, achieve
that dream, and create a better life and be able to educate their children. I think that did very
much focus him on what issues he thought were important. When you see the intensity of what
went on with that debate—you know the ability to educate your children is a very fundamental
concern for most people.
CARUSO: Other issues came onto his plate after he got to Washington I think his attention was
directed towards Central America substantially and viscerally. Do you have any recollection of
that?
RYAN: I do, in fact that’s something, for a period, I worked on for him. And it’s interesting,
this is an example where a local connection brought him into a much broader issue. So many of
his skills really were effective. He became involved in Central American issues in the early
1980s as a result of a town hall visit. These town hall visits he would go to the town hall or the
post office in every corner of his district. He was in Jamaica Plain, which at the time had a very
significant Salvadoran and Central American community.
CARUSO: And still does.
RYAN: Yeah, I believe that the community is still there, and someone came in off the street and
brought in a relative who was in this country illegally and basically explained what was going on
in El Salvador. And was concerned that if they were deported, that immediately upon arriving in
El Salvador they would be put in front of a death squad and would disappear. It caught his
attention because here was a real person with a real fear, and it seemed outrageous that this
would be going on. That we would be shipping people back to their deaths, and somehow
supporting the government that was doing this. So it was really as an immigration issue that he
first became involved in for El Salvador. I think his initial—his entire scope—what was so
troubling for him was that without any analysis we put someone on a plane back to El Salvador
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to their death. That was wrong, and there should be some mechanism [to prevent it]. These
were people who were not necessarily here for economic reasons. These were people who were
fighting for their lives and were true refugees.
So that was something he began working on in the early to mid eighties. He introduced
legislation, and it took him a number of years and a lot of persistence to get it passed. And
unfortunately the civil war in El Salvador raged on for that entire period, so the problem did not
go away, it became more intense. He finally was successful in getting legislation passed—at the
time it was called temporary protected status17—which would allow these refugees to stay in this
country for a limited period of time, essentially until the war was over, and then arrangements
would be made in effect for them to leave.
So that’s how he got involved. It was with the assassination of the Jesuit priests by a death squad
that was really how his involvement deepened that much further. It was something that really,
the images of priests being assassinated, that first put El Salvador more into the mainstream of
public consciousness here in this country. The Speaker of the House formed a task force and
asked Joe to be the chairperson of the task force to investigate these deaths.18 So often
organizations form a task force, and they do some analysis, and write a report, but maybe not a
whole lot changes as a result of that. But this was something that he was passionate about and—
I think got the feeling immediately that his own government was stonewalling him, was
stonewalling his investigation. And that just set him off. He got the feeling that our government
17
Starting in 1983, Congressman Moakley introduced legislation to protect Salvadorans in the U.S. using the
“Extended Voluntary Departure” provision that allowed a temporary stay of deportation and work authorization.
Moakley was finally able to pass legislation that granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Salvadorans in the
Immigration Act of 1990 (PL. 101-649). TPS grants temporary legal residency and work authorization to
immigrants fleeing civil wars, natural disasters or other conditions in their home country for a set period of time. In
El Salvador’s case, TPS has been extended several times since 1990. The TPS designation has been used by other
countries experiencing civil unrest and is administered by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
(See http://www.uscis.gov.)
18
In December of 1989, Speaker of the House Thomas S. Foley appointed Moakley as chairman of a committee to
investigate violence in El Salvador, specifically the November 16, 1989, murder of six Jesuit priests, their
housekeeper and her daughter at the University of Central America in San Salvador. The committee is commonly
referred to as the Speaker’s Task Force on El Salvador or the Moakley Commission.
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was protecting a government that was really filled with bullies and people that were performing
terrible human rights violations as a result of our government’s assistance to them.
So, through dogged determination, and also a lot of help and assistance from Jim McGovern, was
successful in solving the Jesuit murders, and was successful in drawing a direct connection with
the basically soldiers from the regime that we supported, and was even successful for a period of
time in getting our military aid, the billions of dollars that this country had been sending down
there to this regime, cut off. It was later restored, but that was the beginning of the end for that
civil war. His findings were just so critical to that. To the extent that when he traveled to El
Salvador and would give a speech it would be on the national radio. He really became one of the
single most important figures in that country’s history, and particularly in ending that civil war.
So, big stuff for a supposedly parochial guy from South Boston.
CARUSO: Absolutely, absolutely.
RYAN: And I had the opportunity to travel to El Salvador on his behalf in the early nineties
when he was unable to go, and I could understand how he was really gripped by what had gone
on as the poverty and the suffering that the war had caused was evident to me. And it was
interesting because he had, this was after the civil war was over, they were in the process of and
we were providing a significant amount of aid but it was tied to them holding free elections and
making sure that it would be distributed the way it was supposed to be.
And that was our group’s mission, going down there making sure that was happening. And as
his representative, I was given a whole different level of respect and treatment. Whether it was
from peasants who lived in the mountains who did not have anything who lived in horrible
conditions, but they knew who he was, and I was treated as something very special because I had
some connection to him. As well as government officials, whether they be from military or
conservative party. They knew and respected and even feared him and that was evident to me in
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my dealings with them. Because I was accorded a different level of treatment in some ways and
that this wasn’t just another congressman, just another American coming down.
CARUSO: As chairman of Rules, and eventually ranking member of rules, he was involved in
just about every piece of legislation that came through the Congress.
RYAN: That’s right, and that’s why he was very much a generalist and that was driven by his
committee assignments. The Rules Committee is the traffic cop of the House. The Rules
Committee plays a very important role in shaping every bill before it goes to the floor. Now I
guess, the plus side of that is that you have an opportunity to shape every bill before it goes to
the floor.
If there is a down side to it, it’s that you are not working necessarily on one set of issues. So you
don’t necessarily carve out one type, whether it’s crime legislation or maritime legislation, that’s
a path that typical representatives would take. But it was the perfect assignment for him because
he really knew how to use his leverage and power to get what he wanted out of each bill.
Sometimes it was money for something important that he wanted back here, other times it was a
broader change to make legislation reflect what he thought was the right thing to do with it. And
it was a role that he thrived in and as a result he had his hands on just about everything that went
through that place.
CARUSO: Yeah, it must have been—well, his phone must have rung a lot.
RYAN: Yeah he was a popular guy. And because he had that ability, it put him in an interesting
situation a lot of times. Because there would be people, whether they sat on the committee or
didn’t sit on a committee with jurisdiction, people wanted to change the committee version of the
bill. And really if you couldn’t get that done at the committee level, the Rules Committee was
the place you had a chance to do that. And he had to be very—he wasn’t afraid to take a chance
and give someone a shot with that.
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At the same time, it is very much a leadership committee and part of his mission was advancing
the Democratic Party’s agenda, and not just opening this up to anyone who had an idea. So it
was something I think he did masterfully. He was really able and very good at advancing the
party’s agenda, and getting the rules passed, and having the legislation go to the floor in such a
form as to be successful. But at the same time he gave folks that had worked hard on an issue an
opportunity, and that left him I think in good standing with his colleagues.
CARUSO: We’ll run out of time soon, but there was one more issue that scholars will be
interested in and I’m personally very curious about; the impeachment of the President, an
emotionally charged issue to say the least. What was that issue like from his office’s point of
view?
RYAN: I think it was tough. I think he had mixed feelings about the president, not mixed
feelings he would ever express publicly. But I do know that he felt here was who he often told
me [Clinton] was the most talented politician that he had ever worked with and he was such a
smart and talented guy. At the same time I think there was a level of frustration. Because Joe
was really was a creature of the House and of the Congress, and under the Clinton administration
there were some missteps. It was not entirely the Clinton administration’s fault, but when they
lost the House in ’94, that was tied to it. And in subsequent elections different things, possibly
the impeachment, were not helpful either. So I think he was somewhat conflicted. At the same
time, he saw the impeachment process for what it was, this was supposed to be an investigation
into a real estate deal in Arkansas, and how did it end up you know [being about] lying about this
liaison with somebody, and that bothered him equally.
END OF INTERVIEW
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Title
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers, 1926-2001
Subject
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Boston (Mass.)<br />Legislators--United States <br />Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001<br /> South Boston (Boston, Mass.)<br />Legislators. Massachusetts<br />Politicians--Massachusetts
Description
An account of the resource
The paper of Congressman John Joseph Moakley are housed at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.<br /><br />The sample of items from the Moakley papers exhibited on this site are used courtesy of the Moakley Archive and Institute. The full collection documents Moakley’s early life, his World War II service, his terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate, and his service in Congress. The majority of the collection covers Moakley’s congressional career from 1973 until 2001. A <a title="Moakley papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> the the collection is available online. <br /><br />The collection is open for research. Access to materials may be restricted based on their condition. Please consult the <a title="Moakley Archive" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/moakley" target="_blank">Moakley Archive and Institute</a>, Suffolk University for more information.
Creator
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Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001.
Source
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers (MS 100), 1926-2001. View the <a title="John Joseph Moakley Papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
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Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
Date
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1926-2001
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Items highlighted from the Moakley papers in this online collection are made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. <br /><br />Copyright is retained by the creators of items in the Moakley papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
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<div>
<div>
<p>Moakley Papers: Moakley Oral History Project<br />Enemies of War Collection (MS 104)<br /> Jamaica Plain Committee on Central America Collection (MS 103)</p>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
Contributor
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Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University.
Format
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300.7 cubic feet (521 boxes)
Language
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English
Type
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Text
Image
Identifier
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MS 100
Coverage
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Boston, Mass.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Caruso, Paul
Interviewee
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Ryan, Sean
Location
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Law offices of Donoghue Barrett & Singal, P.C., Boston, Mass.
Transcription
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See PDF transcript
Original Format
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MP3 audio file
Note: Original audio recording is available for listening at the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Duration
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49:57
Time Summary
A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview
Working for Congressman Moakley (1992-2000) p. 3 (00:04)
Moakley’s relationships with members of Congress p. 6 (11:23)
Improvements to Boston p. 11 (25:08)
Busing for school integration p. 12 (29:14)
Moakley’s involvement in El Salvador p. 14 (36:41)
House Rules Committee p. 16 (44:50)
Dublin Core
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Title
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Transcript of Oral History Interview of Sean T. Ryan
Subject
The topic of the resource
Boston (Mass.)
Busing for school integration
El Salvador
Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
United States. Congress. House. Committee on Rules
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Sean Ryan, a member of Congressman John Joseph Moakley’s congressional staff from 1992 through 2000, discusses his time as a congressional aide and reflects on Congressman Moakley's career. Among other topics, he discusses the Congressman's feelings about Judge W. Arthur Garrity's 1974 decision in the case of Morgan v. Hennigan, which required some students to be bused between Boston neighborhoods with the goal of creating racial balance in the public schools. He also reflects on some of the issues that were important to Moakley, including human rights violations and injustices in El Salvador, and on Moakley's role as Chairman of the House Rules Committee.
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
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Moakley Oral History Project
Publisher
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
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April 18, 2003
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Kintz, Laura
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Copyright Suffolk University. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
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Moakley Oral History Project: http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/collections/show/1
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English
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OH-004
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Oral History Interview of John Lynch (OH-011)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Oral History Interview of John Lynch
Interview Date: May 24, 2003
Interviewed by: Paul Caruso, Northeastern University, HIST 4263- Spring, 2003
Citation: Lynch, John. Interviewed by Paul Caruso. John Joseph Moakley Oral History Project
OH-011. 24 May 2003. Transcript and audio available. John Joseph Moakley Archive and
Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Copyright Information: Copyright ©2003, Suffolk University.
Interview Summary
In this interview, John Lynch, a volunteer on Congressman John Joseph Moakley’s early
campaigns, discusses his work on Moakley’s 1950 and 1952 campaigns for state representative;
his friendship with Moakley from the 1950s until Moakley’s death in 2001; his memories of
other friends of his and Moakley’s, as well as other Boston political figures; and Moakley’s
feelings in the aftermath of the 1970 Garrity decision that called for forced busing of students in
Boston. He also provides numerous anecdotes that give insight into Moakley’s character.
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
1
�Oral History Interview of John Lynch (OH-011)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Subject Headings
Busing for school integration
Lynch, John, 1929Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
Political campaigns
Table of Contents
Lynch’s early campaign work for Moakley
p. 1 (00:36)
Lynch’s friendship with Moakley
p. 8 (13:47)
Moakley’s reaction to the 1974 Garrity decision
p. 10 (19:33)
Anecdotes related to Moakley’s campaigns, political career
and personal life
p. 11 (21:25)
1952 campaign work
p. 15 (31:05)
The “busing crisis”
p. 16 (32:41)
More on Lynch’s campaign work
p. 17 (35:03)
More anecdotes related to Moakley’s political career and
Lynch’s friendship with Moakley
p. 19 (39:48)
Interview transcript begins on next page
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
2
�OH-011 Transcript
This interview took place on May 24, 2003, at the Moakley Law Library at Suffolk University,
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA.
PAUL CARUSO: [first words cut off]—an oral history interview for the Moakley project of
John Lynch at the Suffolk Law School library on Friday at ten o’clock in the morning.
(long pause—background noise)
Perhaps we could start our discussion by you telling how you got to know Joe Moakley, or how
did you meet him?
JOHN LYNCH: Well, Joe Moakley ran from this—decided to run for office, and that was in
1950.
CARUSO: Which office?
LYNCH: Pardon?
CARUSO: Which office?
LYNCH: Representative. And so I chummed around with a bunch of fellows, and we all
decided to help. So that’s how it started. And the original people that talked to him about
running for office, which I think is interesting, is a fellow by the name of Martin Carter, who is
now deceased, and Henry Doherty, who is now deceased. And Henry’s nickname was Looper.
CARUSO: Looper?
LYNCH: Looper, L-O-O-P-E-R, or whatever. So Henry—he just passed away within the past
year. So I heard from Joe Moakley’s brother about the funeral. I didn’t get a chance to go to the
wake, so I went to the funeral Mass. And it was at St. Augustine’s. And there were three priests
on the altar. There was the father, the St. Augustine’s pastor, and I think his name is
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�OH-011 Transcript
MacDonald. And then the priest from St. Vincent’s, Father Tanner(??). But the priest that did
the homily was Father Lane who was—I don’t know, he grew up in South Boston. He graduated
in around the same time as we did. So he knew the ins and outs of it.
But when we used to have class reunions he sometimes came to ours. And in the homily he
said—and I thought it was interesting because he knew what he was talking about. He said,
“Henry and Martin Carter were the ones that told Joe that he should run and become a”—you
know, run in politics. So those were the two that started the thing.
And so now, just another little aside, but I was glad I went to the funeral because there were a lot
of people there I hadn’t seen in years that were—but that first campaign was a hectic one. It was
a good one; we had a lot of fun with it. But on the way out, Father Lane, he saw—I made sure
that I stayed on the aisle because I wanted to see my friends. And as he was going out he said,
“Hi, Sleepy, good to see you.” And that was my nickname.
CARUSO: Your nickname was Sleepy?
LYNCH: Yep. But when we came out to the back of it, Father Lane said, “Well, this is John
Lynch” to Father MacDonald. And he said, “Oh, I know him,” he says. “He was Moakley’s
campaign manager.” And I said, “Well, the word is out.” But that was what he said.
And when Joe ran the first time in 1950 we were just a bunch of kids. I was twenty-one so I
could vote that year; that was my first time, or something like that. I got in there because I was
born in 1929, so in 1950 I would have been twenty-one years old.
So we used to—in those days you could go around and knock on people’s doors, and go out
there—and they’re the answer, you know. And so we used to gather at the headquarters and they
had a place at the corner of Dorchester and Eighth Street. There was a store there that they used
as a headquarters then, get out and— we’d gather there and somebody would—there was a
fellow by the name of Pat Loftus who was there and he would assign you to what streets they
wanted you to knock on doors on.
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�OH-011 Transcript
And Pat never left the office, he was a, you know—. (laughter) So anyway, that’s how Pat
worked it. There was a lot of hemming and hawing, “Why are you in the office tonight?” But it
worked out good. It was all in fun, you know?
One comment I would like to make on that—it’s so funny. On one of the nights I’d go and I
knock on a door and I said, “Would you mind giving Joe Moakley one of your two votes?”
Because in that scheme, you could vote for two reps. So this fellow said to me, “Well, do you
know who I am?” I said, “No, I don’t know who you are.” He said, “Well I am so-and-so
McColgan.” Well, his brother was running against Joe. And I said, “Well, you got two votes.
You could still give Joe one,” and I got the heck out of there. But that was my last word.
CARUSO: That’s very funny. Did he commit to the vote?
LYNCH: Say that again?
CARUSO: Did he commit to the vote?
LYNCH: Oh, who knows, you know? I’m sure that if he set foot in—he probably called me all
kinds of things after I left. But that was good. That was something I remember.
And then we would go around, do our thing, and then we would end up back at Dorgan’s [a
restaurant in South Boston], down at—the usual, you know, and have a few beers and shoot the
breeze and everything. And that was fun. Dorgan’s has burned down now, and that was the
gathering place for everybody.
CARUSO: How do you spell the name? Because I’m not familiar.
LYNCH: Dorgan’s?
CARUSO: Yeah.
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�OH-011 Transcript
LYNCH: D-o-r-g-a-n-’-s.
CARUSO: It was a pub?
LYNCH: Oh, yeah. It was a pretty good one, right—in fact, I’ll tell you—I want to give you a
menu from there [attachment A].
CARUSO: Oh, very nice.
LYNCH: And I guess maybe you could check it out and—it was a real favorite spot of
everybody, and they used to have—on the weekends they’d have singing, like an amateur night, I
guess you’d call it.
CARUSO: Yes.
LYNCH: And actually that’s where we had a bachelor party for Joe Moakley when he married.
I don’t know what year that was, but he got married and we had a bachelor party at Dorgan’s for
him. And that was a lot of fun.
CARUSO: You can get a martini for seventy-five cents.
LYNCH: (laughter) Oh, you can have that, it would be fun to read.
CARUSO: We’ll put this with the notes, and—that’s great, thank you.
LYNCH: Okay. So anyhow, the procedure was that in those days we would do that, and then
afterwards we would meet at Dorgan’s. Another night we’d go out again, and we’d have a
different area that we were trying to cover. So we had it pretty well organized. It seemed like
we were doing good. And if we hadn’t, we usually made a stop. Like we’d go to Edward
Everett Square corner [in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood], and we would stop and we would
Page 6 of 23
�OH-011 Transcript
let people know we were coming, and we’d have a little rally. And that would be at Edward
Everett, and there was another one at Upham’s Corner [also in Dorchester], anyplace like that.
And usually what would happen was that Joe, in those days, was not a speaker. He was a very
humble guy. So I happened to be the one that would—I would get up and extol his virtues and
all that. Then he would come up and say something, and away we went. So we did a lot of that.
The picture I sent you—I don’t know if I sent it. I sent it to—there’s a picture in my office. And
that’s the—what they called—in those days it was the German Club. And we were having a
rally. Now that picture goes back to 1952 because we lost in ‘50, and in ‘52 we were—the
picture I have says “runner up.” And it has Joe up against—he’s sitting there, and a couple of
other people. And I had sent it to—something to you people anyhow, so I have that in the office.
It was just a great, great picture. I saved some of them. I think my wife took the picture, and we
saved it and blew it up.
Now I used to—I’m just rambling here.
CARUSO: Go right ahead, this is excellent.
LYNCH: All right. Later on in years, I would invite him to several parties. I belonged to—I
was a golfer, not a good one, but I liked playing, so I invited him to come out to the Sharon
Country Club [in Sharon, MA]. I had an outing there for my help, and Joe was the guest. So the
way I introduced him is that, “In 1950, Joe lost. He also lost in 1960 and in 1970.” So Joe
would get up and say, “John forgets to tell you we won every other time,” which we did. So
that—it was kind of interesting.
And then in 1970 he lost against Louise Day Hicks.1 So in ‘72 he hired these consultants,
political ones. I can’t remember the names of these people but they were very smart and astute.
1
Louise Day Hicks (1916-2003), a Democrat, served on the Boston School Committee from 1962 to 1967 (serving
as chair from 1963 to 1965), ran unsuccessfully for the mayoralty of Boston in 1967 and in 1971, and served on the
Boston City Council before being elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1970. She represented
Massachusetts’ Ninth Congressional District for one term. It was in the 1970 election that Moakley lost his first bid
Page 7 of 23
�OH-011 Transcript
Joe had a lot of money for them to come up with some kind of a recommendation. So they
said—and I was called to his office. At that time it was 149 Dorchester Street [in South Boston].
Now that used to be where I lived because when I grew up we had that house. His office, really,
was my living room, or our living room.
But he called me in one day and he says, “John, I want to see you.” So I go in and he had this
big manila folder, three-ring binder and all the information. And he said, “Now I’m showing
you this but you can’t take it with you. I want you to know what’s going on. And I thought it
through,” this and that, he said, “and I’m going to run as an independent.”
And basically that’s what happened because these people advised him that if he did it again, he’d
still have the same problem; there were too many people running. Whereas if he did it as an
independent he could probably do it. So that’s how that thing evolved. But that’s just a little
thing.
Now, as I told you, on the golf, he liked to play golf, and so what sometimes happened—
Dedham was in our district when he was a congressman, so I can remember they were having a
parade there, and so I met him at Sharon. I picked him up and we played golf at Sharon; that
was it. Then after we played golf we got in the parade. I had a Buick convertible at the time so
that was nice, and we were going along. We had been in the parade—we were maybe halfway
through, then he said he had to go to Logan [International Airport in Boston], so I took him over
to Logan.
But in those days, I used to meet him—to talk about things, I’d meet him at the Norwood Diner
[in Norwood, MA]. He liked that; that was a good place. I wrote down something here that I
thought was funny. A very good friend of mine, he was a good customer. His name was George
Anastasia. He had a son by the name of Charlie Anastasia. He had a bunch of kids, but this one
here—Charlie Anastasia’s sister had a son [in the military] that wanted to be transferred from
someplace down in Georgia up closer to home. And it seemed to be there were some physical
for Congress, in part because Hicks was an outspoken critic of forced busing in Boston, while Moakley did not take
a strong stand on the issue. Moakley defeated Hicks in the 1972 congressional election when he ran as an
Independent so he wouldn’t have to run against Hicks in the democratic primary.
Page 8 of 23
�OH-011 Transcript
problems or something; I think that he might have been—a breakdown, I don’t know. But I
called up Joe and asked him if there was something he could do. And nothing happened for a
few days. So I called up Joe again and he said, “John, this is a general I’m talking to. I’m a
congressman; I’m talking to a general!” So it happened, but he wanted to be sure—.
Now my nephew is Stephen Lynch,2 who’s a congressman.
CARUSO: Right, yes. He’s on his way to Iraq today.
LYNCH: Yeah, that’s right. I was talking to my brother yesterday. I was over there to see him
last week when they were down there. He was originally supposed to go to Russia,
congressional, because they announced that at the St. Patrick’s Day breakfast, that he was going
to go there. But with all the war and everything, he cancelled that out.
He’s a good kid, you know, even though he is my nephew; just a sharp kid. Because you know
he gave part of his liver to his brother-in-law.
But anyhow, they had a breakfast at the Lithuanian Club in South Boston, and this was for
Stephen. So I went to it, and Joe Moakley was there and we sat at the same table. There weren’t
that many—but my niece, Sean Maddox, she came over and she wanted to know if she could—I
said, “Sure, sit next to Joe and I’ll move over, and you can talk to him,” because she was a nurse,
and she wanted something. And I noticed that she had something on her wrist, and I thought she
might have had the carpal—
CARUSO: Tunnel.
LYNCH: —tunnel. And she said, “No, Uncle John, that’s the lupus.” Well, low and behold,
the poor kid, she passed away.
2
Stephen F. Lynch (1955- ), a Democrat, has represented Massachusetts’ Ninth Congressional District in the U.S.
House of Representatives since the death of Joe Moakley in 2001.
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�OH-011 Transcript
CARUSO: I’m sorry to hear that.
LYNCH: Yeah. Well that was one of the things. And that was like—Joe Moakley got up and
said—you know, he said, “In the audience, there’s John Lynch, my first campaign manager.”
And you know, that was kind of nice, for all the nieces and cousins who didn’t know who I was,
to that extent. But I enjoyed that.
Now, the other thing I thought was funny—he used to call me up and say—you know the
registration plates? He said, “I got a plate for you.” I said, “I don’t care about a low-numbered
plate. You’re gonna take it. I don’t want it. Give it to somebody you’ll get more votes out of,
you know? Give it to somebody who will appreciate it.” But anyhow, the first time he gave me
H705 which was a (inaudible) designation. But then one day he called me up and he said,
“Come on down, I want to see you.” And he took me down to the Registry [of Motor Vehicles],
and I ended up getting 6428, a four-numbered plate. And it was kind of him, you know.
CARUSO: Sure.
LYNCH: But since then, I wish I had pushed a little harder, because I might have gotten a
three-number. But I really didn’t care about that. Because he could get more from somebody
else; I was there.
But I used to play golf with him at Sharon Country Club, and we played Wollaston Country Club
a couple of times. And there, we were in a hotel, [with] Joey Ridge. He graduated with the class
of ‘46 [at South Boston High School], which I was class president of ‘46. But Joey was in our
class. And Joe was a couple years older, and he’d just had a birthday but he’s about four years
older.
Now, I might be repeating some of this; I don’t mean to. But at the time they had the busing, Joe
was really down, because it almost looked like he was going to have a breakdown over it. I
mean, really, it was terrible. He had neighbors that wouldn’t talk to him, and people were
crossing the streets so they wouldn’t have to say hello to him. It was really too bad.
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�OH-011 Transcript
So one day, I don’t know why, but I just felt kind of—I just went over to see him in his house on
Columbia Road. And he was down. I went there and I said, “Joe, you know, you got to—.” He
said, “Well, John, I can’t fix the law. I have to go by the law.” And I said, “Well, you got to
snap out of it. You can’t be moody in this—you know, they don’t know any better. You’re
doing it right.” You know, what else could I say?
But when I left there I called Bill Shaevel who was his [law] partner at one time and now is his
treasurer.3 And I said to Bill, “You’ve got to do something with him. He’s going to have a
breakdown if you don’t.” And he said, “You know, I think I ought to get him to see someone,
just to get him out of this.” And sure enough, whatever they did, I don’t know, I never followed
up on it. But I know that Bill appreciated it, and he said he would take care of it. Bill is a pretty
sharp guy.
And I told you that he had the bachelor party at Dorgan’s.
CARUSO: Right.
LYNCH: Now, another time he wanted to just get out of the area. He said, “Let’s go someplace
where I won’t be recognized.” Now how are you going to do that? I don’t know. But we took a
ride all the way up to Gloucester, and he came into this bar or whatever it was. Sure enough we
just go in and there’s somebody, “Oh, I know you!” I said, “Well, that’s the end of that.”
CARUSO: Right.
CARUSO: I used to go down sometimes to Washington, D.C. to see him. And mostly they
were like junkets, but everybody wanted to meet him. And so I used to go down and we’d go out
at night and do things. But he took me one time to a place where the waitresses wore roller
skates. And he thought that was great, so I said, “Okay, fine.”
3
William H. Shaevel was a member of Moakley’s State Senate staff from 1967 through 1970 and his law partner.
He is the treasurer of the Moakley Charitable Foundation.
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�OH-011 Transcript
One time, after one of the nights that we had been campaigning, I said, “Now, Joe, what the heck
do you want to—what are you in this for?” Because we usually got people calling us and saying,
“Can Joe fix up a ticket?” You know, parking tickets and speeding. You know, what do you
need that for? But he said at that time, “I want to be a congressman, and I want to take John
McCormack’s4 place.” And I went, “I don’t know.”
Now, here was another thing that I think was interesting, too, because a lot of people that didn’t
know him wanted to know why he really never went to Jimmy’s [Harborside Restaurant in South
Boston] too much; he always went to Pier 4 [Anthony’s Pier 4 Restaurant, also in South Boston].
And the reason—and we may have to edit this out , I don’t know, but at least we’re going to say
the truth. The reason he did—right at the beginning when he did become rep, and then go on to
become a senator or something, he never was treated with any respect down at Jimmy’s.
CARUSO: Really?
LYNCH: No. At that time they were more in favor of John Powers who was the senator5. So I
think it bothered—in fact, I know it bothered him [Moakley] because if I met him at all, it would
be at Pier 4. And he did have an affinity with Anthony [Athanas, founder of Anthony’s Pier 4].
In fact, I think Bobby Moakley worked for Anthony.
CARUSO: Oh, he did?
LYNCH: Yeah, Bobby ended up being one of the maître’ds.
Now the other thing—he [Moakley] had a dog, Twiggy. I don’t know if you knew that. (long
pause) And Twiggy would sing. If Joe had a couple of drinks, he would sing. He would, you
4
John W. McCormack (1891-1990), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Twelfth and, after redistricting, Ninth
Congressional Districts in the United States House of Representatives from 1928 to 1971. He served as Speaker of
the House from 1962 to 1971.
5
John E. Powers (1910-1998), a Democrat, represented South Boston in the Massachusetts House of
Representatives from 1939 to 1946 and in the Massachusetts State Senate from 1947 to 1964. He served as Senate
President from 1959 to 1964.
Page 12 of 23
�OH-011 Transcript
know, “Ah-ooh.” As a matter of fact, he was on Larry Glick’s show with Twiggy, and Joe—and
they would go to—he was very friendly with Larry Glick. It was on WBZ, I remember that.
But I called him up in Washington one day and I said, “How’s Twiggy doing?” He said, “Geez,
I wish to hell we had Blue Cross/Blue Shield for him, because it’s costing me a lot of money.”
The dog was having trouble. But then they got that straightened out.
But I was at Pier 4 with him and there was one other fellow with us, Ross Martin. And he said,
“Do you want—any of you want a dog?” At the time my kids were small so I said, “Yeah, I
wouldn’t mind having a dog.” And he said, “Go over here to so-and-so’s place.” I said, “What
kind of a dog?” “Just like Twiggy, you know, one of those poodles.” Well, I went over to
Mattapan, there was a place around the corner, and I went in and I got my dog. It was a little
tiny French poodle, but it was a dog. See, that dog usually just wouldn’t—because I tried to get
him from Mattapan down to Weymouth. The dog was in and out, under the— I was afraid he
was going to get electrocuted on the way. Anyhow, that’s how we got our little dog. But it
wasn’t a big one like he said.
Then another time he was on the Channel 2 [Boston’s PBS station] Auction, and I bought a
weather vane one year. Then another time he had some stuff on, and it was a painting. And he
loved the painting himself. But I bid on it; I didn’t realize he wanted it. But we were going to a
show that night, and my wife and sister got relieved, and we didn’t wait for them to call us back.
So I missed out on the painting. And he called me the next day, and he wanted to swap the
painting for some Washington memorabilia. I said, “Sorry, Joe, we didn’t do it.”
Do you want to stop, or—? You look like you’re—
CARUSO: A few more minutes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
LYNCH: All right. I don’t want to just keep going on this thing.
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�OH-011 Transcript
Tom Moakley was his brother; he was the treasurer of a reunion party we had at South Boston
High School. And I was class president in ‘46, so we kept going. I was class president in 1946.
Now another little story I’ll tell you: At one of the parties that we had for Joe, and I think it was
down at the Firemen’s Post, and I could be wrong, but that’s where it was. And I met this guy. I
started talking to this fellow; his name was Basil Quirk who was a very good friend of Joe’s.
And he was a longshoreman, so he lived near Joe down on Dorchester [Avenue, in South
Boston]. Well, Basil was thrilled over the fact that he had just been written up in Newsweek, or
something, and it was about pigeons. And if you saw this kid—he was a big, strapping
longshoreman but he liked pigeons, and he gave me a whole, big education.
Frank Quirk was another one. He used to run the rallies where we had torchlight parades, and
Frank, he’d get it organized, and we’d have that thing, we went around. And Joe’s uncle worked
for the railroad, so we used to get railroad friends to use it. But we had a pretty good thing.
I told you about Henry Looper [Looper Doherty], Martin Carter. Oh, another one was Davey
Keefe. Now Davey Keefe, he since has passed away, too. But he was in charge of signs, and he
knew where every sign that Joe put up was in South Boston, or wherever they had them. So at
that breakfast at the Lithuanian Club, Davey Keefe came in. And he’s only a little, short guy but
he’s got a son that’s a tall kid. And I said, “Boy, am I glad to see you.” But I’m talking at the
table. We’re talking about how Joe won, and this and that. And so Davey [said], “Yeah, but we
lost that first time, Joe!” And I’m going, “Oh, geez, forget about it.”
I think those are a lot of the notes I have on him.
CARUSO: Okay, why don’t I turn the tape over—
LYNCH: Alright.
CARUSO: —and we’ll talk about some of the specific campaign issues that you guys worked
with.
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�OH-011 Transcript
(long pause)
END OF SIDE A
SIDE B
LYNCH: (inaudible—problems with tape)
(long pause—recording picks up with Mr. Caruso)
CARUSO: —in the ‘52 elections when Joe was running for state representative. What were the
issues of the day? What were the campaign issues or things that the voters were concerned
about, that the campaigns were structured around?
LYNCH: Well, it was mostly personalities. Joe was a new kid on the block, and we were just
out there to get his name up. And that’s what we tried to do. And in the ‘50 campaign we did a
good job. But we forgot Dorchester; we really didn’t put enough effort into Dorchester. So in
1952 we went out into Dorchester and we put his name up there. And it was just name
recognition, that’s what did it. And we pestered everybody in Dorchester as much as we did in
South Boston. And it worked out.
CARUSO: You went door-to-door?
LYNCH: Oh, yeah, we did that. We always did that. (laughs)
CARUSO: So if you’d come to my door in 1952 and you knocked on it, you’d have said you
want me to support Joe Moakley. And I’d say, “Why should I support Joe Moakley?” What
would you have told me?
Page 15 of 23
�OH-011 Transcript
LYNCH: Because he’s an honest, sincere person, and he’ll do the right thing for us. That was
basically—most of the people, they just—they didn’t ask us any questions. But I told you about
McColgan’s brother. That was a different one.
CARUSO: Later on we had to deal with the issue of the busing crisis in Boston. You remember
that period pretty well?
LYNCH: I remember that Joe was in—that was in, I guess, 1970, in that area. And as I said,
the biggest thing on that was that he was a congressman and he was going by the law, but he
wasn’t going to do any different than that. And he really got upset with his neighbors, and—
CARUSO: What were they expecting from him?
LYNCH: That he would go against Garrity’s judgment,6 you know, or whatever. I don’t know
how you phrase that. But he felt as though the letter of the law said they’re going to do this, and
a judge put it in place. And all his friends and neighbors in the area said, “No, we don’t want the
busing,” you know? And they had some pretty stiff arguments about it.
CARUSO: What did you think about the whole thing?
LYNCH: On the busing?
CARUSO: Yeah.
LYNCH: I think Joe was right; I felt that way. But on the other hand it divided people terribly.
My sister had—I had moved out of South Boston.
6
On June 21, 1974, Judge W. Arthur Garrity ruled in the case of Tallulah Morgan et al. v. James Hennigan et al.
(379 F. Supp. 410) that the Boston School Committee had “intentionally brought about and maintained racial
segregation” in the Boston Public Schools. When the school committee did not submit a workable desegregation
plan as the opinion had required, the court established a plan that called for some students to be bused from their
own neighborhoods to attend schools in other neighborhoods, with the goal of creating racial balance in the Boston
Public Schools. (See http://www.lib.umb.edu/archives/garrity2.html for more information)
Page 16 of 23
�OH-011 Transcript
CARUSO: Where did you go to live?
LYNCH: I went to Weymouth [MA, about twenty miles southeast of Boston].
CARUSO: Weymouth?
LYNCH: So I wasn’t as close, but my sister had kids in school. I remember going up to knock
on her door one day, and there was like an arm and, you know, “white power.” Jeez. And I was
kind of disturbed about it because some of them took it too seriously. And Joe, I think, did the
right thing. But Garrity said, you know, “You got to do it.” And it really decimated the whole
South Boston area. There wasn’t much Joe could do about it, other than say, “It’s the letter of
the law and you have to do it.” And it hurt him to do it because he had good friends that he
wanted to stay friendly with, you know, and that (inaudible).
CARUSO: Did those relationships repair over time?
LYNCH: Oh, yeah, I’d say so. Talk about relationships, though—as I told you, when we
started in 1950 we had a group. Now, in 1950—he lost in ‘50, and now in ‘52, some of them
said, “Well, we’re going to go with a winner.” So they were good kids, but they backed a fellow
by the name of Foley, who was running for city councilor at the time. And they liked him, they
said, “We can’t help you with this, Joe. We did the best we could.” Well, Foley lost and then
Joe took them back without any—no hesitation at all; he never had a problem with it. So he was
a forgiving person.
CARUSO: So you worked in the ‘50 campaign, the ‘52 campaign. How many campaigns of
Joe’s did you work on?
LYNCH: I only worked a couple.
CARUSO: Just those two; the original ones?
Page 17 of 23
�OH-011 Transcript
LYNCH: Yeah, the original one and the ‘52. And then after that, I had enough things to do,
myself. But what I was doing then was I was in the construction industry and I worked as a
sheet metal worker. So then I would get parties together for him. So down at The Yankee
Fisherman [a now-closed waterfront restaurant in Boston], we had a big party for him there. And
I had customers, and we’d make contributions, do things like that.
And in those days, there were a lot of things you could do without getting in trouble. So for
instance, if he needed a secretary, I’d put a secretary on my payroll, we’d do it that way. But you
couldn’t do that, not today.
CARUSO: Not today.
LYNCH: And the other thing is, he had a friend who had a printing shop. So we’d go in and
they’d let us print his stuff for him. Those things went out the window. But, you know, that was
part of the game.
CARUSO: Now there were other politicians in the city at the time. There were people in
power, the mayor and whatnot. How did they respond to Joe in his early years, running for
office?
LYNCH: The one he had—I remember he ran against Johnny Powers. That was a tough fight.
I can always remember; it was Upham’s Corner, and they’re up there. John Powers was
speaking and then we came after. And he had a slogan, “Take a walk, Moakley.” Oh, geez, that
was something that bothered Joe and bothered all of us. It was a tough fight.
But then Powers ran for mayor and everybody in the city thought he was going to make it. And
we were sort of helping him if we could, in the Moakley thing, but we never thought Collins7
would beat him. That was really a big switch there.
CARUSO: How did Joe get along with Mayor Collins?
7
John F. Collins (1919-1995) was mayor of Boston from 1960 to 1968.
Page 18 of 23
�OH-011 Transcript
LYNCH: Oh, I’m sure he made out all right. He knew how to handle that. But at the time the
right way to go was with Powers because he was in our area. And he really was—he really
thought that he would walk a cakewalk to do that, but—
But one of the other things is we went out in the Dorchester area. Now after you speak of John
Powers, you speak of (inaudible). And we’d gone down the street, and there was a
representative out there, who the name escapes me right now, but he said, “We’re with you, Joe,
100 percent, and we’ll back you, no lie.” And we go around the corner and there’s people giving
out cards for Powers. (laughs) So he was one of the ones who you couldn’t trust. But anyway,
it was all politics.
CARUSO: Yes, an unclean business from time to time.
LYNCH: Yes. But the other thing that was interesting was, Joe Moakley had two brothers, Bob
and Tom. Tommy was not into politics at all. Bob was definitely into politics. He was a good
advisor for Joe. And one of the things that comes to mind is that Joe would be—Bulger8 would
have that party.
CARUSO: On St. Patrick’s Day?
LYNCH: Yes. And Joe would have some jokes to tell. And Bob Moakley was the one who got
the jokes ready for him. But poor Joe, he’d get up and start telling a joke, and then Bulger would
interrupt him and throw him off. (laughter) So one year he said, “I’m not going to do that
anymore. No more jokes.” He just said, “To hell with it.” So Bulger threw him off-track. But
Bob Moakley was the one who used to get him all that stuff.
CARUSO: Did he get along with Bulger?
8
William M. Bulger (1934- ), a Democrat, served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1962 to
1970, in the Massachusetts State Senate from 1970 to 1978 and as State Senate President from 1978 to 1996.
Page 19 of 23
�OH-011 Transcript
LYNCH: Yeah, he got along with Bulger. He didn’t have any problems. They all came from
the same school. And he got along with everybody. He knew how to rock and roll, you know,
be on the good sides of all of them.
CARUSO: Sure, sure. Now you stayed—even though you stopped working on the campaigns
after a while, you stayed in touch with Joe?
LYNCH: Oh, all the time. In fact, I’ll tell you what happened to me. I was in the construction
business. I worked for—I started as a loader(??), then an apprentice. And I worked my way up
as a custom (inaudible) salesman, and did the whole thing in sheet metal. And I worked for one
company, and another company. One company, I worked for a lot of years. But then, that
company went broke and I went to a couple of others.
I ended up—in one of the last companies—in the second-to-last company I worked for, the guy
was up against it and he said, “We’ve got to cut back.” And I said, “Well, lay me off. Let the
other, younger fellows stay,” you know, being the hero. And I said I felt I could get a job. Now
I was getting older and I’d been around. So I went searching and I didn’t get anything.
So I went home one day, and so who the heck calls me but Joe calls me from Washington. He
said, “Why didn’t you give me a call?” I said, “I didn’t want to bother you.” And he said, “You
get your behind in there, and you go see so-and-so, and I’ll make arrangements.” It took a few
days but he arranged it, and I went in for the interview at the MBTA [Massachusetts Bay
Transportation Authority]. And that’s how I landed in the MBTA.
CARUSO: How long ago was that?
LYNCH: 1989. So I’ve been there ever since, and it’s through him that I got it. I started as a
staff assistant and worked my way—
CARUSO: Almost fifteen years.
Page 20 of 23
�OH-011 Transcript
LYNCH: Yeah. And they laid me off one time, too. (inaudible—shuffling papers) I got laid
off. In those days, Kerasiotes9, he was there. So he decided to lay a bunch of people off and I
happened to be one of them. And I don’t know whether it just happened—my name got on that
list, anyhow. And Joe heard it. Joe was upset, and I mean rippin’. But somebody told me that
he was in his office, and he called Jim up and he blasted him, and he said, “What do you think
you can—you’re not going to get any more money for that,” and this and that So anyhow, I was
out of there four months but Joe got me back in again.
CARUSO: He was a good friend.
LYNCH: Yeah, he was a great friend, and just a marvelous man, really. And Evelyn was a
great lady, too. And she knew how to turn the buttons on him.
CARUSO: All that.
LYNCH: Ah, yes.
CARUSO: Quite a relationship.
LYNCH: Yes. But I really had a good friend in Joe, and I think it was a mutual thing. If he had
a chance to work in the business end of it, he would tell contractors, “If you could help John
Lynch, he’s with McCuster Company(??), I would appreciate it.” Sometimes it worked,
sometimes it didn’t. But it didn’t cost anything. Joe was that type of guy. And another time, he
called me and said, “I want you to be at a party I’m going to have in Norwood. There’ll be some
people you’ll meet.” There’d be swimming, and all that. And it was a money thing and there
were a lot of people there. And he introduced me to one, you know, just to be sure, and—.
9
James J. Kerasiotes was chairman of the MBTA from 1992-1997.
Page 21 of 23
�OH-011 Transcript
I was surprised at some of the people there, though. One of them, the guy that used to announce
for the baseball, the Red Sox [Sherm Feller]10? You know, “Now batting for so-and-so.” And
for me, that guy was like a nothing and he was very abusive as far as drinking and stuff like that.
And I didn’t really think he was a good—But I guess he was, and I just didn’t know the guy that
well. But Joe knew him, so he was a good friend.
CARUSO: Very interesting.
LYNCH: Yes, I can’t think of his name. But he was very fond of Larry Glick.
CARUSO: On WBZ?
LYNCH: Yes.
CARUSO: Well, I want to thank you very much for your time, sir.
LYNCH: Beautiful.
CARUSO: And we appreciate the donation from Dorgan’s; that provides color to the interview.
LYNCH: All right. And how about this? Did you see that? [shows documents to Mr. Caruso]
CARUSO: Oh, yes.
LYNCH: Those were—I laminated those from the party I went to [attachment B].
CARUSO: This was from the Norwood party?
LYNCH: Yeah, (inaudible—speaking at same time).
10
Sherman “Sherm” Feller (1918-1994) served as PA announced for the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park from 1967
to 1993.
Page 22 of 23
�OH-011 Transcript
CARUSO: Excellent. I (inaudible—speaking at same time) kept these, as well.
LYNCH: Okay.
END OF INTERVIEW
Page 23 of 23
�Oral History Interview of John Lynch (OH-011)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
OH-011 Attachments
Attachment A
Photocopy of menu from The Captain’s Room and Cocktail Lounge (n.d.)
Attachment B
Laminated invitation to the opening of John Joseph Moakley: In Service to
his Country Traveling Exhibit, Monday, April 28, 2003
�
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers, 1926-2001
Subject
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Boston (Mass.)<br />Legislators--United States <br />Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001<br /> South Boston (Boston, Mass.)<br />Legislators. Massachusetts<br />Politicians--Massachusetts
Description
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The paper of Congressman John Joseph Moakley are housed at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.<br /><br />The sample of items from the Moakley papers exhibited on this site are used courtesy of the Moakley Archive and Institute. The full collection documents Moakley’s early life, his World War II service, his terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate, and his service in Congress. The majority of the collection covers Moakley’s congressional career from 1973 until 2001. A <a title="Moakley papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> the the collection is available online. <br /><br />The collection is open for research. Access to materials may be restricted based on their condition. Please consult the <a title="Moakley Archive" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/moakley" target="_blank">Moakley Archive and Institute</a>, Suffolk University for more information.
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Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001.
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers (MS 100), 1926-2001. View the <a title="John Joseph Moakley Papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
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Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
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1926-2001
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Items highlighted from the Moakley papers in this online collection are made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. <br /><br />Copyright is retained by the creators of items in the Moakley papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
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<div>
<div>
<p>Moakley Papers: Moakley Oral History Project<br />Enemies of War Collection (MS 104)<br /> Jamaica Plain Committee on Central America Collection (MS 103)</p>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
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Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University.
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300.7 cubic feet (521 boxes)
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English
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MS 100
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Boston, Mass.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Caruso, Paul
Interviewee
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Lynch, John
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Suffolk University Law School, Boston, Mass.
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See PDF transcript
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Note: Original audio recording is available for listening at the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
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59:45
Time Summary
A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview
Lynch’s early campaign work for Moakley p. 1 (00:36)
Lynch’s friendship with Moakley p. 8 (13:47)
Moakley’s reaction to the 1974 Garrity decision p. 10 (19:33)
Anecdotes related to Moakley’s campaigns, political career
and personal life p. 11 (21:25)
1952 campaign work p. 15 (31:05)
The “busing crisis” p. 16 (32:41)
More on Lynch’s campaign work p. 17 (35:03)
More anecdotes related to Moakley’s political career and
Lynch’s friendship with Moakley p. 19 (39:48)
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Transcript of Oral History Interview of John Lynch
Subject
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Boston (Mass.)
Busing for school integration
Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
Political campaigns
Description
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In this interview, John Lynch, a volunteer on Congressman John Joseph Moakley’s early campaigns, reflects on his friendship with Moakley and discusses Moakley's career. Among other topics, he discusses the impact on Moakley of Judge W. Arthur Garrity's 1974 decision in the case of Morgan v. Hennigan, which required some students to be bused between Boston neighborhoods with the goal of creating racial balance in the public schools. He also provides a variety of anecdotes that help to illuminate his friendship with Moakley and shed light on Moakley's personality.
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
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Moakley Oral History Project
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
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May 24, 2003
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Kintz, Laura
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Copyright Suffolk University. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
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Moakley Oral History Project: http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/collections/show/1
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English
Type
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Oral history interview transcript
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OH-011
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/15912/archive/files/e4f3647c9876750e66df731a1c5d3579.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=sbEuNIiLdDO7gkteQBECI9RPDLKVRNpanhFiDy0QOULXddb2oaCf1rxsW5qJLYZotpZZqbYEvmECzxvKqUxjSLBTU98CPglqGxLVuAIg6wuo7zcIxUbo5jZ60ZZAr4aSOr5srvxZcWjt8yuAIgjOb-PSVYVsjXbESH6cHXrOE99yvLyXkSiRimMkNxvCKhMPv7C4W7ITu6Qmi0lwKWj3FLo-xDymogQIWE0sM2BigGn%7E7%7EFH0cxF6vzwJ0nUifB40qsPupyfq7JltGbbnIT48hq95D50-0OO%7EpTKZ7CSFuiSvSoE%7EZ1EJcxgLFoVotZsrRtwJBFDOOJNRQdD2O%7Ex1w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
abba829519b597219527a89d27546594
PDF Text
Text
Oral History Interview of William Bulger (OH-014)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Oral History Interview of William M. Bulger
Interview Date: August 20, 2003
Interviewed by: Robert Allison, History Professor Suffolk University and Joseph McEttrick,
Suffolk University Law School Professor
Citation: Bulger, William M. Interviewed by Robert Allison and Joseph McEttrick. John Joseph
Moakley Oral History Project OH-014. 20 August 2003. Transcript and audio available. John
Joseph Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Copyright Information: Copyright ©2003, Suffolk University.
Interview Summary
William M. Bulger, former Massachusetts State Senate President, discusses the career of
Congressman John Joseph Moakley. President Bulger discusses his friendship with
Congressman Moakley; running for political office in South Boston; the evolution of politics
during his career; Congressman Moakley’s 1970 and 1972 congressional campaigns; his
thoughts regarding Boston busing in the 1970s; the Saint Patrick’s Day breakfast in South
Boston; the development of the city of Boston over the years; and Congressman Moakley’s
constituent service and political leadership.
Subject Headings
Boston (Mass.)
Bulger, William M.
Busing for school integration
Curley, James Michael, 1874-1958
Massachusetts Politics and government
Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
South Boston (Boston, Mass.)
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
1
�Table of Contents
Part 1
Memories of Congressman Moakley
p. 3 (00:20)
Early campaigns
p. 6 (07:48)
Constituent service
p. 8 (13:27)
Later campaigns
p. 14 (26:11)
Part 2
Massachusetts politics
p. 17 (02:43)
Busing in Boston
p. 22 (15:25)
Reflections on South Boston
p. 24 (20:09)
Part 3
Moakley as a model public servant
p. 32 (08:44)
Interview transcript begins on next page
Page 2 of 37
�OH-014 Transcript
This interview took place on Wednesday, August 20, 2003, at the University of Massachusetts
President’s Office at One Beacon Street, Boston, MA.
Interview Transcript
(feedback noise)
PROFESSOR JOSEPH McETTRICK: We were trying to get some background on yourself
and Joe Moakley, and then your perspective on Joe’s legacy. It’s just a conversation that’s going
to be a tape, and will sit in the archives, and presumably will be a resource for people in the
future.
PROFESSOR ROBERT ALLISON: We’ll have it transcribed, and you can take a look at it.
WILLIAM M. BULGER: Oh, good.
ALLISON: I know you’ve spoken a lot about Joe Moakley. In the book,1 you talk about that
encounter with him where he says how political cards interested him more—
BULGER: Oh, that’s right. Yeah, that’s right.
ALLISON: Do you remember your first meetings with him when you were kids growing up?
BULGER: Well, I remember the Moakley brothers. They were, as you know, at 51 Logan Way
and we were at 41 Logan Way [in South Boston]. And I remember them as young fellows,
bigger and a bit older than I. They were very friendly, easygoing people. I remember their
father and their mother. The father was a big, gregarious, outgoing fellow. He seemed to know
everyone. There was a little bit of that, I think, in the congressman-to-be, Joe.
Joe was just a very, very nice person. And again, he had a little more mileage on him than I at
that early time. I always remember my mother noting that she had learned of the bombing of
1
Bulger, William M., While the Music Lasts: My Life in Politics. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996.
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
3
�OH-014 Transcript
Pearl Harbor from Bobby Moakley [Robert F. Moakley, Sr., Joe Moakley’s brother]. So that
tells you how long ago we knew each other, back in nineteen hundred and forty-one.
And the friendship, by the way, with Moakley was such an easy one that it was always picked
up, even though we might not see each other for a while. He came in suddenly, one day. He was
sitting in my own office here, and sitting over near the desk, just wanted to chat. He said he had
been driving by, and he asked the person who was driving him to find a way to park somewhere
around. He just wanted to come up and chat about some matters. It was about as free and as
easy as that.
Then the fateful call that he made to me—I think it was in February of the year that he died—in
which he said that he had fought all of these terrible battles with his illnesses, but that there was
no chance whatsoever, the doctors told him, that he could be rescued again. And he asked if I
would put together some little remarks—he didn’t use the word eulogy—just remarks for his
funeral. It was a shocking thing. And I remember it so vividly. I didn’t know what, really, to
say to it. And that was it.
I still remember going over to have dinner with him, just the two of us, in one of the local
restaurants, and his saying to me that the problem of dying was not so easy; it was complicated.
All of his affairs seemed to need some straightening out, and he didn’t know how anyone
managed to die without at least six months notice. (laughter)
He remained cheerful. I always recall that he said that he slept well and he ate well. He handled
it as well as anyone ever could, at least on the surface. There was no doubt that he was at peace
with the world. He had done his best. Having given his best to things, he knew that he could
move on with a degree of confidence.
McETTRICK: Well, I did read your words at Saint Brigid’s.2 And there was a sentence in
there that really did catch me. I was going to ask you a question about it. So, since you brought
it up, why don’t we go to that?
2
Moakley’s funeral took place at Saint Brigid Parish in South Boston on June 1, 2001. Mr. Bulger gave the eulogy.
Page 4 of 37
�OH-014 Transcript
You said, “And he was a man of memory. He recognized the danger of forgetting what it was to
be hungry once we are fed. And he would, in a pensive moment, speak of that tendency to forget
as a dangerous fault.” I was just intrigued with that thought. I was wondering if you wanted to
elaborate on that, or what that meant.
BULGER: I think it was very clear, in his actions and in his words, that he saw great value in
being in kind of direct contact with the constituency. That was the reminder. He would be quite
concerned about the fate of someone who was now relying upon him. It would be a person who
has absolutely no political weight or a person of—it would not have to be someone who was a
contributor, or a very, I don’t know what the word is, but something that suggests a political
heavyweight.
There would be no need for that. It would be just the sense that it was Mrs. So-and-so, and she
had inquired, looking for some help. And the Congressman was going to try to make sure that it
went well for her in that regard. That was important. He’d be embarrassed by this, but I’d say
that he could see the intrinsic value, just some good deed. It would be probably—this is where I
embarrass him, by saying Mother Theresa. She wasn’t there to eliminate hunger, poverty, or
whatever, disease, but rather to give her best to some individual in a single moment, and that
there is value in that. In and of itself, that’s worth doing.
He had a bit of that in him, Joe. I’m not sure he was very conscious of it. But he just thought it
was great to do that. I see the practical sense of it—your question leads me to it—is that this
keeps you in touch. You kind of know how things are running at a certain level, in this world,
where the more weaker and the more ineffectual are—where they spend their lives.
And he knew that, by helping out in that fashion, he would give them a boost that might, oh, give
them something to talk about or feel good about for the rest of their lives. There was the habit on
the part of people who lead these quiet lives, I think, to recount a story over and over and over
again. “And then the congressman called me. And he said this is all set. He squared it away.
Never forget it.” “When was that?” “Nineteen thirty-seven,” or something. (laughter) But he
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liked that. But there would be little political value in that. I think that’s the beauty of it, a little
pure act of charity.
McETTRICK: Now, we’re very interested in looking at your career and Joe’s. And there are
these contact points that you were in the same neighborhood. And then I guess, in some ways,
you did pursue somewhat different paths because Joe was a little bit older than yourself. And
then you went to B.C. High [Boston College High School]. I guess you were in the army in the
middle of Boston College. So, I guess you were out of South Boston, actually, when Joe really
got elected the first time to the House, but then returned. We were just trying to put that all
together. It would be better, I guess, if you just really told us how that went—
BULGER: Now I don’t recall—I was in the service from 1953 to 1955. He was first elected in
what year?
ALLISON: Fifty-two.
BULGER: Fifty-two.
ALLISON: He first ran in 1950.
McETTRICK: And so, you had been at B.C. for a year before you went?
BULGER: One year at Boston College, probably was not paying close attention to the local
contest. But he won the fight. It was state representative. There were two representatives’ seats
in the ward at that time. And he won one. It was only seven years later that I was running for it
because he has now announced his candidacy for the State Senate, and I’m running for his vacant
seat, and I won it.
You know, I do remember coming back from the service, meeting him at Andrew Square. I
forget who he was campaigning for. But he asked if I could give a vote. And I had the nerve to
say to him—again, we were old friends. I said, “Oh no.” I said, “I think this is the one time I’ll
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ever see James Michael Curley’s3 name on the ballot. And I’d like to vote for him.” (laughter)
And Joe wouldn’t have that same you know sentimental notion. He’d say, “What are you?” But
no matter what I think he’d get me the ride. And I went down to the precinct—Ward Seven,
Precinct Seven is where we all voted at that time. And I voted for Curley that day. But again, he
would understand it. But I don’t think he’d be so—he was much more practical, Joe.
ALLISON: So you did go to Curley’s event that night. I heard you tell this about—
BULGER: Well I went to the Curley event at the Brunswick Hotel. And it was a swan song.
And I think I had a little premonition of the last hurrah idea. And I can remember him telling the
audience at the Brunswick Hotel—now he was so far behind John Hynes4, he could never catch
up. It was hopeless. But he had a crowd that was so devoted.
I remember John MacGillivray was there. John had one arm, had lost it in Europe in the war.
He won the Congressional Medal of Honor. And he was a friend of the whole Curley group
there. And I remember Curley asking them to set the microphones up. [He said,] “Surrender,”
you know, “Sounds of defeat in the air. None of this for us. Like John Paul Jones on the deck of
the burning Bon Homme Richard, of the ancient. Surrender! We’ve just begun to fight,” or
whatever. And he went on. By the time he got finished, they would have marched on City Hall,
(laughter) taken it over, at least for the night. But it was great.
And I still remember Curley around, and the contest, and Moakley, myself. He was in a big
automobile. Wherever he went—Flood Square. There was a water trough there where the
horses—and he’d stand up on the top of that. Then each one of us could get up and have the
same audience, and speak. But he would entrance them, Curley, mesmerize the audience.
(laughs)
3
James Michael Curley (1874-1958), a Democrat, served as mayor of Boston for four non-consecutive terms: 1914
to 1918, 1922 to 1926, 1930 to 1934, and 1946 to 1950, and as governor of Massachusetts from 1935 to 1937. He
also represented Massachusetts’ Twelfth Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives from
1911 to 1914 and the Eleventh Congressional District from 1943 to 1946. He served jail time in the late 1940s for
official misconduct, but remained in office as mayor during that time.
4
John B. Hynes (1897-1970), a Democrat, served as mayor of Boston from 1950 to 1960.
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McETTRICK: Now was that pretty much the last era of the curbstone political speech?
BULGER: Well, it was running out. It was running out. When I ran in 1960, it was one
humorous part of it. There was a hurricane looming. So we sent a sound truck out, performing a
public service, warning people to stay indoors (laughter) because this hurricane was coming. I
think it was coming in the morning. But I think we wanted everyone to stay indoors. I think we
made it sound much more imminent, and also much more threatening. Well, pretty soon, there
were sixteen people running for representative in my contest.
McETTRICK: Now that was for the two seats in the ward?
BULGER: Yeah. And we were running. It was a hot and heavy battle. Pretty soon, O’Leary’s
truck was out there warning them the same way. A kid named Collins, James Michael Collins,
he was warning them. Everybody was warning them. (laughter) They must have been
frightened to death to have all these soundtracks. (laughter) And it sounded like something
official. But it was only these public-spirited candidates.
McETTRICK: So you got elected to the House. And then Joe eventually got into the Senate. I
guess he was rep, and then it took him a while to get into the Senate.
BULGER: He ran for Senate in 1970 [sic—1960]. He, I think, lost that contest against
Powers.5 But in that moment, he left the [House] seat vacant, and I ran for the Senate and won.
Then shortly thereafter, he did go to the Senate. And ultimately, he went to the Congress the
same way.
McETTRICK: So you were in the House and he was in the Senate, both representing South
Boston for a number of years. And you must have had occasion to really work with him fairly
closely.
5
John E. Powers (1910-1998), a Democrat, represented South Boston in the Massachusetts House of
Representatives from 1939 to 1946 and in the Massachusetts State Senate from 1947 to 1964. He served as Senate
President from 1959 to 1964.
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BULGER: Oh sure, yeah. Whenever there was anything at all, he was—and he was good about
being inclusive. I might have really not deserved it, but he’d include me in the credit for an
achievement. He was sort of big brotherish, without a word. You never had the sense that there
was some debt that had arisen from his generosity. It was more that he just thought that was—
McETTRICK: But there’s been a tradition, really, in South Boston, generally, for the
legislative delegation to work together, and try to help out, and move things along.
BULGER: Oh sure, yes, absolutely.
ALLISON: Do you remember any of the particular issues or fights you might have had in the
sixties when you and Joe were both in different houses of the legislature?
BULGER: Yeah, I do recall that, in the sixties, I had a bill that called for the reporting of
suspected cases of child abuse. At that time, it was more physical child abuse. And there were
two other states—Tennessee and California had researched it, and discovered that it was because
the doctors were now using sophisticated X-ray methods. They could discover breaks that had
been healed on a child’s leg or something, and realized that some other terrible trauma had been
inflicted upon the baby or the child who can speak, but won’t ever implicate the parent.
And so the doctors began to have—were able to show that this was not just a rare occasion, but
something that happened, and with a degree of regularity, in fact, in some places. And so I filed
a bill that would require those doctors to report such. It received opposition because I was also
granting immunity to the doctor. If he were wrong, then no, he could not be sued for his
mistake. This would encourage him, of course, to act.
And there were some people who thought that we were putting too many things beyond the reach
of the litigators. So they opposed it. And it lost it in one year. But the following year, I was
very anxious to get it through. I went to Moakley and asked him if he would help me, if I could
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get it out of the House and into the Senate. And he did. We got it through the Senate. And
Governor Peabody6 signed it.
McETTRICK: Well, you’ve alluded to Joe’s empathy and contact with constituents. You also
mentioned in your eulogy that even President [George W.] Bush mentioned Joe Moakley, and
that it was really a reaction in the House. So he was always very popular, and held in high
regard by his own legislative colleagues. I was wondering if you could tell us something about
that. What made Joe effective among other legislators? Why was he so well liked? How was it
that he met with the success that he did?
BULGER: One of the keys is—I don’t know all of these reasons. We’re talking about things
that are matters of opinion. But I think a lot of it lies in the fact that Joe was not some sort of a
maniacal ideologue. If you try to characterize him as a liberal, or a conservative, or whatever,
he’d have a hard time giving you the definition. And he certainly wasn’t trying to fulfill any
definition, I don’t think, consciously. He just had a sense, on an ad hoc basis, that this should be
done or that should not be done. It brought him out, I think, into a fairly FDR, bread-and-butter
liberal, I guess.
But it enhanced his relationship with people because he wasn’t off-putting. You could be talking
to him about what you—and usually it’s a specific problem. He would like, by the way, to tell,
even away from legislation, the stories that came—were our experience. (laughs)
There was a fellow who he had got out of Charles Street Jail. And he would come around and
tell you, “I just got out. I live on Pilsudski Way. But I just need a few bucks to get me started.”
And you’d find a way to give him a few dollars to get him started. Then the fellow went over to
the Senate. And he saw Moakley. And then later, Moakley saw him talking to Senator Joe
Ward. And Joe Moakley said to Joe Ward, “What’s the story with him? How do you know my
constituent?”
6
Endicott Peabody (1920-1997), a Democrat, was governor of Massachusetts from 1963 to 1965.
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“Oh,” he says, “he lives up in my district in Fitchburg. He just got out of jail. And he needs a
few bucks to get started.” (laughter) And Joe says, “Oh, is that so?” Because he had moved
across both the House and the Senate, this fellow.
And ultimately, we both knew him because he had been arrested for stealing typewriters in the
state house. He’s a big fellow. I still remember him. He had thick glasses. And I said to Joe,
“Have you been taken by him?” “Oh yeah,” he said. “We’ve all been.” I doubt that he would
be in a rush to go and call the police. He’d just know that next time he must not be so gullible.
But I forget your last question.
McETTRICK: Well I think you really did answer my question. It was just the idea of his
ability just to work with other legislators. And I think you really addressed that pretty fully.
BULGER: And he would like the stories, a story like that. He would like that, Joe. That gave
him a connection with everyone. That’s part of it. He would enjoy—and also a story of
someone who might be showing crass ingratitude. We’re not looking for their gratitude. But the
ingratitude could sometimes be— (laughter)
And I think it’s someone who, for example, he helped, and then the fellow came back and is
campaigning against him. What was the story here? “Oh no,” he says. And he’d cite some
recent thing. “Yours is way back. A full year away,” and that sort of thing. He liked that story.
And it would be something—you could tell that—a tone of some frustration about that.
But I would see him occasionally. And it was toward the last few years. And I can remember
him going down to the little restaurant on P Street there, which is right around the corner from
me. And his diet, I used to joke about his diet. Bacon, potatoes, and everything. This is in the
morning. Everyone is having some little sissy thing, and Joe is eating—I don’t think he’d get
into the health thing too much. He’d be wondering why others did. He was very happy with his
world; very, very happy with it. Well, you would have to be happy with him, he’s such a good
person. Ask me whatever else.
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McETTRICK: Go ahead, Bob.
ALLISON: He had a sign behind his desk. It said, “Loyalty is the holiest—“
BULGER: Oh yes, yeah. I remember someplace he had used in a speech, “Loyalty is the
holiest good in the human heart.” And [Washington Post columnist] Mary McGrory had asked
him, “Where did you get that? That doesn’t sound like you.” He says, “Bulger.” (laughter) She
wrote me a letter and told me that.
He liked that. And he also liked the fact that, in one of my own contests, I wanted to use it. But
it was said by Seneca, first century philosopher in Rome. I thought we needed somebody more
local. So in my ad, it said, “Loyalty is the holiest good in the human heart—John Boyle
O’Reilly.”7 And Joe liked that.
McETTRICK: Seneca wouldn’t mind.
BULGER: Oh no, no. Seneca, they’ll think it’s from upstate New York or something.
(laughter) But John Boyle O’Reilly. It was only a venial sin. And I used to like it because
sometimes the Globe would say, “In the words of the great Irish poet, John Boyle O’Reilly.” I
don’t know why they never checked the accuracy of my cite. (laughs)
McETTRICK: Now where does Tip O’Neill8 fit into this, chronologically? Was he Speaker
when you started in the House? How did that all fit?
BULGER: No, no. He had already been the Speaker in the fifties. And he went to Washington,
and remarkably worked his way back up, I think, in the eighties, to Speaker.
McETTRICK: Sounds about right.
7
John Boyle O’Reilly (1844-1890) was an Irish poet and novelist.
Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill (1912-1994), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Eleventh and, after redistricting,
Eighth Congressional Districts in the United States House of Representatives from 1953 to 1987. He served as
Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1977 to 1987.
8
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BULGER: And Joe was right there, very close to him at that time, and fiercely loyal to the
Speaker. So he became—had the position on Rules,9 I believe it was. And it was a critical
position in the House, given to him by O’Neill.
McETTRICK: Well, of course, the really exciting part of this is when John McCormack10 left
the House, and then they had the great scramble for the representative seat. What can you tell us
about that? I mean you really had sort of a front row seat for that era.
BULGER: Oh yeah. Well Moakley ran as a Democrat, and lost to Louise Hicks.11 And he
decided he better find another way to tackle it. And as you know, he became an Independent,
and ran, and immediately switched back to Democrat. And then I think there was a question
about the purity of his membership as a Democrat, down in the Congress. But that was all
considered favorably by the Speaker. And everything went okay.
I remember, years later, calling both Moakley and Mrs. Hicks. They both lived on Columbia
Road. And we wanted to use each of their houses for a house tour, a charitable house tour in the
community. So I got the two of them. And I remember Moakley saying to me, “This is my
private place, I don’t let anybody come in. And I’m not going to do it,” he said. He says,
“Unless you tell me that I must.” I said, “You must. And you will like it.”
And the fact is, everyone who ever participates in this little venture always enjoys it. I was
pretty sure he would, too. And he did. He opened up the house. And everybody came through.
They were all curious about his premises, and Mrs. Hicks’. They went through—but I’m sure a
9
The House Rules Committee is responsible for the scheduling of bills for discussion in the House of
Representatives. According to the Rules Committee website, “bills are scheduled by means of special rules from the
Rules Committee that bestow upon legislation priority status for consideration in the House and establish procedures
for their debate and amendment.” (See http://www.rules.house.gov/) Congressman Moakley was a member of the
House Rules Committee from 1975 to 2001 and served as its chairman from 1989 to 1995.
10
John W. McCormack (1891-1990), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Twelfth and, after redistricting, Ninth
Congressional Districts in the United States House of Representatives from 1928 to 1971. He served as Speaker of
the House from 1962 to 1971.
11
Louise Day Hicks (1916-2003), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Ninth Congressional District from 1971
to 1973. It was in the 1970 election that Moakley lost his first bid for Congress. Moakley defeated Hicks in the
1972 congressional election when he ran as an Independent so he wouldn’t have to run against Hicks in the
democratic primary.
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thousand people in each home visited. This was very good because they would buy tickets for a
good charity in the district, the Labouré Center.
Moakley enjoyed it. He had someone taking Polaroid pictures. He had a couple of fiddlers in
the house who were playing Irish music during the day. The there was—well anyway, he loved
it, as we had expected. Then I can remember asking him—the nun there said, “Could you ask
him again?” And it was the month of June, or July, or August. And I said, “Would you like to
do it one more time, Joe? It’s such a success.”
He says, “Yeah, I’ll do it again. I might as well. The Christmas tree is still up.” (laughter) His
wife had passed away. He was living alone. He never bothered to take the damn Christmas tree
down. And I’ll never forget going through the house, there was some kind of a reindeer or
something, a big plastic reindeer in the bathtub. I don’t know whether there was any
significance. I doubt it, but it looked kind of strange.
McETTRICK: Now of course, in Massachusetts, everybody says that politics is one of our
favorite outdoor sports. And it must have been really pretty exciting, actually, in South Boston,
and then in 1970, and then the ’72 rematch for the congressional seat. What was it like in the
community? I’m sure—
BULGER: Oh yeah, torn apart.
McETTRICK: There were people in both camps, and divided. Tell us a little bit about that.
BULGER: I was very friendly with both people.
McETTRICK: It must have been tough.
BULGER: Oh yeah. I mean I am very friendly—I was right to the end of Joe’s life. And Mrs.
Hicks has always been a friend to me. So it was a painful thing. I think those of us who were in
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politics could at least justify our being away from it because we’re busy with our own contests or
whatever.
But these are two people—sometimes you hear governors say, We’ll put candidates into each
fight. We’ll do this. I don’t think anyone could ever do it. It’s the local nature of these contests
that can’t be met. If somebody comes along who has some sort of an imprimatur from a
governor, he’s immediately marked as a stranger to the turf, as someone who has a loyalty that
will be competing with the loyalty that the legislator should be showing to his constituency. I
mean, I would welcome such an opponent, dubbed by the governor to be—it would be very easy.
(laughs) So you hear that frequently. But I don’t think we’ll ever see situations where governors
can get into contests.
It’s very local. And Joe recognized that. And Tip O’Neill, of course, always [said], “All politics
is local.” And that’s valid. They all know it. And the fight between Hicks and Moakley was
very, very much a local, personal, tough little battle. Mrs. Hicks, I think her own enthusiasm for
the job may have been on the wane. She would say to me occasionally, “You would like this
job. But for someone like me, I want to be home with the family. The other responsibilities of
home, they beckon to me, and I should be there.” So I’m not sure that she had the same zeal to
win that she may have had in the first instance, after two years in Congress.
ALLISON: Were there bad feelings between—
[Tape ends]
END OF PART 1
(Casual conversation off camera)
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MARILYN WILCKE: Before the congressman died, I think, Joe [McEttrick] interviewed him.
And that interview was spliced down into a smaller piece, and ran in the exhibit in the Moakley
Gallery.12
BULGER: Right. I remember seeing it over there, yeah.
WILCKE: Part of the nature of the archive is to have continuing exhibits, and to tell the story
of Joe. So I think people that we are interviewing over these next several months could very
well, at one time or another, be a part of an exhibit, and certainly be made available to scholars
and to people really interested. It’s not intended to be an exercise that goes in a vault at media
services. That’s not what Joe wants.
ALLISON: I was really struck in doing the editing of that, just how profound many of the
things he said were.
BULGER: His observations.
ALLISON: And the last question that Joe asked him was if he had any advice for future
members of Congress. And he had this wonderful statement about being in Congress is like
living in a neighborhood. You live with the people upstairs, downstairs, and over the back fence.
McETTRICK: It was poetic, really.
BULGER: He liked that, yeah. Yeah, I remember all of his “the people over the back fence.”
(interruption)
McETTRICK: Well, I guess one question is, since you really saw Joe in action for so many
years, and since you served so many years in politics as an elected official, what are your
12
Ms. Wilcke is referring to the Adams Gallery at Suffolk University Law School, where the Moakley Archive and
Institute displayed the exhibit John Joseph Moakley: In Service to His Country from November 28, 2001, to April 7,
2002.
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thoughts on the political style or expectations as they existed then, versus the current political
environment today? What changes do you perceive? Or how have politicians changed? Or how
have the voters changed?
BULGER: I think there’s been a shift. I think that the people who report on politics take larger
liberties. They want to influence the actions of people who are elected. (interruption)
McETTRICK: Mr. President, you had the chance of watching Joe Moakley in office for many
years. And you had some experience yourself as an elected public official. What are your
perceptions on the way things were done or the political expectations of an earlier era compared
with the situation today? How have the politicians changed or the voters changed? Or how has
the political environment changed?
BULGER: I think the political environment is a little rougher, a little rawer. And for somebody
like Moakley, he just had never called press conferences. He didn’t think that that was
something he should be doing. The message of his performance was to be discovered in his
actions. He never wanted to be too much of a showboat. And I think he even liked to use the
show horses versus work horses, and all of that. He would speak of that. So I don’t think it
would be fatal. But I think he’d suffer from that unwillingness to do it.
Presently, because of electronic media particularly, there is almost a game of personal
destruction that can come into play. So if you leave the void, if you’re not talking and making
them happy with you, but others are, and sharing tidbits of information that might tend to
embarrass or whatever, then your usefulness, your attractiveness is diminished, even to the point
of being nil. Others enjoy a big advantage because they, themselves, will indulge themselves in
even reckless charges, and the rest. And if you’re not dealing with them on a daily basis, you
could lose.
I used to tell the classes of the legislators that the end purpose of all education, if you had to boil
it down to a sentence or two, it would be something like this, that—it’s the effort to develop the
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capacity to make a good judgment, if you had to boil it down. Now that, of course, is being
over—oversimplifying all the purpose of education. But to make a good judgment would be.
And it seems that if people have worked hard to achieve that purpose, the ability to make a good
judgment, a prudent judgment, then this madness to just throw it away because editorialists tell
you you should go this way, and you should go—it’s better to ignore it if, in fact, you disagree
with it. I think you should be polite, listen. I mean that’s part of the prudence of arriving at a
good decision. But you should not be overwhelmed because somebody can do you damage for
your failure to comply with their requests or demands.
But I think the tendency is now for these folks to insist that you be more compliant. And then
they have many cases where they’ve exacted these media folks. I’m talking about the more
unscrupulous ones. Most of them are not engaged in this, but some are. They can do such a job
on you on a daily basis. You’d be paying no attention to it because you’re not going to be
listening or reading it. And after a while, it has its effect on the more undiscerning public mind.
So, what about that? I think that somebody like Moakley would not have the luxury any longer
of just saying, “Well, I’m doing what I think I should do,” and obeying the—in a certain sense,
Moakley understood. He wouldn’t sit around and quote Edmund Burke’s famous admonition to
lawmakers. He said, “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and
he betrays you, instead of serves you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
Well, I think Moakley would recognize that; his duty was to come to some good conclusion.
“I’m here. They’re all elsewhere. They’re relying upon me to think for myself, and I’ll do it.”
That becomes perilous if, in fact, it runs counter to the wishes or the beliefs of some of the more
strident or unscrupulous media people. And I don’t think, in the past, they were that intrusive or
that personal. I don’t think. But now it exists in a very large degree.
And so, you wouldn’t see people forming the way Moakley did over the years. It wasn’t his job
to please everyone, as I saw. It was his job to benefit them. And sometimes you can’t even
explain it. It’s just the whole issue has become so complex, or whatever. All you can do is have
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their confidence, their trust. And he had that in abundance. They knew that, even when they
would disagree with him, he was coming to his own conclusions. He was acting in what he
perceived to be their best interest.
McETTRICK: What would you say to somebody today who’s interested in a career in public
service? The Moakley [Institute], one of its purposes is to encourage people to get into public
life. In light of your observations, and with Joe Moakley as an example, what would you say to
somebody who was interested in that? Is there value in it? What lessons should they learn
from—?
BULGER: Well first of all, make up your mind in advance that you’re going to have it that
way. You’ll be more ready for it. And know, also, that you can be defeated, but it’s not the end
of the world. It’s better to be defeated, I think, and to have struck your own course, than to have
allowed yourself to be buffeted by every little wind that blows, and then last longer. It’s the
price that’s not worth paying.
So I would give the advice that—well, [Winston] Churchill recognized it. He said, “Politics is
more exhilarating than war. In war, you can only be killed once.” And I think, again, Moakley
understood that. See, I don’t think that the storm clouds were as threatening during those times.
I don’t think, anyway. Maybe it was, but I just didn’t see it.
McETTRICK: Can you tell us something about some of the principal political figures of that
era? Yourself and Congressman Moakley would have to interact with whoever was Speaker or
governor at a given time.
BULGER: Oh sure. Well, John Thompson.13
McETTRICK: Who are some of the figures that come to mind?
13
John Thompson (1920-1965), a Democrat, served in the Massachusetts State House of Representatives from 1948
to 1964. He served as Speaker of the House from 1957 to 1964.
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BULGER: We had Speaker John Thompson. He was a great person who became the Speaker
of the House. His legs had a lot of shrapnel in them. And he was in pain. He had never had a
drink before he arrived in Boston, as I understand it, from let alone Massachusetts. But he began
to drink. And he was drinking.
And I remember Joe Moakley’s friends. Moakley had now moved on to the Senate. And I said,
“I would love to be with Thompson. But boy,” I said, “he’s irresponsible.” And I remember
Dave O’Connor who was a particularly nice guy. He was a funeral director in Mission Hill.
And he said to me, “No one is better than he is when he’s sober.” I said, “But I haven’t seen him
sober; it’s been a couple of years.” (laughter) But John, he had a huge problem, an addiction.
And a very good man. His heart was totally in the right place. But Moakley was much more
friendly, by the way, with John Thompson. They were contemporaries. Each of them had been
in the Second World War. And they were older.
Moakley was very friendly with Maurice Donahue.14 Maurice Donahue was a rather somber
fellow who became president of the Senate, from Holyoke, Massachusetts. But I think they used
to call him Batman. He never smiled. But he was very friendly with Moakley.
We were both friendly with Kevin White, the mayor. And he had been mayor sixteen years.
Collins, John Collins was—we all knew John Silber [president of Boston University] in those
days. I campaigned for Silber in 1990 [in the MA gubernatorial race] against Governor Weld15
and I enjoyed that contest. Silber, he could really cause a conflagration at any turn. And one
time, when I was asking him, I said, “You can hold to your opinion; I admire you for that. But
there must be an easier way to state it.” And I was trying to get him to just tone down the
manner of speech. When there was a question about where you put your health resources, in the
young or the old, he quotes Shakespeare, “Ripeness is all. Goodbye if you’re ripe.” (laughter)
And you can imagine the reaction coming in from senior citizens groups, and it was wild, you
know.
14
Maurice A. Donahue (1917-1998) served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1948 to 1950, then
in the Massachusetts Senate from 1950 to 1971. He served as Senate Majority Leader from 1958 to 1964 and as
Senate President from 1964 to 1971.
15
William Weld (1945- ), a Republican, served as governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997.
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And I can remember being with Silber, who I have such admiration for, in my own office and
saying, “And we just have to tone it down. I think most people would agree that the policy and
most of the resources should be there, but not to the detriment or whatever.” And he says, “You
know, if you had your way, Lincoln never would have discussed slavery.” (laughter)
McETTRICK: Maurice Donahue, was he in a governor’s race for a Democratic primary, and
one of his tag lines was that there was nothing to smile about? That’s how they explained the
severe face.
BULGER: I think he was in a battle with Kevin White. 16
McETTRICK: Yeah, that’s right.
BULGER: Well let me see, we were both—Moakley and I were with Eddie McCormack17
when Ted Kennedy ran [for the U.S. Senate in 1960]. Now he was to us, Ted Kennedy—I’ve
since had a huge admiration for Ted Kennedy, but he was the younger brother of the president
and a big deal. Moakley and I said, Why are you people—McCormack and—we would say
things just to get the ire of the audience, something like, “Well, because obviously anyone from
South Boston is better than someone from elsewhere.” (laughter) Things like that, you know,
that you’d see the words printed out, just to be—
McETTRICK: You must have been there for the debate then, at South Boston High’s senatorial
race?
BULGER: No, I was not inside South Boston High.
McETTRICK: You weren’t there—?
16
Kevin White (1929- ), a Democrat, served as mayor of Boston from 1968 to 1984. He ran unsuccessfully for
governor of Massachusetts in 1970.
17
Edward J. McCormack, Jr. (1923- ) served as attorney general of Massachusetts from 1959 to 1963.
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BULGER: I was around, I heard it, and I got the message as soon as I walked into my house,
my mother at home. And I said, “Well,” I said, “didn’t Eddie McCormack do a great—” She
says, “He sounds like a very cheap South Boston politician.” (laughter)
I said, “We’re both in very, very serious trouble.” And I was already in the legislature. I can
remember having lunch with Ted Kennedy, with his group, at Locke-Ober’s [Restaurant],
because he was asking us—everyone at the table, they had a little sissy sandwich or something. I
told them I had never come to Locke-Ober’s—which I had never been to before—without having
my Lobster Savannah. Someone told me to order—it was a huge lobster, stuffed lobsters. It was
huge; it looked like a leg of lamb or something. I was working on that as they were coming
around the table, and each person was swearing fidelity to Ted Kennedy. And when they got to
me, I said, “I’m awfully sorry.” I said, “The McCormacks are neighbors.”
And Gerard Doherty said, “Well, could you at least look up and talk to us for a minute?” And I
was impolite. And Ted Kennedy, to his everlasting credit, said, “Don’t bother.” He said, “We
can’t afford to feed him.” (laughter) But again, those are things I’d be telling Joe about. And we
really enjoyed it. I just have to tell you, it was a joy to be in it.
McETTRICK: Well, you know, when we interviewed Congressman Moakley, he had alluded
somewhat to the busing difficulties in South Boston. He was really very saddened by the whole
thing because of the effect that it had on the community, and lifelong friends and acquaintances
that he had with people who would have thought this way or that on it. And also, I guess, Kevin
White was really in the middle of all this, as well. There was a lot of damage taken, politically,
by a lot of people. How does that all look to you now, thirty years later?
BULGER: Well, I may be stubborn in my point of view, but I think the whole thing was just so
contemptuous of people at that level, where their right, with their children, even to be wrong,
should have been respected. And to pit black people against white people, and all of the people
who are unaffected—all proponents, you have to remember, were unaffected. No one who was
affected favored it. There may have been someone, somewhere, but I never heard of him or her.
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The idea of uprooting people from their—where community was very important to them, and to
ship them all over the place based on skin color just seemed to me to be about the worst thing
they could do, and to pit them. So I would have—I just think it was just badly devised, and
would ultimately prove counter-productive.
But the additional insult of it, I think, was that to take a position against it was, therefore to be
part of the Ku Klux Klan or something. That was, again, part of the unfairness of the
proponents. And I used to joke about the Boston Globe, they knew everything about it, and Tom
Winship [late editor of the Boston Globe] would always be writing about the urban situation
from his home in Lincoln. And I would say, “How did you know, Mr. Winship, what was
happening in the city? You’re such an expert.”
He says, “We have an urban team, and I asked the urban team.” I says, “Making this up.” And
then I said, “Oh,” I said, “how can I communicate with them?” He said, “Call them during the
day, 288-8000.” Or at night, dial ‘1’ and then their number.” Their home number! The idea that
they were all from elsewhere; it was just too bad. And you have to remember that there were
no—people would think it’s almost juvenile to be a bit attached to the community, to be that
community-rooted, or family-oriented as these folks were. And they couldn’t be—
But I think that they were the strength of the city and furthermore, on the ground, running their
own relations with people of color, and the rest were pretty good. In fact, very good. I don’t
know, I just remember inviting a judge, David Nelson from Roxbury—he became a federal
judge, but he had gone to law school with me—bringing him over to my—it’s the Holy Name
Society of Saint Monica’s—to talk to people about these things. This is beforehand; things were
going, I thought—maybe never at anybody else’s pace, as they would have it—but I thought we
were doing okay.
But along came the unaffected federal judge [Judge Arthur Garrity], and he said, “Now you have
to do this; you have to do that.”18 And then he’d be lionized by the press, none of whom were in
18
Mr. Bulger is referring to the June 21, 1974, opinion filed by Judge W. Arthur Garrity in the case of Tallulah
Morgan et al. v. James Hennigan et al. (379 F. Supp. 410). Judge Garrity ruled that the Boston School Committee
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town at that time, anyway. So it was a hopeless cause, to argue against it. And somehow, to
argue against it was also to be an advocate for either resistance or something. I never knew what
you could advise somebody to do. My contention always was that it is a bad idea, and I still
believe, of course, that it is and was, and should not have been embarked upon.
And by the way, most people, again, of color, they were very good with it—even if we were in
disagreement; I’m not even sure how much—but they were great. The opposition and the anger
always came, again, from the unaffected person living in Weston or Wellesley. They never
could get over the fact that you took this position. Intolerant, you know.
McETTRICK: Well you know, people, when they talk about Joe Moakley, will talk about the
Big Dig, the waterfront development, cleaning up the harbor [Boston Harbor].
BULGER: The courthouse.
McETTRICK: Well, you’ve been in South Boston all along, watching all of this, the
courthouse. How do you see South Boston evolving over time?
BULGER: Oh, it’s changed.
McETTRICK: How does the future look for South Boston? Is it an upbeat picture?
BULGER: Well, I think so; I think it’s good. It’s good, but it’s quite different. But it’s
inevitably to be. I mean, it’s a changing scene. It has all the problems of every big-city
neighborhood. I always liked the idea of “neighborhood;” I would argue that it’s worthwhile
because people, they know each other, they have a sense of identity there and all these good
things about it.
had “intentionally brought about and maintained racial segregation” in the Boston Public Schools. When the school
committee did not submit a workable desegregation plan as the opinion had required, the court established a plan
that called for some students to be bused from their own neighborhoods to attend schools in other neighborhoods,
with the goal of creating racial balance in the Boston Public Schools. (See
http://www.lib.umb.edu/archives/garrity2.html for more information)
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And I can’t think of a more—back to this, but the horrendous assault on it than to destabilize one
of its most important institutions, the school, and to ship people around. You can’t do that in an
affluent community; the people in the affluent community just get up and leave the school
system. You have to pick on only poor people; it can’t be done anywhere else. And so there was
something annoying about that. By the way, I would alienate just about everyone I would come
in contact with who brought up the subject, so they stayed away from us sometimes. (laughter)
Even relatives, if they lived elsewhere they’d be saying it.
McETTRICK: But how can it be that such a relatively small community can really have such a
great impact and generate so many strong political leaders that have had a lot of influence?
What is it about the community? Because that’s what South Boston does.
BULGER: Well, because it was a community. Because it was a community, there was a sense
of devotion to it among the people there. I don’t know whether I romanticize it overly, but
people cared deeply about it. All of their teams and all of their activities, they have plenty of
people who give everything they can to it. The parishes in the community always had a whole
lot of life to them. Moakley shifted from Saint Monica’s to Saint Augustine’s, and then finally
the both of us ended up at Saint Brigid’s. And we used to joke about that as, “We think we
arrived here,” you know, “at City Point.” That’s not the case at all, but that’s a—
So there was a lot to it, and by the way, it cuts both ways. It can make you want exclusivity,
which is not good because you have to be respectful of everyone’s desire to come and go as they
please. We’re a free country, so you have to be careful with that. But there should have been the
same kind of respect given to them; that would have been really good. I really think we just got
ourselves bogged down in a terrible mish-mash. But again, social planners.
McETTRICK: When you spoke of Congressman Moakley in your eulogy, I think you said at
one point, or pointed to both his pride and his humility.
BULGER: That’s true, yeah.
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McETTRICK: And that they were really two sides of the same coin, and really an expression
of South Boston in a way. Tell us a little bit about that, how you see Joe in relation to the values
of that community he came from.
BULGER: Well, he has that small-town view, the here and the now, the immediate. And he
doesn’t have any big, big opinion of himself; doesn’t pontificate, doesn’t even do what I do,
throw around Edmund Burke or anyone else who might come in handy. (laughter) None of that
from Joe; much easier to listen to. And he has this wonderful pride in all the things a person
should be proud of, loyalty. If I were having any kind of a problem, or if he thought I were
taking it on the chin, I can always remember him calling me up and saying, “Let’s go to
[Anthony’s] Pier 4 [Restaurant].” I said, “You don’t want food; you want to show the flag.”
“No, no,” he said, “I just want everyone to know you and I are—.” And it would be like that.
Those are later years but he would always do that. He sought to be a pal, and he was. He knew
the meaning of friendship.
ALLISON: One of the institutions that you and he really created was the Saint Patrick’s Day
Breakfast. Can you talk a little bit about its origins?
BULGER: The Saint Patrick’s Day Breakfast just came about, really, I think it’s like the late
forties or fifties, where everybody would go to Dorgan’s, and then there would be good humor.
And I can remember Leverett Saltonstall19 there, the United States senator, he’d been the
Speaker of the House and went to the United States Senate, very dignified fellow, whose son
served with me, Bill Saltonstall. And one day he claimed Irish heritage, and Sonny McDonough
said, “It’s on the chauffeur’s side.”
And he would get chided about the fact, that joke about Senator Kerr and somebody else, each
talking about their big ranch, one in Oklahoma, the LBJ in Texas. “And I have my place,” he
19
Leverett Saltonstall (1892-1792, a Republican, served as Speaker of the House of the Massachusetts House of
Representatives from 1929 to 1937, as governor of Massachusetts from 1939 to 1945 and represented Massachusetts
in the U.S. Senate from 1945 to 1967.
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says. “It’s only four acres, but it’s known as downtown Boston.” (laughter) But they would all
have these stories, and it was a good time.
Then I took it over when I went to the Senate, when in 1970, but prior to that—because again,
I’m not sure whether or how I should—I enjoyed the thing, the event. And oh, I’d sing songs.
And Moakley would always say, “Listen, you take this over, I’ve had enough.” And so
someplace midway, after he had satisfied whoever he had to acknowledge in the audience and
the rest, I’d end up with the microphone and we’d have a grand old time.
So I was much ready for it when it became the senator’s prerogative in 1971 when I went to the
Senate. And it was much fun, we’d make—I mean, everybody called us, from President Bush,
President Clinton and President whoever, I don’t know. Everybody participated in the event.
President Reagan, he loved it from afar. And I can remember President Bush, the first President
Bush.
And I was chiding my friend, Michael Dukakis,20 and Michael has a very good sense of humor
but it’s a dry sense of humor, but I can remember telling him, “President Bush,” I said, “wait
until you hear.” Because he was going to be the challenger, of course, of the president. And I
said, “We have a scandal here.” “Oh,” he says. “I’m happy to hear that.” And I said, “And it
involves Governor Dukakis.” “Oh!” (laughter)
And there was this silly thing about low license plates. A friend of mine had received one. “And
now,” I said, “the governor has people out, finding out where that came from.” “Well, it came
from me,” I said, “but then he sent the state police to the house.”
And my friend called me, and he says, “The state police are here, they want that plate back!”
And he says, “I’m supposed to go to Europe in the morning. What shall I do?” I said, “Take the
plate with you.” And so, Dukakis—“Oh, this is good,” says Bush.
20
Michael S. Dukakis (1933- ), a Democrat, served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1962 to
1970, then as governor of Massachusetts from 1975 to 1979 and from 1983 to 1991. He was the Democratic
presidential nominee in 1988, but lost the presidential election to Republic George H.W. Bush.
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And then even when Silber had lost in 1990, President Clinton said, “Tell me, what happened?”
“Oh,” I said, “Mr. President,” I said, “have you ever heard of a woman named Natalie
Jacobson21?” (laughter) So the inside humor, they’d like that. But that was great fun, too.
McETTRICK: How was it that Lev Saltonstall was so highly thought of in South Boston, being
a Republican and all?
BULGER: Well the famous Curley did that, you know. He foolishly said—somebody said
something about his face, a South Boston face. And then foolishly, Curley suggested that he
wouldn’t dare show it in South Boston. Before you know it, Leverett is showing up at every
tavern in the district, much to the enjoyment of all. He defeated Curley that year. But Curley
could talk himself into trouble, too.
And I remember, by the way, I was trying to open up beaches. I’ve always thought that—I
won’t get into that, but I tried to open the beaches up at Manchester-By-the-Sea. I went up there
one time. Senator Saltonstall was campaigning and I said—I was talking to them about this
effort on my part; they didn’t like it. And I said, “Well, I can’t seem to get it through anyway,
because your senator, Senator Saltonstall, seems to stymie my every effort, every single year in
the Senate.”
Oh, good for you, Bill, they said. And I was walking out, he says, “You’ve just re-elected me.”
(laughter) He wasn’t even in, and it wasn’t a conspiracy, it was just—and then one time on Saint
Patrick’s Day, he was such a gentleman, Bill Saltonstall. I said to him, “How do you think I
should go up there in Manchester-By-the-Sea?” He says, “Perhaps incognito.” (laughter)
But that would be the kind of humor; it was—by the way, Moakley could not tell a joke or
anything. He would just gum it up, every single time. But that became the funny part. And I
can still remember, there’s one tape in which he’s constantly—this feedback or something from a
microphone. And the place is—he’s getting very impatient with this, because he’s got a story to
21
Natalie Jacobson was a reporter for a Boston news station who interviewed John Silber during the 1990
gubernatorial race. When Jacobson asked Silber what his weaknesses were, he responded in what many perceived
to be an argumentative manner. It has been widely suggested that this response contributed to his defeat in the
election.
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tell, whatever it is. And it’s some silly story, I think everybody must have known in advance,
because that’s how he would tell it. He said, “Well I have to tell this.” And I said, “Well yeah,
why don’t you get up and tell it because you did it very, very well last year.”
But he could be terrific. I think he blamed my friend, Fran Joyce. Joyce was handling the
controls and Moakley must have thought we must be—
[Tape ends]
END OF PART 2
(Casual conversation off camera)
ALLISON: Joe Moakley also told us the spy story.
BULGER: The spy story, he loves the spy story.
GEORGE COMEAU: And he got it all balled up, just like you said.
BULGER: Yeah, he gums it up.
McETTRICK: Oh, so what’s the spy story? How’s that go?
BULGER: Oh, there’s a silly story about some people, is it the Germans or something? They
know they have a spy on the Connemara Coast and his name is McDonough. And they come
along and there’s a million McDonoughs.
ALLISON: There’s a code phrase: The moon is high, the grass is green, the cows are ready for
milking.”
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BULGER: Yeah, “The cows are ready for milking, the grass is green, life is good.” And so
that’s their—and so they come and they say that. And finally, when they say that to people, they
don’t—no, no, they go along and they say, Do you know someone named McDonough?
And they say, Well, do you mean McDonough the farmer, McDonough the fisherman,
McDonough the whatever?
“No.” And then finally the fellow says, “The sky is high, the grass is green.”
“Oh,” he says, “You’re looking for McDonough the spy!” (laughter) Yeah, see, that’s the joke,
and Joe Moakley tells it, and he gums it up every time. Now I don’t even know how to tell it
myself. He gummed it up every time.
And he and Jimmy Kelly22 had some silly story, and to this day I don’t know whether he was
serious in his effort to tell it. But he would stand there each year, get up. “Now this is good,” he
says. “Just listen for the punch line.” You had to wait for the punch line. (laughter)
McETTRICK: It’s in here somewhere.
BULGER: They would have a great time, and it would be their telling of that story which
would just rock the place.
McETTRICK: So how have the Yankees fared over the years, at the Saint Patrick’s Day
breakfasts, Weld was in there?
BULGER: Well of course, the Yankees, well, Weld, we’re guilty of really serious—it’s a
stereotyping; it’s not fair but it’s nevertheless something they submit to voluntarily, and they are
good sports about it. And that was the one thing Weld—he said, “Please,” he said, “I don’t care
what you say. You can pick on me, you can tell everyone that I remind you of the fellow who—”
22
James M. Kelly (1940-2007), a lifelong South Boston resident, represented South Boston in the Boston City
Council from 1983 until his death in January of 2007. He served as city council president from 1994 to 2001.
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I don’t know, in the movies, I forget. “But no matter what,” he said, “the one thing,” he said, “I
don’t like to hear from you is, ‘Isn’t he a good sport?’” He said, “I feel like a big sap, a rich kid
who comes in to get beat up and every now and then you say, ‘Isn’t he a good sport?’ You really
mean, ‘Isn’t he a sap?’” But Weld loved all of that stuff. We traveled to Ireland a couple of
times, he and I. Can I tell you one on Weld?
McETTRICK: Oh, sure.
BULGER: Oh, sure, unless he runs again. But one day he called, and I was in the car, and he
said, “I hate to see you’re leaving, but,” he says, “how about one more trip to Ireland?”
“Oh,” I said, “That’s a very good idea.” I said, “But what are we going for?”
He says, “Don’t worry, I’ll think of a reason.” And within a couple of days I started hearing
about this big trade mission that I would soon be joining him on. (laughter) We went to Ireland,
and we did talk to people there. But again, he would spoof all of these things. Weld had a
wonderful, wonderful sense of humor, he was really good at it.
And he [Weld] just loved all of that thing on Saint Patrick’s Day. He overdid it. He would be
so—his office would be closed down for about four days as he and Bob Crane were practicing.
They had a piano down there and everything, and he would be practicing some sort of a song,
whatever you call it, songs with the lyrics. And he’d be doing all of that. “I’m getting ready,
getting ready for this year. They’ll put me right in my place where I deserve to be.” But Weld
liked that.
McETTRICK: Now did you have much contact with Frank Sargent?23
BULGER: Oh, sure.
McETTRICK: What was Frank like? From a distance, he seemed to be a great guy, as well.
23
Francis W. Sargent (1915-1998), a Republican, was governor of Massachusetts from 1969 to 1975.
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BULGER: Oh, Frank Sargent was top-notch, yeah. He was very good, Sargent. He, again, he
liked the role, but he was more of a back-slapping, gregarious fellow. And I remember in his
final days, visiting him at his home in Dover. He would wax nostalgic about those events and all
of that. I don’t know, he liked one particular joke. Somebody, Elliott Richardson24 or someone,
was claiming Irish whatever. And I said “I don’t know whether I should say this,” but I said,
“Yeah, but you go to a wooden church,” which means, you know. But those guys were good
sports.
Elliott Richardson came one time, and I had this headline from the Boston Globe. The headline
said—he was running for, I think, maybe governor. “Vote Elliott, He’s Better Than You.”
(laughter) Then he lost. And about five months later, the snow was blowing outside my window
at the state house. The phone rang, it was Elliott. He was calling from the islands and he said,
“Oh, it’s beautiful down here,” he says, “but I have to retire my campaign debt.” He said, “If
you’ll go on and be an emcee, because I always think of that unfortunate headline.” And the
way he said, “unfortunate headline,” ah, the poor guy. So I, of course, agreed. And the fellow
who writes in the Globe was on the island—what’s his name? He’s the comic writer, he goes to
Martha’s Vineyard all the time.
McETTRICK: Oh, Art Buchwald?
BULGER: Yes. He and I were—we did it, we packed them in and retired the debt in one night
at the Park Plaza. But I was very bipartisan in doing those things, because everybody would be
asking. But we kept—there was a good spirit. I hope it will return sometime.
McETTRICK: I guess one topic that we really kind of missed on the way by, since we’re kind
of finishing up—you’ve been very generous with your time—would be the Big Dig.25 I mean
it’s really kind of the Boston Punic Wars, really, with the Big Dig. And you were Senate
24
Elliott Richardson (1920-1999) served as lieutenant governor of Massachusetts from 1965 to 1967 and as attorney
general of Massachusetts from 1967 to 1969 before be appointed to President Richard Nixon’s cabinet in 1970.
25
The Big Dig, or Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T), was the largest public works project in U.S. history and
involved the replacement of downtown Boston’s elevated highway with a tunnel. The project began in 1991 and
ended in 2007.
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President for a lot of that, and Joe was on the Rules. Can you tell us a little bit about that? I
mean, it’s just a fantastic story that we were able to get that kind of federal support for it.
BULGER: Yeah, it was great. He and O’Neill, and the secretary of transportation under
Michael Dukakis—
ALLISON: Fred Salvucci.
BULGER: Yeah, Salvucci, Fred, they did a beautiful job. And they had an idea of what they
needed there. And they watched—they saw the monstrosity dividing the city, and also
deteriorating, and also not able to accommodate the traffic. I don’t know whether anything ever
does; there might be some truth in the notion that no matter what, and we’ll fill it and pave over.
But nevertheless, all of those people working together—and I guess huge credit goes to O’Neill
and to Moakley. And Moakley was very proud of all of those achievements.
I have to tell you, I run into it now because people in western Massachusetts say, We’re so tired
of all the money in the state budget going to—that’s a constant tension between—and we’re
mindful of it in the university because the flagship campus is in Amherst, and there’s always the
sense in western Mass. that they’re neglected, and the Big Dig fed that notion.
In any event, it was a mighty achievement. We’ve had people here who—and Moakley, by the
way, had no problem with the idea of “bringing home the bacon.” There was no philosophical
discussion; this was just a good thing. And I think you’d be hard-pressed to say, “Well, if
everyone is taking that narrow perspective, Mr. Congressman, the whole country”—he wouldn’t
know what you were talking about. He just thought part of his performance there should involve
being right in the thick of the competition for funds for public facilities. And certainly he was
successful with it. So he gave it top-notch attention.
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You know, here in South Boston we would be so much in the—I can remember sitting with John
McCormack the day that a call came that Sam Rayburn26 was just not going to survive this
terrible cancer. And I remember McCormack placing his hands on his—he says, “It’s terrible,”
he says, “what’s happening to him.” McCormack seemed devoted to Rayburn, but it also meant
that McCormack would be the successor, as I recall. And I remember that, just sitting in the
office talking with John McCormack that day. McCormack would break out cigars, and we’d
smoke cigars. I don’t know, it was a great joy to—he’s a gentleman about it all.
And again, the same with Moakley. I saw a certain peace in both men, in a sense. I think that
they thought that—you know, having done his best, it’s time. And it wasn’t important that
everyone credited him with it. In fact, that was not important, I think. It was just the idea—
again, not to please everyone, but to benefit them. And McCormack had it too, huge.
I remember visiting the British consul on Beacon Hill. It was a lunch; I can’t remember all of
the reasons for the lunch, but among the guests was John McCormack. And McCormack wore
his hat kind of funny at that time, and he was old, of course. He is no longer the Speaker. The
time came to go, and he went out, and I was saying so long to a couple of people. I looked out
the door and McCormack had already gone up the small part of the hill and taken a right, and
was already headed toward the Boston Common and wherever his destination. Probably he had
an office still back at the courthouse in Post Office Square, and that would be, I suppose, where
he was going. But very quietly, very happy.
I mean, with the Caesars and with the rest, there’d be suicide or there’d be war, and more horror
stories, because no one wanted to give anything up. But for these people, both McCormack and
Moakley, I just knew them at their mightiest, and in an exalted position. It can be very heady,
very hard to give up. But both did so, and I do remember thinking of that with the Speaker that
day.
26
Samuel Rayburn (1882-1961), a Democrat, represented Texas’ Fourth Congressional District in the U.S. House of
Representatives from 1913 until his death in 1961. He served several terms as Speaker of the House of
Representatives.
Page 34 of 37
�OH-014 Transcript
And again, the same with Moakley. Here he was—we were sitting in Jimmy’s [Harborside]
Restaurant—and saying to me how—and by the way, this is more of this quote business, but at
the end he would like to talk about some achievements that were important to him: the Jesuit the
murders down in South America [sic—Central America], and how he had run around, he and
Jimmy McGovern.27 They had done a fine job and he was very proud of that, and that meant a
lot to him.
I can only think of the great observation by Pericles. He’s making this funeral oration; he’s
talking about politics. By the way, he, in the same oration, said that we don’t think of people
who are involved in politics as bad, or busybodies, or anything. In fact, we think those who do
not involve themselves in politics are useless. That was this Athenian, living in a place where
democracy is just at its beginning, exhorting his people to know the importance of it, their own
involvement in it.
And at some point in his oration he just makes this beautiful comment, and I did, I think, use it in
the eulogy. He said, “For it is by honor, and not by gold, as some men think, that the helpless
end of life is cheered.” And I can tell you that at the end of Moakley’s life, when he would
speak, there was no question about what pleased him. It’s not the accumulation of material
things which occupies so many of us for so much of our time, but rather these wonderful
achievements.
The Jesuit thing, he’d speak of it very frequently. That night he was talking about it, and
recalling how—I think it was Speaker [Thomas S.] Foley had called him in and said, “I’d like to
send you there [to El Salvador], and maybe we can get to the bottom of this thing. This is a
horrific event and people are pointing at, I think, the training we’re giving people at Fort
Benning, Georgia.”
And Moakley said, “That’s not for me. I’m not going any further south than Miami,” and all of
that. But he did it; it was dutifully done. And then, I would say it cheered him to think of it; it
27
James P. McGovern (1959- ), a Democrat, has represented Massachusetts’ Third Congressional District in the
U.S. House of Representatives since 1997. He was a member of Moakley’s congressional staff from 1982 to 1996.
Page 35 of 37
�OH-014 Transcript
was something important to him. It speaks so well of him. And I don’t want to be too dramatic
about it because he’d admonish me about that, and probably will sometime. Nevertheless, all of
those achievements, and even talking about individual services to people who had no place else
to go. Those were so important to him. He had little stories about people. And he said, “I just
think that she had nowhere else to go, except me. So I had to decide that I would give that my
best.”
And one last thing: I remember the widow of James Michael Curley, Gertrude Dennis. She said,
“You should never feel bad for him; he was happy with so much of his life.” And she told how,
very briefly, bang-bang-bang came the knocking on the door over in the Jamaica Way. And she
said, “I went to the door, and there was a woman there and she obviously had been out and
drinking, and her hair was mussed up, her face was smudged with”—
And she said, “I want to talk to the governor.” No longer governor, but that’s the title forever in
Massachusetts. So she insisted, and she was going to call the police. She says, “I was newly
married and I just didn’t know what I could do in a case like this.” Then up at the top of the
stairway, the famous stairway, is the governor. “Wait, wait.” He comes downstairs and he talks
to the woman at the door, and he invites her in. He opens the library door, or as she said, he
pushed the two doors apart; she sat down, and then she had her moment with the governor. The
governor spoke to her and listened to her. Then soon the door opened, and she was going out.
And now she was on her dignity; she had just chatted with Governor Curley, barely would even
deign to speak to this woman who was about to call the police on her, and proudly marched out
the door. (laughter)
And Curley had the same explanation: She had no place else to go. And she was going to sound
off, and somebody should just be willing to give her that opportunity. And I know it sounds—
but, you know, I think it’s a common denominator among many of those people, especially of
that time.
McETTRICK: Well that’s an interesting triad, though, that you established: McCormack,
Curley, and then Joe Moakley in the sense that the expectations of the community or the
Page 36 of 37
�OH-014 Transcript
example, whatever, must have had some kind of an effect. Well, you’ve been very generous
with your time.
BULGER: Well, I talk too much. (laughs)
McETTRICK: And we really do appreciate it. Well, it’s good though, it’s nice to have a
chance to put some of this on tape. And thank you, I enjoyed it. Nice to meet you.
BULGER: Thank you so much. Okay. A pleasure.
McETTRICK: Thank you.
END OF INTERVIEW
Page 37 of 37
�
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Transcript of Oral History Interview of William M. Bulger
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers, 1926-2001
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Boston (Mass.)<br />Legislators--United States <br />Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001<br /> South Boston (Boston, Mass.)<br />Legislators. Massachusetts<br />Politicians--Massachusetts
Description
An account of the resource
The paper of Congressman John Joseph Moakley are housed at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.<br /><br />The sample of items from the Moakley papers exhibited on this site are used courtesy of the Moakley Archive and Institute. The full collection documents Moakley’s early life, his World War II service, his terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate, and his service in Congress. The majority of the collection covers Moakley’s congressional career from 1973 until 2001. A <a title="Moakley papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> the the collection is available online. <br /><br />The collection is open for research. Access to materials may be restricted based on their condition. Please consult the <a title="Moakley Archive" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/moakley" target="_blank">Moakley Archive and Institute</a>, Suffolk University for more information.
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Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001.
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers (MS 100), 1926-2001. View the <a title="John Joseph Moakley Papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
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Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
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1926-2001
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Items highlighted from the Moakley papers in this online collection are made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. <br /><br />Copyright is retained by the creators of items in the Moakley papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
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<div>
<div>
<p>Moakley Papers: Moakley Oral History Project<br />Enemies of War Collection (MS 104)<br /> Jamaica Plain Committee on Central America Collection (MS 103)</p>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
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Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University.
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300.7 cubic feet (521 boxes)
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English
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MS 100
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Boston, Mass.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Allison, Robert J.
McEttrick, Joseph
Interviewee
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Bulger, William
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University of Massachusetts President’s Office, Boston, Mass.
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See PDF transcript
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MOV video (QuickTime)
Note: Original video recording is available for viewing at the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Duration
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1:22:29
Time Summary
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Part 1
Memories of Congressman Moakley p. 3 (00:20)
Early campaigns p. 6 (07:48)
Constituent service p. 8 (13:27)
Later campaigns p. 14 (26:11)
Part 2
Massachusetts politics p. 17 (02:43)
Busing in Boston p. 22 (15:25)
Reflections on South Boston p. 24 (20:09)
Part 3
Moakley as a model public servant p. 32 (08:44)
Dublin Core
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Title
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Transcript of Oral History Interview of William M. Bulger
Subject
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Boston (Mass.)
Bulger, William M.
Busing for school integration
Curley, James Michael, 1874-1958
Massachusetts--Politics and government
Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
South Boston (Boston, Mass.)
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, William M. Bulger, former Massachusetts State Senate President, discusses the career of Congressman John Joseph Moakley. Among other topics, he reflects on Moakley's reaction, and his own, to Judge W. Arthur Garrity's 1974 decision in the case of Morgan v. Hennigan, which required some students to be bused between Boston neighborhoods with the goal of creating racial balance in the public schools and had a significant impact on Moakley and Bulger's own neighborhood of South Boston. He also discusses Moakley's political campaigns; the ways in which politics have changed over the years; and Moakley's legacy as a public servant.
Creator
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Source
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Moakley Oral History Project
Publisher
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Date
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August 20, 2003
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Kintz, Laura
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Copyright Suffolk University. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
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Moakley Oral History Project: http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/collections/show/1
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English
Type
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Oral history interview transcript
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OH-014
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/15912/archive/files/1c4378eba65f35d3360f132f04ec75c7.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=UTh9QtRBCNRINZlPmE%7EEkFsXgb0JJI-RFRkb4PFvRXjBsKJayuropvCmchSbvXT3EUBzMQftBu89ESwi7LhbX4JYYSrVHX8neoH-WOW0zf9KpohyAwav0JQ670q50ABePFVRDs88riX7hbCNHfqQzOGuN15ggeMlsAgagdpGXvLfkHdwr0qMHap9YGA7-4lTorGv73aj2yPFtlgot67vYIEkqmVFLq1BFwApVWBHkSNR2w7U3zuOtUOGFFIP2uuSFAKl-NvFv-xazf4Ogl8lmBk1nTi5FywPovhfFLd1gX%7EC4Gi3MFdS8MLmB0m0hQ%7EeLTffogPhai33oPuL4N6gSA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
fcc71cdccbd89c3ef94064bd8058000e
PDF Text
Text
Oral History Interview of Michael Dukakis (OH-022)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Oral History Interview of Michael S. Dukakis
Interview Date: July 12, 2004
Interviewed by: Joseph McEttrick, Suffolk University Law School Professor, and Steven
Kalarites, Oral History Project Coordinator.
Citation: Dukakis, Michael S. Interviewed by Joseph McEttrick and Steven Kalarites. John
Joseph Moakley Oral History Project OH-022. 12 July 2004. Transcript and audio available.
John Joseph Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Copyright Information: Copyright ©2004, Suffolk University.
Interview Summary
Michael S. Dukakis, former governor of Massachusetts (1975-1979; 1983-1991), discusses the
career of Congressman John Joseph Moakley. Governor Dukakis talks about Congressman
Moakley’s efforts to improve Boston Harbor and the Harbor Islands; recalls issues they worked
together on while members of the Massachusetts legislature in the late sixties; what issues were
prominent during political campaigns in the sixties and seventies; what the environment was like
in the State House during the sixties; his thoughts regarding the Boston school desegregation in
the 1970s and how important Congressman Moakley’s public service and political leadership
was to his constituents.
Subject Headings
Boston (Mass.).
Boston Harbor Islands (Mass.)
Busing for school integration
Comprehensive Permit Law
Dukakis, Michael S. (Michael Stanley), 1933Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
1
�OH-022 Transcript
Table of Contents
Boston Harbor Islands
p. 3 (00:20)
State house legislation
p. 6 (07:57)
Campaigns
p. 10 (14:49)
School desegregation
p. 12 (17:40)
Improvements to Boston
p. 15 (23:24)
Massachusetts state house (1960s)
p. 23 (37:43)
Moakley as a model public servant
p. 30 (50:42)
Interview transcript begins on next page
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
2
�OH-022 Transcript
This interview took place on July 12, 2004, at Northeastern University’s Political Science
Department, Meserve Hall, Boston, MA.
Interview Transcript
(Interview begins during conversation)
PROFESSOR JOSEPH McETTRICK: —you were governor while he was still in Congress
and so forth. So it’s funny how things kind of fall together. I was getting ready to do this—I
thought you’d be entertained by this—you can have that really, I’m pretty much finished with it.
This is just something that was in the Patriot Ledger over the weekend talking about—
(break in audio)
So just a few kind of general obvious questions, and then there are a number of specific things I
wanted to ask you about. If you could just tell us generally what your contact was with Joe
Moakley. There were a lot of people that you ran into both in the House and as governor—
GOVERNOR MICHAEL DUKAKIS: Well Joe was an interesting guy. Certainly I had a lot
more contact with him when he was in Congress and I was governor. I can’t say we were close.
But there was one issue on which Joe was my teacher, my mentor, and a huge inspiration. And
that was Boston Harbor and the Harbor Islands.
In those days—and Joe, you’re old enough, I think, to have a sense of this—we didn’t even know
what a harbor was in a sense. It was all these old buildings, and, of course, the Central Artery
had done a terrible job on the city and its harbor. And it certainly was not the place it is today,
which is one of the favorite locations with all kinds of luxury housing and that kind of stuff. It
was a broken down, old kind of wharf area that was in serious distress.
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
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�OH-022 Transcript
It was Ed Logue1 who came along and started talking about the rebuilding and revitalizing of the
waterfront area. And most of us had only a vague idea as to what he was talking about. And that
was in the midsixties. There was this one guy in the legislature, who I knew, but in a kind of
stereotypical fashion, said, “Well, you know, he’s a guy out of Southie, you know,” of course I
didn’t know at the time he was half Italian, which was one of his good—great pluses.
But in any event, all kidding aside—but didn’t—I think Joe had been defeated [in a legislative
election] at some point and had gone into the Commerce Department, which was a well-known
place to take care of people who had been defeated and that kind of stuff. But I began
discovering the harbor and the islands. And one of the reasons I did, apart from my love of urban
parks and this city and so on and so forth, was that Joe was the one guy who said, “We’ve got to
do something about those islands. This is a huge asset. Not only can’t we let them kind of be
given away, but this could be an incredible public playground.” And he was the only guy, as I
remember, around the place [the state house] who was saying this or doing that. And then he got
a group of us—I can’t even remember who the rest of us—it was a small group of us in the
House—he was in the Senate by that time—who kind of said, “Yeah!”
First we had to learn how many islands there were. There were thirteen, most of which, as I
recall, were in private hands, some of which were dumps, some of which had squatters on them,
some of which—I guess George’s [Island] was in public hands at the time but hadn’t been
particularly well-maintained. And I think it was Joe—I’m not sure he invited me up there, but I
finally started to take a look.
Now I had memories of the harbor because when I was a kid we never went away in the summer
or any of that kind of stuff. One of the special highlights of my summers was once a year my
mother would take my brother and me down to the wharf, which was a mess. And we’d get on
the boat to Nantasket.2
1
Edward J. Logue (1921-2000) was a lawyer and urban planner who oversaw the development of, among other
projects, Boston’s Government Center and Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Boston
in 1967.
2
Nantasket Beach is located in Hull, MA, a peninsular town southeast of Boston that faces the Atlantic Ocean to the
East and Hingham Bay to the west.
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
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�OH-022 Transcript
MCETTRICK: Oh sure, yeah, from Rowes [Wharf]?
DUKAKIS: Yeah. And we’d spend the day at Nantasket Beach and then come back. I still have
memories of—but it was a highlight of the summer. But I hadn’t been out there in years. And I
suspect 99.9 percent of the people of Boston, metropolitan Boston, hadn’t either. It was polluted,
it was a mess, it was economically depressed, and so on and so forth.
And then there was a guy named Edward Rowe Snow,3 I think, who was the great historian—
McETTRICK: That’s right, yeah.
DUKAKIS: —who kept talking about the islands. But Joe was the guy that really led us on this,
and subsequently filed legislation for the Commonwealth to acquire these islands.4 And a bunch
of us in the House joined him and we got the bill through. That was in ‘67 or ‘68 as I recall.
Frank Sargent5 was the governor. A good environmental guy. Strong believer in public parks.
And he had a secretary of environmental affairs named Hank Foster—
McETTRICK: Oh, I remember him, yeah.
DUKAKIS: —who was a similar kind of guy. But from nineteen—whenever the bill was
passed—‘67, ‘68, until 1974, they hadn’t done a blessed thing to acquire those islands. Just
didn’t do anything. And I know Joe was getting more and more upset. After all, he put the
legislation through. And I don’t know whether it simply authorized or authorized and directed,
but in any event nothing had happened. So I get elected in ‘74. And I beat Sargent. Appoint
Evelyn Murphy as my secretary of environmental affairs. We’re the “new Appalachia,” we’ve
got the second highest unemployment rate in the country, we’re dead broke, we have no idea
3
Edward Rowe Snow (1902-1982), born in Winthrop, MA, was an author and historian who was especially
interested in the maritime history of New England. One of his first books was The Islands of Boston Harbor: Their
History and Romance, 1626-1935, published in 1935.
4
While he was a state senator, Moakley successfully introduced legislation that created the Boston Harbor Islands
State Park, and later introduced legislation in Congress that ultimately led to the establishment, in 1996, of the
Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, which is part of the National Park Service.
5
Francis W. Sargent (1915-1998) was governor of Massachusetts from 1969 to 1975.
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
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�OH-022 Transcript
how we’re going to get out of this fiscal mess. And I remember saying to Evelyn, “I don’t care
what kind of shape we’re in, you go out and get those islands.”
And she did. And I can’t even remember—I assume some of it was negotiated, some of it was a
taking—we bought those thirteen, or however many were in private hands, islands, for a total of
three million dollars. The whole kit and caboodle. And here again, Joe was the inspiration for
this. And when we finally did it, I remember picking up the phone, Steve [Steven Kalarites], and
calling Congressman Moakley, and saying, “Joe, we just want you to know, it’s taken—,”
(laughs) and we had talked about this obviously, and I’m sure I campaigned on it. I said, “I just
want you to know, we finally got your islands.”
So he was a hugely inspiring guy. But that was pretty much the one time that I—I’m sure we
worked on other stuff together, I can’t remember, but that was the one thing that just stands out
in my mind. Once he went into Congress and began doing what he’s doing, for a governor Joe
was just, I can’t tell you—not only on the harbor and the city, but on so much of our mass transit
stuff and all this kind of stuff. Joe was just a huge asset.
There’s one other connection between us. And that is that, for reasons I’m not quite sure I
understand, my dad was Evelyn Moakley’s6 doctor.
McETTRICK: Oh no kidding?
DUKAKIS: Yeah. And there was this little kind of personal thing. And how she became a
patient of my dad’s I have no idea. But it was a funny kind of connection, you know? And so
when I’d meet her we’d talk about my dad and all that kind of stuff. And I don’t know how she
became a patient of my father’s but—
So there was that little personal twist. But it’s the islands, the harbor, and Joe’s incredible—call
it what you will—vision, statesmanship; he was the one guy around the place that understood
6
Evelyn (Duffy) Moakley (1927-1996) was Congressman Moakley’s wife. They married in 1957.
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
6
�OH-022 Transcript
just how much that resource meant to us. And it was at a time— I can’t begin to—I’m not
exaggerating when I say he was about the only person, except for Snow, who was interested.
McETTRICK: Well I was looking at your years and Moakley’s, and I guess you were actually
in the House together for just one year.
DUKAKIS: Then he moved.
McETTRICK: Then he went over to the Senate.
DUKAKIS: Yeah.
McETTRICK: But when we were talking with Bill Shaevel,7 he was recalling—I guess he was
hired in the Senate as some kind of a consulting guy, got assigned to a committee, wound up
with Moakley. And in Shaevel’s mind he was thinking of how on a few issues, it was interesting
that you had Joe Moakley who was a pretty conservative, traditional, Boston politician, was at
the state house. And then yourself—
DUKAKIS: And Dukakis, yeah. What were some of the other issues? Did he mention them?
McETTRICK: Yeah, I was going to run through the—Shaevel mentioned—he mentioned
public housing issues, MHFA [Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency], that sort of thing, and
tenants’ rights, issues of that sort. And he said that there was some issues that you were into from
really a liberal angle on things, which was really congruent with what Moakley was doing in a
more traditional fashion that related to cities.
DUKAKIS: Was Joe chairman of Housing and Urban Affairs?
McETTRICK: He was—
7
William H. Shaevel was a member of Moakley’s State Senate staff from 1967 to 1970 and Moakley’s law partner,
and is the treasurer of the Moakley Charitable Foundation. OH-017 in the Moakley Oral History Project is an
interview with Mr. Shaevel.
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
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�OH-022 Transcript
DUKAKIS: What were his chairmanships?
McETTRICK: I don’t know what his legislative chairmanships were.
DUKAKIS: Because if he was, then obviously we would’ve been working very closely on
housing stuff, which was one of my big issues.
McETTRICK: Well actually I’ve got a list of things that I can just mention to you. And maybe
some of them might sort of ring a bell. Because it’s funny how time marches on.
DUKAKIS: For all of us, you know.
McETTRICK: That’s why this [Patriot] Ledger article was so interesting, because I hadn’t
thought about this period. Sixty-three they started to try to knock off the Iron Duke as speaker,
John Thompson,8 which I guess was unsuccessful. You must’ve just arrived.
DUKAKIS: First thing I had to do was—
McETTRICK: Probably you were kind of wondering what was going on?
DUKAKIS: No, I wasn’t wondering at all. It was a big issue in the campaign.
McETTRICK: Oh, is that right?
DUKAKIS: Well Massachusetts, when I arrived in the state house, was one of the three or four
most corrupt states in the country. We had investigating committees in here from Washington,
we had a state crime commission that indicted and convicted all kinds of public officials. And
8
John Thompson (1920-1965), a Democrat, nicknamed the Iron Duke, served in the Massachusetts State House of
Representatives from 1948 to 1964. He served as Speaker of the House from 1957 to 1964.
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
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�OH-022 Transcript
there was a band of us, Joe, young Turks—call us what you will—who got elected in ’62, and
then subsequently in ’64 guys like Jack Buckley and Dave Flynn came in ’64.
McETTRICK: Oh yeah, from Abington.
DUKAKIS: And from Bridgewater.
McETTRICK: Buckley was a very close associate. In fact I remember meeting him with yourself one day.
DUKAKIS: He became my first secretary of A and F [Administration and Finance], as a matter
of fact. And we were the young reformers that were determined to do something about this. It
was embarrassing. We had just elected this son of Massachusetts to the presidency in 1960, who
came in and delivered the “City on a Hill” speech,9 and we had more public officials getting
investigated and indicted than you could shake a stick at. And being convicted.
And that’s the backdrop in the sixties. On the other hand, a lot of us were working on a lot of
issues that were important urban issues. Yes, I came from Brookline, but I was as interested in
urban communities as anybody.
McETTRICK: Well I’ll just give you a list, just to help you kind of put the era together.
Nineteen sixty-four they established the MBTA [Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority]; it
went from the MTA [Metropolitan Transit Authority] to MBTA. Nineteen sixty-five, racial
imbalance law.10 Sixty-six, the housing authority law, which was rental assistance, established
the Mass. Housing Finance Agency.11 Let’s see—Consumer Protection Act 93A12 was in ’67.
9
In 1961, President-Elect John F. Kennedy made a speech to General Court of Massachusetts in which he
referenced the “City Upon a Hill” sermon given by John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, in 1630.
10
Passed in 1965, the Massachusetts Racial Imbalance Law prohibited “racial imbalance” in public schools and
discouraged schools from having more than 50 percent minority students.
11
According to its website, the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency, now known as MassHousing, “was created
by Chapter 708 of the Acts of 1966 as a self-supporting, independent public authority charged with increasing
affordable rental and for-sale housing in Massachusetts.” (See http://www.masshousing.com)
12
Chapter 93A in the Massachusetts General Laws, enacted in 1967, is officially titled the “Regulation of Business
Practices for Consumers Protection.”
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Anti-snob zoning, Chapter 40B, 1969.13 And then of course no fault [auto insurance] in 1970. So
those were some of the issues. And some of them are urban-based.
DUKAKIS: A lot of them.
McETTRICK: And the way Shaevel described it was that there were a lot of people in the
legislature who—they were really more traditionalists, and a lot of this stuff they hadn’t really
focused on. But that on certain issues that people would fall together and that Moakley would
have an interest in some of these things.
DUKAKIS: And these are all gut issues, you know; all of them. Whether it was auto insurance
or housing or mass transit, any of this stuff. And it’s not a surprise that Joe had a strong interest
in them. If he was the Senate chair of Housing and Urban Affairs—
McETTRICK: We’ll check into that.
DUKAKIS: Yeah, check that, because I was a member of the Special Commission on Low
Income Housing—I don’t think Joe was—in ’66, that really came up with an extraordinary series
of proposals that actually pre-dated federal action. For example, the idea of rent supplements,
now Section Eight, first came out of that commission. The idea of the state providing lowinterest loans to both non-profit and profit-making developers, for mixed-income housing, Joe,
had never been tried before. Putting welfare people and luxury apartments in the same place.
Well that came out of that.
The notion that we would never again build public housing which exceeded more than a hundred
units. Because we had done the Columbia Point14 and others, and they just hadn’t worked. And
I’m sure that was very much on Joe’s mind, given the district that he represented and what was
13
Chapter 40B in the Massachusetts General Laws, enacted in 1969, also know as the Comprehensive Permit Law
or Anti-Snob Zoning Law, allows developers of low-income housing to bypass certain zoning requirements in towns
and cities in which less than 10% of its housing is designated as low-income.
14
The Columbia Point housing project in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood was built by the Boston Housing
Authority in 1954, but fell into disrepair, and in 1984 Boston transferred management of the project to a private
company. The project was revitalized and is now called the Harbor Point Apartments.
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going on at Columbia Point at the time, which started out as some good housing for working
people and then deteriorated over time.
So the housing piece was big. And I happened to be a member of that commission in the
midsixties. So it’s no surprise to me that we were working on these kinds of issues, even though
we represented different districts.
McETTRICK: How about 40B? The special permit—
DUKAKIS: Well it was something I felt strongly about, and I assume Joe felt strongly about it.
McETTRICK: Because they’re still debating it now, whether it’s going to be continued.
DUKAKIS: Well, don’t get me started on that. As you will recall, when I was governor, we
never had a 40B problem because we were putting real money into affordable housing. There
weren’t any communities that were reluctant to do affordable housing. They just want to do it in
ways that make sense to them. They don’t want some developer coming and saying I’m going to
give you a twenty-story tower on a corner lot. The fact that we have cut back so drastically in
state resources for affordable housing has created a 40B problem which never existed, at least
when I was governor.
On the other hand having the snob zoning act was not unhelpful when the Archdiocese wanted to
get out to Scituate and put in forty units. Scituate or Cohasset or one of those towns. And they
didn’t want forty units of housing that were affordable. In those cases you had a certain amount
of leverage.
But all of those projects were built with substantial support from the Commonwealth, both low
interest loans and direct subsidies. That’s the only way you can make these things work, and
work as mixed-income developments. I know Joe was very committed to that, and it made a lot
of sense to him.
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McETTRICK: Do you have much recollection of his run for Congress? Initially Louise Hicks15
was elected to what had been the McCormack16 seat, John McCormack seat. And then he ran as
an independent in ’72. I don’t know if you were really directly involved in that, but—
DUKAKIS: Well I knew a lot of the people—
McETTRICK: It would seem a lot of things were going on in that election.
DUKAKIS: Remind me; see I really am getting old. Who was his campaign manager—Pat
[McCarthy]. Geez, isn’t this terrible? I was just talking about him the other day.
McETTRICK: It will come to you in a second. I guess Shaevel was his treasurer—
STEVEN KALARITES: It might have been Roger Kineavy.17
DUKAKIS: No, no. He was the guy who persuaded him to run as an independent. Came out of
BC [Boston College]—isn’t this awful?
McETTRICK: That’s why we’re getting this down on tape. (laughs)
DUKAKIS: Was a lawyer down in Philly.
McETTRICK: Before we lose it completely. (laughs)
15
Louise Day Hicks (1916-2003), a Democrat, served on the Boston School Committee from 1962 to 1967 (serving
as chair from 1963 to 1965), ran unsuccessfully for the mayoralty of Boston in 1967 and in 1971, and served on the
Boston City Council before being elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1970. She represented
Massachusetts’ Ninth Congressional District for one term. It was in the 1970 election that Moakley lost his first bid
for Congress, in part because Hicks was an outspoken critic of forced busing in Boston, which helped her gain
support in South Boston. Moakley defeated Hicks in the 1972 congressional election when he ran as an Independent
so he wouldn’t have to run against Hicks in the democratic primary.
16
John W. McCormack (1891-1990), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Twelfth and, after redistricting, Ninth
Congressional Districts in the United States House of Representatives from 1928 to 1971. He served as Speaker of
the House from 1962 to 1971.
17
Roger Kineavy served as Congressman Moakley’s district director from 1973 to 1994.
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DUKAKIS: Patrick Henry—
McETTRICK: Oh, Hall McCarthy?
DUKAKIS: Yeah, Pat McCarthy.
McETTRICK: Oh okay, from BC—yeah, sure. In fact he ran for Congress himself.
DUKAKIS: Pat was the guy who asked the famous question of Tip O’Neill18—
McETTRICK: You’re right. That’s exactly who it was.
DUKAKIS: “How do you know they’re not lying to you?” But I think Pat was the guy who
persuaded Joe, much against his fundamental instincts, to leave the Democratic Party very
temporarily (laughs) and to run as an Independent. And didn’t Pat run that campaign, Steve?
McETTRICK: I think he had—
DUKAKIS: I’m sure he played a major role in it.
McETTRICK: I know he was at the meeting where the issue came up.
DUKAKIS: I think—did he run the campaign?
McETTRICK: He had some level of involvement.
DUKAKIS: I think so.
18
Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill (1912-1994), a Democrat, represented Massachusetts’ Eleventh and, after redistricting,
Eighth Congressional Districts in the United States House of Representatives from 1953 to 1987. He served as
Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1977 to 1987. He also served in the Massachusetts House of
Representatives from 1936 to 1952.
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McETTRICK: Because David Nelson19 had run the first time for that seat, and there was a
split-off.
DUKAKIS: Yeah. But the decision to run as an Independent was obviously a very important
decision for Joe. And not an easy one, I wouldn’t think, given his instincts, his background,
everything else. Now was I involved? Geez, I can’t remember. I’m sure I was supportive in
whatever way I could be. But I just don’t remember.
McETTRICK: Were you surprised that he managed to pull it off? It would be the sort of thing
that people would say, Gee, that’s very unorthodox.
DUKAKIS: I’m not sure I was surprised, given the general level of tension and polarization and
the rest of it. But I certainly wasn’t surprised that almost a day after he got elected he made it
clear (laughter) that he expected to govern as a Democrat, organize the House as a Democrat and
everything else. It was basically a tactical decision he made. It turned out to be the right one, not
only for him, but for a lot of us who felt strongly about him and strongly about the district and
weren’t that happy about Louise. But it was—he really took a risk, and a major one, in doing
that. And it turned out to be the right one.
McETTRICK: Well even looking into acts and resolves, other stuff comes back. They had a
special commission on blockbusting; they passed the racial imbalance law. And then of course
the busing itself in Boston,20 which really saddened Joe. He had all kinds of turmoil in the
neighborhood, and there he was the federal representative. Now did you have much contact with
that?
DUKAKIS: Oh yeah. I was involved—
19
David S. Nelson (1933-1998) was the first African American to serve as a judge of a federal court in Boston. He
was appointed to the position in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter.
20
On June 21, 1974, Judge W. Arthur Garrity ruled in the case of Tallulah Morgan et al. v. James Hennigan et al.
(379 F. Supp. 410) that the Boston School Committee had “intentionally brought about and maintained racial
segregation” in the Boston Public Schools. When the school committee did not submit a workable desegregation
plan as the opinion had required, the court established a plan that called for some students to be bused from their
own neighborhoods to attend schools in other neighborhoods, with the goal of creating racial balance in the Boston
Public Schools. (See http://www.lib.umb.edu/node/1596 for more information)
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McETTRICK: Because you had just gotten in.
DUKAKIS: I was involved—remember, this was ‘62 I got in [to the legislature]. Did I have
contact with this as the governor?
McETTRICK: Oh, yeah, yes, as governor.
DUKAKIS: But all during the sixties [we passed] the racial imbalance law and all that kind of
stuff. Now, it’s interesting, Joe, in the run-up to the gubernatorial campaign, ‘73, ‘74, we saw
this coming. And the longer I’m on this planet the more I tend to trust my instincts, when I see
something that even a lot of my compatriots and like-minded friends are supporting, and I’m
seeing this thing and saying, “There’s something missing here.”
Because Kitty21 and I were married in ‘63, we had three kids, and there isn’t any question that
the fact that those kids could go to school around the corner was a very comforting and
supportive thing to us. That school as a community school became the center of the
neighborhood. It’s where you met your neighbors, it’s where you worked together, and so on and
so forth.
And I’m seeing this busing thing and saying, “A, it means those kids aren’t going to have what
we had.” Now, we happened to be in a community with a damn good school system. But it’s
more than that. It’s this community institution, which happens to be the neighborhood school, as
kind of a common meeting ground for most of us.
And so I began trying to develop an alternative which would combine the best of the
neighborhood school with integration. And I’m not quite sure I remember when I surfaced this,
but basically it was a combination that is—it was an idea that kids would go—would begin their
school day at the neighborhood school, but there would be integrated centers of learning around
the city, in many cases attached to and connected to many of the city’s cultural institutions.
21
Katharine Dickson “Kitty” Dukakis (1936- ) is Governor Dukakis’s wife.
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Whether it was the zoo, the MFA [Museum of Fine Arts], the science museum, I don’t know
whether we had an aquarium at the time, and so forth, where, for one thing, a lot of kids in the
city who had never been to these institutions would go. And secondly, they would have a lot of
their classroom instruction in integrated settings. But they’d begin at the neighborhood school,
they’d go back to their neighborhood school, and they would be the responsibility of the
neighborhood school but they would be having a lot of their learning in, as I say, integrated
settings at these great institutions.
I surfaced the thing and the Globe kicked my head in. “Dukakis was retreating on this, that, and
the other thing.” Years later, Joe—and I should’ve clipped this thing [the Globe editorial]—
within the past four or five years, the Globe, as what’s happened in the city happened—and part
of it is just the demographics of the city, it was busing essentially—but this whole notion of what
do we mean by integration when in fact 80 percent of the school population is black or brown.
Well there’s a case to be made for integration even then. [There is] this kind of interesting
prejudice of those of us who are white on either side of this, which is that you don’t get an
integrated school unless there are whites there. Well, we’ve got a community of schools, [the]
student body is overwhelmingly non-white but is remarkably diverse. Isn’t there something to be
said for integrating the system? I think the answer to that question is yes. But how do you do it?
And I never—I should’ve saved this thing and laminated it and put it on the wall. (laughter) But
there was this suggestion that maybe we could have a combination of neighborhood schools and
integrated centers of learning. (laughter)
McETTRICK: That would’ve made—
DUKAKIS: By that time if there was anybody left at the Globe editorial board that was alive
when I made this proposal—but I’ll never forget it.
McETTRICK: A type of vindication.
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DUKAKIS: With the benefit of hindsight, strikes me—but I know what Joe was going through.
Now, while I was governor, my responsibility was to enforce the laws. And I’m the guy that put
the state police in South Boston and made sure the law was being enforced.
In point of fact, the first time I heard about Charlie Barry22 was when he was the district
superintendent. And he was the guy that rescued this Haitian guy that was in danger of being
killed [in South Boston]. And Charlie went in there and just walked right into that mob and
covered this guy with his body and just brought him out. That’s my first memory of Charlie
Barry, who subsequently became my public safety secretary, as you know, for every minute of
the twelve years that I was governor. A wonderful guy.
But I don’t see how you could look at this [the school desegregation issues] and not have
questions. Not about the fundamental issue of whether or not it’s better for kids to be in
integrated schools, but how do you do it in a way that might give parents in Boston that same
kind of fairly strong feeling of community that you get from being part of a neighborhood which
happened to have a school in the middle of it, and at the same time get integration. Well here we
are many years later.
But all of that stuff—strengthening the state commission against discrimination, I’m the guy that
made it a full-time commission, first as governor. But all of the civil rights stuff in the sixties, I
was involved in.
McETTRICK: Well when you become governor I guess one project that was on the drawing
boards even then was the Big Dig23 and the Central Artery. And that meant federal dollars, and I
guess Tip O’Neill was speaker then. And Moakley was on the Rules Committee.24 Anything that
you recall from that era?
22
Charles V. Barry (1927-2000) was deputy superintendent for the Boston Police Department in the South Boston
and Dorchester neighborhoods in the early 1970s, during the time of the busing crisis. He served as public safety
secretary of Massachusetts under Governor Dukakis from 1975 to 1979 and 1983 to 1991.
23
The Big Dig, or Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T), was the largest public works project in U.S. history and
involved the replacement of downtown Boston’s elevated highway with a tunnel. The project began in 1991 and
ended in 2007.
24
The House Rules Committee is responsible for the scheduling of bills for discussion in the House of
Representatives. According to the Rules Committee website, “bills are scheduled by means of special rules from the
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DUKAKIS: Well let me drop back a little bit. Before we even get into the Big Dig, which was
an interesting project, an expensive one, but doesn’t compare with what happened, and you will
remember this—remember, when I first arrived in the legislature in 1963 we were on the way to
building the so-called Master Highway Plan, which essentially was six eight-lane expressways
right in the heart of the city, on something called the Inner Belt, which was eight lanes elevated,
Steve. Right through Frederick Law Olmstead’s Emerald Necklace,25 I kid you not. Eight lanes
elevated, right in front of Emmanuel [College] and Simmons [College], are you with me?
And this was a done deal. This was the way you were going to save cities. And by the way, every
other major metropolitan area in the country had the same [plan]. It was basically a Boston
version of the California freeway system. And I came into the legislature upset partly because the
eight-lane elevated [highway], hell, it was going right through my town. And by the way, in
those days the highway engineers picked out every park they could as a site for highway
construction.
And secondly, because I was even then a transit and rail obsessive guy, who saw the MBTA—
the MBTA was a basket case in ’63. It was a disaster. It was full of political patronage, there was
no investment, there was no state or federal money going into the T. We had taken it over a
privately-run transit system that had gone bankrupt [in 1946]. But we had invested nothing in it.
And in the meantime we’re talking—we’re spending billions on highways, airports, this, that and
the other thing; nothing on transit. It just didn’t make any sense to me.
So I and about four of my colleagues in the legislature said, You know, there’s something wrong
with this. And we started asking a lot of questions, and then folks started coming out of the
woodwork, from some of the affected neighborhoods and all this kind of stuff. There was a
young Catholic priest named Tom Carrigan who became chairman of this anti-highway group.
But all of us—
Rules Committee that bestow upon legislation priority status for consideration in the House and establish procedures
for their debate and amendment.” (See http://www.rules.house.gov/) Congressman Moakley was a member of the
House Rules Committee from 1975 to 2001 and served as its chairman from 1989 to 1995.
25
The Emerald Necklace is a chain of parks that winds through Boston and Brookline. It was designed by landscape
architect Frederick Law Olmstead in 1878.
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Now I don’t know where Joe was on that. I can’t remember. But to make a long story short, it
was a brutal ten-year debate. By the way, part of it was going to go right through Milton, right?
Fowl Meadow—
McETTRICK: Well they had the Southwest Expressway, [which] was going to go right
through the middle of Hyde Park. Right up through Forest Hills.
DUKAKIS: Fowl Meadow, the whole thing. Right through Fowl Meadow, right through Forest
Hills. And in fact, fifty to sixty million dollars had been spent to clear the Southwest Corridor.
McETTRICK: That’s right.
DUKAKIS: It was one of those, “Oh, we spent this fifty or fifty or sixty million—what are we
going to do now?” Okay? And the problem, Steve, politically, for all of us, was that there was
absolutely no assurance that there would be any money for mass transit. Because at that point
you couldn’t bust the Federal Highway Trust Fund. That is, every nickel that went in there had to
be used for highways.
So the obvious comeback to us, including comeback from a lot of unions, was, Well, this is a
bird in the hand. You’re telling us something else but how do we know? We’re losing money.
It’s going to go to other states; there’s going to be nothing there [for us]. And I’m sure Joe
played a role in this, although Tip and Ted Kennedy26 obviously led the way. We became the
first state in the country, thanks to that congressional delegation, to be able to use interstate
highway money for mass transit. In fact the entire Massachusetts allocation for interstate
highways, in the metropolitan area, inside [Route] 128—because our position was, “That’s it, no
more.” “Well we’ve got to do this.” “That’s it, no more; it’s got to be all transit.”
26
Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy (1932- ), a Democrat, has represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate
since 1961.
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And thanks to that—and since I had beaten Sargent in ’74, who to his credit, having been one of
the original architects of the Master Highway Plan, listened and changed his mind. And it didn’t
help him politically. Remember?
McETTRICK: Oh that’s right. Because he stopped the southwest expressway.
DUKAKIS: He didn’t stop everything; I stopped the rest of it. But most of it he stopped. And it
was a tough decision to make. Because he was faced with the same thing. “So what are you
going to do? Where’s the money for the transit?”
McETTRICK: And they finally at least put rail on it. You know, upgraded [it], the Orange Line
got located on it.
DUKAKIS: Yeah, yeah. But had it not been for the congressional delegation, and you have to
check this out because Joe, I’m sure, was involved in this, Tip, too, obviously because the Inner
Belt was supposed to go right through Cambridge. And so was Route 2, which was going to
come in. Remember?
McETTRICK: Yep.
DUKAKIS: Route 2 was going to come right through Cambridge as well. It was crazy.
McETTRICK: It was an amazing plan. It was incredible. They would’ve destroyed the inner
city.
DUKAKIS: It not only saved Boston. In my opinion it is the single most important reason why
Boston today is one of the most successful cities in America. We stopped building the damn
highways and gave them [the city] instead the best public transportation system in the country,
including, by the way, commuter rail. We bought the entire commuter rail system from the folks
that owned it, Old Colony, Boston & Maine, in eastern Massachusetts, you wouldn’t believe this,
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in 1976, for a total of thirty-five million bucks. Tracks, stations, parking lots, which gives you a
sense—.
And three million for the Harbor Islands. Think about it. Geez, I don’t know what these things
would be worth today, or what they are worth. And by the way, we bought and rehabilitated that
commuter rail system with interstate highway money. We had a pot of three billion dollars that
was available to us. By the way, at its inflating value—that was another provision that Tip and
Joe and these folks put in the thing.
So depending on when we decided to draw it down, the amount of bucks was going up. And we
extended the Red Line, extended the Orange Line, rehabbed the stations, bought the commuter
rail, all of that stuff, with highway money. And again, you’d have to check it out, but I’m sure
Joe was very much involved in it.
McETTRICK: That’s about ninety cents on the dollar, federal versus state?
DUKAKIS: Indeed, indeed, you bet. So we not only stopped the highways, we saved the city,
but we then got a very substantial amount of money, without which we couldn’t possibly have
modernized the T. Then I brought in Bob Kiley27 and began to manage the place effectively, and
the rest, as they say, is history.
But without the congressional delegation in whenever it was, ’74, ’75, Fred Salvucci28 could tell
you this. And by the way, Fred would know a lot more than I do about Joe’s—Fred was—Fred
and Joe—
McETTRICK: Yeah, Bill Shaevel said that. He said get a hold of Fred Salvucci.
DUKAKIS: Yeah, get a hold of Fred.
27
Robert Kiley (1935- ) served as deputy mayor of Boston from 1972 to 1975, then served as chairman and CEO of
MBTA until 1979. He is also known for his work with the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
28
Frederick P. Salvucci served as secretary of transportation for Massachusetts under Governor Dukakis from 1975
to 1978 and 1983 to 1990.
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McETTRICK: Now where is he these days?
DUKAKIS: He is at MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology]. And in fact you can get in
touch with him and tell him I suggested you call.
McETTRICK: Okay. Steve, you got your pen out?
KALARITES: I’ve got my pen out.
DUKAKIS: He would be a fund of knowledge on all this stuff, Steve: (pause) 617-253-5378.
And needless to say that includes the Big Dig. I don’t know what Fred’s telephone bill was to
Joe’s office. Joe was just a go-through guy. Just the best. So again, he was just—he hadn’t been
in Congress long. But I’m sure he had something to do with that decision, and clearly with
virtually every major transit decision and funding source we made afterwards.
Now in addition to Tip and Joe, of course Silvio Conte29 was the only Republican on the
delegation, allegedly. And Sil would have been a Democrat except he couldn’t get elected from
the Berkshires, so he became a Republican. But he was terrific. And these guys were just—and
Ed Brooke30 was extremely helpful. So we had a really terrific group of people in Congress, on
both sides of the aisle, who could do this. But Joe increasingly played a major role in this stuff.
McETTRICK: So to your mind that was a really fundamental shift of policy?
DUKAKIS: The single—nobody understands it or appreciates it these days. That was the single
most important thing that we did to transform what, as you know, was a hurting city. This city
was suffering from all of the problems of urban deterioration and disinvestment and so forth that
29
Silvio Conte (1921-1991), a Republican, served in the Massachusetts State Senate from 1951 to 1958, then
represented Massachusetts’ First Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1959 to 1991.
30
Edward W. Brooke III (1919- ), a Republican, represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate from 1967 to 1979.
He previously served as attorney general of Massachusetts from 1963 to 1967.
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every other major city—something happened to turn it around. And it wasn’t magic dust. That
decision was fundamental. We were one of the few states in the country to make it.
San Francisco was the other one. Surprise, surprise, it’s the other very successful city in
America. Except in their case they had their version of the Central Artery, which is known as the
Embarcadero Highway, which had been built halfway.
McETTRICK: And that was right along their waterfront?
DUKAKIS: Separating the city from that gorgeous waterfront. Right?
McETTRICK: That sounds familiar.
DUKAKIS: Here’s this overhead—and they elected a guy as mayor named Jack Shelley,31
Steve, who was an Irishman, labor leader, had been in Congress. He came back and ran for
mayor. His kid, by the way, Kevin, is now the secretary of state—former legislator, is now is the
secretary of state in California.
And here we are, this little bunch of us in the legislature—although I don’t think Joe was part of
this initially. This was just a bunch of us in the house. And I’m wondering—I’m saying to
myself, “I’m convinced that we’re right. Are we nutty?” Well, two things happened. First, a guy
named Kennedy got elected president. And he and his wife began questioning a similar plan for
Washington, which I think, Joe, would’ve brought an eight-lane highway right down the Mall or
something. (laughter) Today it’s—and the president and Mrs. Kennedy looked at that and said,
“We’re going to rethink this.” And then this guy from San Francisco says to the California State
Department of Transportation, which has already spent millions on this thing [the Embarcadero
Highway], “Stop, you’re not going any farther.” The thing’s hanging there. (laughter) And CalTrans, which is the state agency, [says,] “Yeah, yeah—”
31
John Francis "Jack" Shelley (1905-1974) was mayor of San Francisco from 1964 to 1968,
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Shelley says, “That’s it.” That was in ’63. For twenty-five years the Embarcadero Highway
[was] unfinished. It was supposed to connect the expressway system from the south with the
Golden Gate Bridge up in the north. Sat there unfinished. Just hanging there. It’s as if the Central
Artery had stopped downtown and wasn’t going anywhere. And, of course, there were no cars on
it. (inaudible)
Anyway, then we have the earthquake, right, ’87 [sic – 1989]. Remember during the World
Series?
McETTRICK: Oh yeah. Wasn’t that something?
DUKAKIS: And it cracks the damn Embarcadero. (laughter) A sign from the good Lord
himself that it was time to take that thing down. And they took it down. And then—if you guys
ever go there, you ought to take a look at this—and then they brought a trolley line right down
where the Embarcadero had been, using vintage trolley cars, one of which comes from the
Boston Elevated Street Railway, or the T, I can’t remember—the Boston Elevated Railroad. It’s
orange, as they used to be. And it’s not just a Toonerville Trolley; it is heavily used and it
connects the downtown district with Pac Bell Stadium. And it’s this terrific kind of combination
of a restored waterfront and this lovely trolley line, with these vintage cars from everywhere:
they’ve got them from Cincinnati, they’ve got them from Milan. But they’re used, and it’s
commercial; it’s part of the municipal transit system.
But it was Shelley who was the one guy in addition to the president of the United States in the
early sixties who convinced us that maybe we weren’t totally insane, and that we were making
some sense here. But it’s a huge story, and maybe it’s a sign of advancing age but virtually—of
course there’s nobody around, Joe, remembers that we almost paved over the Victory Gardens32
and the Fens as parking for the Red Sox.
32
The Fenway Victory Gardens is one of the last two remaining victory gardens in the United States. Victory
gardens were planted throughout the United States during World War II, after President Franklin Roosevelt urged
Americans to grow more vegetables to help alleviate food shortages.
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McETTRICK: Yeah, I remember that. And my mother liked the Victory Gardens, too. She
wasn’t too happy.
DUKAKIS: Well, we all did. It’s in the Fens; this is Olmstead, right Steve? The Red Sox say,
Well, we may have to leave town. A lot of us said maybe if they got themselves another good
left-handed pitcher they might be [better]. Nothing has changed, right? So anyway, they’re going
to pave it over. And under the Massachusetts Constitution you’ve got to get a two-thirds vote, as
you know, Joe, to take parkland and use it for some other purpose. You’ve got to go through the
state legislature no matter if it’s a municipal park or whatever.
It had passed the House and Furcolo33 said he was going to sign it. We’ve got to take care of the
Red Sox, right? The Senate President is this tough little Irishman named John Powers,34 who’s
never gone beyond the eighth grade until he finally gets himself into law school somehow—
remember Powers?
McETTRICK: Yep, that’s right.
DUKAKIS: Another guy, guy from Southie. Turns out Powers was a fabulous rose gardener.
When he was clerk of the SJC [Supreme Judicial Court] he had roses up there. Remember?
McETTRICK: Right there on the roof, sure, of course.
DUKAKIS: Prize roses.
McETTRICK: That was when Moakley got his seat.
DUKAKIS: Yeah. Anyway—and Moakley succeeded him. Here’s this tough little five-by-five
guy, out of Southie, left school in the eighth grade because his father died and he’s the sole
33
Foster Furcolo (1911-1995), a Democrat, served as governor of Massachusetts from 1957 to 1961. He also
represented Massachusetts’ Second Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1952.
34
John E. Powers (1910-1998), a Democrat, represented South Boston in the Massachusetts House of
Representatives from 1939 to 1946 and in the Massachusetts State Senate from 1947 to 1964. He served as Senate
President from 1959 to 1964.
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supporter of his mother and I don’t know, thirteen kids, eleven kids, I don’t know. But he loves
gardens.
McETTRICK: Definitely the man you want on this issue, yeah.
DUKAKIS: Who would think it? That’s what makes this business so interesting. Joe and the
harbor—anyway, John Powers killed that misbegotten proposal before it—but that’s what was
going on around here. They were tearing the city down to try to take care of automobiles.
McETTRICK: What was it at the state house in the sixties that—there was a whole world
around them, of course, that was changing. But it just seems as if now it’s being talked about
thirty years later as almost something of a golden age, which would’ve come as a surprise to the
people who were there I’m sure. Was there something in the water up there? What was going on?
DUKAKIS: Hey, it was the sixties. Kennedy was in the White House, our guy, right? We had
this horribly corrupt political system. We had a guy, a Speaker of the House, who certainly had
unbelievable talent, but by the time I got there was hopelessly alcoholic. And three years later,
Steve, John Thompson died of alcoholic poisoning. Not cirrhosis. He died when apparently there
was so much alcohol in his system that it killed him. And by the time I got there his so-called
friends were just taking advantage of him all the time and this kind of thing.
McETTRICK: I was trying to recall, who was in that Speaker’s fight? Was it Paul Feeney and
was it Kiernan?
DUKAKIS: Feeney and Kiernan.
McETTRICK: Was it Kiernan who was the chairman of the judiciary or something?
DUKAKIS: I voted for Kiernan.
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McETTRICK: You were in the Kiernan camp. Moakley was probably with the Speaker; do
you recall?
DUKAKIS: Maybe, I don’t know. I remember saying to—
McETTRICK: It went on for days didn’t it? They had several votes of—
DUKAKIS: Oh yeah, I don’t know how many votes we had. And I remember saying to my
friend Bob Mooney, who was the guy from Nantucket who I had gotten to know back when I
was a law student, a Democrat from Nantucket; in those days that was unheard of. (laughter) His
grandfather got shipwrecked on his way from Ireland—
McETTRICK: Wound up on Nantucket. (laughs)
DUKAKIS: —and they took him to Nantucket; he said, “I’m never leaving this island.”
(laughter) Bob’s father was the chief of police and Bob ended up at Holy Cross and Harvard Law
School and as a legislator—I said to him at one point, I said, “Look, if Thompson is the Iron
Duke, and Kiernan is the Silver Fox, what is Feeney?” He said, “Whispering Paul.” (laughter)
And if you knew Feeney you’d understand—
McETTRICK: Yup, yup, yup. (laughs)
DUKAKIS: It was an interesting bunch of characters. And into this mix come Dukakis,
Buckley [from Abington], Dave Harrison from Gloucester, Bill Homans, the Yankee Brahmin
Democrat from Cambridge, Dave Ahearn from Norwood, Flynn from Bridgewater.
McETTRICK: And they’re pursuing all of you, because every vote is counting.
DUKAKIS: And we’re all these so-called reformers, Steve. When we’re out there every day,
something else was cooking. And not just on the reform stuff. Four-year terms [for governor]
and reorganizing the cabinet system, we were all involved in that kind of stuff. Civil service
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�OH-022 Transcript
reform and so on. But we were surrounded by an interesting group of colleagues, some of whom,
like Joe, were interesting kinds of combinations.
McETTRICK: Right, I guess that’s what I’m trying to get to, yeah.
DUKAKIS: And some of which, like Julius Ansel,35 were just old rascals. (laughs)
McETTRICK: It was quite a collection.
DUKAKIS: It was quite an interesting group of people. And then we had Powers, who I was
close to, because I had worked for Powers when he ran for mayor and lost in an outrageous
campaign. Remember the famous sign?
McETTRICK: The Collins race.36
DUKAKIS: Yeah. But I was a law student at the time, and I had done some work for him. So he
kind of took me under his wing. And we always had a good relationship. But then you had poor
old Thompson, who had all kinds of talent but was just—his drinking just killed him ultimately,
and overwhelmed him. You never knew when this guy would roll in. One o’clock, two o’clock,
four o’clock.
McETTRICK: But he managed to hang on though, in this fight.
DUKAKIS: For awhile, until finally there was a vote on vacating the chair. He won this one.
And then there was a vote on vacating the chair. By that time, I think it was ’65, I voted to oust
him. And he won that one. But then he was indicted, and then I think he stepped down, and about
six months later, all of a sudden, he’s gone. So when you’re in the middle of this, Joe—
35
Julius Ansel (d. 1965) was a Russian immigrant and resident of Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood who served in
the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Massachusetts State Senate, as well as on the Boston City
Council.
36
John Powers lost the 1960 mayoral race to John Collins (1919-1995). The “famous sign” to which Mr. Dukakis is
referring is a “Powers for Mayor” sign that was photographed hanging over Bartolo’s Ringside Café, which just
days before the mayoral election was raided by the IRS for illegal gambling.
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McETTRICK: Yeah, and just arriving.
DUKAKIS: —it’s an interesting collection of characters.
McETTRICK: Now was it Al Cella37? He was in it at that point.
DUKAKIS: Al by that time had become an assistant to Thompson.
McETTRICK: He had been a member, and then lost an election.
DUKAKIS: And I worked with Al on the Sacco-Vanzetti thing.38 That’s how I got interested in
Sacco-Vanzetti. I was a young—I was a law student across the river and I came over as a
volunteer intern and Al put me to work on the Sacco-Vanzetti case. And Cella was this guy,
Italian American, graduated from Harvard, very liberal, representing Medford. Then he ends up
as an aide to Thompson. And of course he was the one guy in the place that guys like me could
go to. And Al was terrific, ended up teaching at Suffolk Law School for years, and just a great
guy.
MCETTRICK: Yeah, his portrait is in the library there, yeah.
DUKAKIS: Yeah, great guy. Wonderful guy. But he was the inspiration ultimately for that
proclamation on Sacco-Vanzetti. Which wasn’t exactly uncontroversial either.
37
Alexander Cella (1929-1993), Suffolk University Law School class of 1961, served two terms in the
Massachusetts State House of Representatives before becoming a member of Suffolk’s law faculty in 1971. He also
served as counsel to several members of the Massachusetts General Court, including House Speaker John Thompson
and Senate President Maurice A. Donahue.
38
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchist Italian immigrants who were executed in 1927 for the
murder of two men during a robbery in Braintree, MA. After reading transcripts from their trial, Mr. Cella
concluded that Sacco and Vanzetti were not guilty. Legislation that he helped file to have them pardoned was
unsuccessful, but then-Governor Dukakis issued a proclamation in 1977 that the two were not treated fairly and “any
disgrace should be forever removed from their names.”
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But it was a period of great creativity and a tremendous amount of activity. And I’ve got to tell
you—look, we solved a lot of very fundamental problems. I look at the state house today, Steve,
and I keep saying to people up there, including a lot of folks I respect, “Are you guys on
tranquilizers or what?”
I don’t hear anything. The sixties were a very noisy period. All the time.
McETTRICK: What was it? Was it the House cut, or just the timing?
DUKAKIS: No, it was just—I don’t know. Look, we were making a transition from a kind of
horse and buggy government to something—remember, two year terms for governor. Governor
and lieutenant governor of different parties. The governor couldn’t appoint his own department
head, Steve, can you believe this?
KALARITES: No.
McETTRICK: Oh, they had to be confirmed by the executive council?
DUKAKIS: Not only was the governor’s council—we had a governor’s council and they had to
practically give you permission to go to the bathroom if you were governor. Had to confirm
every single appointment. But five of the eight of them were indicted and convicted and went to
jail for corruption. This is all going on in the sixties.
Well this young band of reformist whippersnappers are going at it and all this kind of stuff all the
time. We were up to our eyeballs. And then you have in addition the whole racial stuff [the
school desegregation issue]. Interracial balance, and back and forth, and so on and so forth. So it
was a period of enormous creativity.
McETTRICK: Joe was able to tap into that to get his congressional seat.
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�OH-022 Transcript
DUKAKIS: And Joe was kind of a—I don’t know want to call him a bridge figure because he
was more than that. Because he had some very strong policy interests. But he was—he moved
back and forth pretty easily [between us and the old-timers].39
McETTRICK: Yeah, can you tell us a little bit about that? Because several people say that, but
how did he do that? What was that—?
DUKAKIS: Well, who the hell was I? I’d go and say—Bill [Shaevel] obviously was a key staff
guy to him. But he was interested in this stuff, and he moved on it. And Joe knew how to move.
Particularly in the Senate, which for us in the House was kind of a mystery land. Things had a
tendency to disappear in the Senate, for reasons nobody could explain. Later we figured it out,
but—
In those days—so we worked like dogs in the House side. You were looking, Joe, for people in
the Senate that understood what you were trying to do and were supportive. And my memory—
the harbor thing just stands out like a beacon.
McETTRICK: So he was a contact point at least in terms of—
DUKAKIS: But when it came to the housing stuff, to tenants’ rights, to this kind of urban stuff,
which I was deeply into, Joe was there. And he’d work with you. There was none of this, “Who
are these guys?”
McETTRICK: Now you say “work,” would that be in lining people up or drafting?
DUKAKIS: Everything.
McETTRICK: Because the legislator’s craft is kind of a mystery to the uninitiated.
39
Note: This clarification has been added by the narrator.
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DUKAKIS: Look, none of us did our own drafting; we had staff and resources to do that. But
Joe just—he understood instinctively how important this stuff was. And if you wanted somebody
in the Senate who could move legislation we would work very hard to get in the House, Joe was
as good as anybody when it came to that.
And you needed somebody like Joe. I couldn’t go over to the Senate and get it done—who the
hell was I? And look, I wasn’t—to say that I was not beloved by the party legislative leadership
was an understatement. You know me. (laughter) Geez. So having people like Joe in the Senate,
who were both respected and had good relationships with their colleagues, who would take this
legislation we had worked on and really move it, was absolutely critical to us.
McETTRICK: So how do you think he cultivated that? He had a pleasing personality, but what
were the ingredients?
DUKAKIS: He was just—Joe was just instinctively a good person. That’s all I can say. You
never had a sense that he had separate agendas. There’s no game playing. You went to him and
said, “Joe we’re gonna—.” “Yup, I like it, let me take a look at it.” He might flip it over to Bill
[Shaevel]. There was none of this—you never were given a sense that Joe was dealing with
eighteen other people simultaneously. And that was Joe in Congress. I never remember going to
Joe on anything where he would say, “And by the way, can you do this for me?” It was always,
“Hey, what are you looking for? Makes sense to me, let’s go do it. For Massachusetts, for
Boston, I’m with you.”
McETTRICK: Well we’ve certainly used a lot of your time. We don’t want to monopolize it if
you’ve got someone else coming in.
DUKAKIS: It’s okay. Anyways, I was a huge fan of Joe Moakley’s. Now when he decided to
get into foreign policy in El Salvador and all this kind of stuff, that was a whole other thing.
McETTRICK: Yeah, this is a whole other side to Joe.
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DUKAKIS: I admired him enormously for doing it. But that was not something one would’ve
sensed in the sixties or seventies that Joe would be into. Urban stuff, the Boston stuff, the
Massachusetts stuff. But that was another dimension to him which I admired from afar, but I
don’t think we saw a lot of—why would we anyway? We were all state legislators.
Just a rare guy, Steve, I tell you. Miss him every day. Geez, I just—and, as I say, no hidden
agendas. It’s always, “What are you looking for?” Just no question; bingo, let’s go.
Talk to Fred. Because on the transportation stuff—
McETTRICK: Yeah, we will. That’s a good lead. That sounds good. So Steve, how am I
doing? Did we get to everything?
KALARITES: I think the last few statements kind of sums of Moakley’s legacy. The Boston
and Massachusetts politics.
DUKAKIS: And remember, like all of us he evolved. There’s just no question about it. That’s
one of the things that you—people don’t think about that. But did the guy grow? And he just—as
we all do in different ways, but Joe just got stronger, tougher, more skillful, better, deeper.
Which isn’t—we all start out as stripling youth in the place.
On the other hand, to go back to the—to wrap up with the Harbor Islands, that tells you
something about the guy, that even in his early years there was a kind of visionary to him who
could sense this. And it wasn’t just that he happened to come from Southie. It was a far broader
dimension.
McETTRICK: Well one question that I asked him, that I’d like to give you an opportunity to
respond to as well, and actually you started to speak about it—
DUKAKIS: We have one other bond. We’re obsessive litter-picker-uppers. (laughter)
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McETTRICK: Is that right? That was a Joe characteristic?
DUKAKIS: He used to walk around cleaning up the neighborhood. I do the same thing walking
over here. Can’t stand litter. He couldn’t stand litter.
McETTRICK: Well my wife does that every morning. She’s a selectman in Milton. She goes
for a morning jog and she comes back with a bunch of junk every morning.
DUKAKIS: Joe used to walk around picking up the neighborhood. He was a member of
Congress. A senior member of Congress. He’s walking around picking up the neighborhood.
McETTRICK: We frequently ask people, and I asked Joe himself about this—it’s the idea of
legacy. And you started to speak about this a second ago when you were talking about the
legislature generically today. What would you say to these guys who are coming along and just
starting? What’s the advice that you might give them? Or what do they have to bear in mind as
they’re trying to do the job? Because you guys grew through it, you evolved.
DUKAKIS: The advice I try to give them is this. Look, it’s a great opportunity. But you’ve got
to be noisy. You’ve got to pick out a policy area, too, as I think he and I did, to some extent,
whatever it was, and you’ve got to master it. And then you’ve got to go at it intensively. And
you’ve got to raise a little hell. If affordable housing isn’t one of the most serious problems
facing this state I don’t know what is, Joe.
We’ve got a governor who says that. In fact he says when he talks to his friends in the business
community the first thing they say to him is not, Cut my taxes, they say, Do something about
affordable housing; I can’t hire people who can live here.
Okay, so what are we doing about it? Beats the hell out of me. Now this is going to take a quarter
of a billion dollars in state investments every year. If you want to do what we were doing, which
was six or seven thousand units of affordable housing every year, statewide, then you’ve got to
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put that kind of money into it. In addition to a lot of other things, working closely with
communities and so forth.
I think building a first class regional rail system is a part of this because when you extend
commuter rail to Brockton, all of a sudden you open up a huge affordable housing market that
isn’t there for people who are being priced out of Boston. Go down to Fall River, New Bedford,
connect North and South Station by rail at long last so we can have through service and so forth.
And suddenly—you do two things. First you open up affordable housing opportunities to
thousands of people that are priced out of the market. And secondly you do great things for the
communities affected. Look at Brockton today. Geez, it’s not Nirvana but it’s a hugely improved
community, and that commuter rail connection has made all the difference.
So, hey, are you out there? I’m not hearing anything. Auto insurance. I hate to go back to my old
chestnut, but the fact of the matter is that to put a car on the road in Roxbury today, Steve, costs
twenty-four hundred bucks—which is basic auto insurance, twenty-four hundred bucks. In
Wellesley it’s nine hundred. What are we going to do about it?
Now as Joe will tell you, I surfaced as a statewide figure for the first time around the auto
insurance thing. I didn’t create the thing, it was Keeton and O’Connell who produced the bill. 40
Well now O’Connell, who’s an infinitely creative guy, been at UVA Law School for years, Joe,
as you know, has come up with a sensational alternative called Auto Choice. Very simple. Want
to stick with the present system? Fine, you can pay whatever you’re paying. Although I won’t
get into the regulatory process and how it was that nine territories went to twenty-seven. But
that’s a whole other thing. It’s outrageous. We’ll put that to one side. That’s what happens when
you elect Republicans to governor. (laughter)
40
Robert E. Keeton (1919-2007) was a professor at Harvard Law School from 1953 to 1979 and a Federal District
Court judge from 1979 to 2006. Jeffery O’Connell has taught at University of Virginia Law School since 1980. He
specializes in accident and insurance law. In the late 1960s, they collaborated on a study that is widely credited as a
major contributing factor in the development of no-fault auto insurance.
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In any event—but here’s a simple thing which O’Connell has worked out. You want to stay with
the present system? Okay. Or if you want to choose, and it’s your choice, to go straight no-fault,
prompt reimbursement on a no-fault basis for all economic losses but no pain and suffering, you
can do that. And if you live in Boston or Milton or Brookline, I might add, you’re going to save
yourself hundreds of dollars every year. There isn’t a tax cut around that would produce this,
especially for folks in high-rated urban and close-in suburban communities, right?
Potentially there’s a savings of over a billion dollars in Auto Choice. Now maybe I’m nuts, Joe,
but if I were a member of the legislature, and my constituents were looking at these kinds of
premiums and increases, I’d be doing what I did back in the sixties. Why isn’t that happening?
Anybody out there?
We’ve got a governor who says, “Well, we’ve got to go to competition.” We tried that in 1977
and it was a disaster. The insurance companies raised their rates 60 percent in urban
communities, which of course they’ll do if you let them. I don’t hear anything. Hello? Anybody
out there?
McETTRICK: Well, that’s pretty good advice.
DUKAKIS: So what’s different today? I don’t know. And look if you want to move up— if you
don’t make some noise about things that people care about then nobody’s going to notice you.
I’m not saying this is all just a political exercise. I’m talking about doing good things and saving
people a lot of money and eliminating a lot of unnecessary cases in the courts. Yeah, there’s
going to be opposition, trial lawyers will oppose it; they did the firs time. They opposed
malpractice tort reform, [but] we did that too.
But I’m just baffled. If Jack Bachman was—(phone rings—interruption)
McETTRICK: We’ll get out of your way. We wanted to give you this photograph, incidentally.
[See attachment A] We thought you’d enjoy this. (laughs) Since we’re giving you memorabilia.
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DUKAKIS: Where were we?
McETTRICK: We’re not sure, right? It looks like the waterfront somewhere.
DUKAKIS: It looks like the harbor. We’re close to water someplace.
McETTRICK: It’s either the river or the harbor. Maybe the Charles, I don’t know.
DUKAKIS: Teddy was a lean guy in those days.
McETTRICK: Yeah, isn’t that something? What date would you put on that? Early seventies?
DUKAKIS: Mid-seventies. I must’ve been governor.
McETTRICK: You look important in the picture.
DUKAKIS: No, I must’ve been governor. Teddy was a senator. I’d bet it had something to do
with the islands. Maybe we announced the Harbor Islands park system for the first time or
something.
McETTRICK: Because we have this in the archive—can we give that copy?
KALARITES: Yeah, you can keep that. I was searching for a file of a cartoon we had for an
upcoming gallery exhibit, and I came across that last week so I thought you’d be the person to
identify it.
DUKAKIS: It looks to me like we’re on the waterfront someplace. And I don’t know where,
whether it’s one of those—it could’ve been on one of the islands.
McETTRICK: Well it sounds like the conversation we just had with you. You were in the
middle of it.
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DUKAKIS: Anyway, don’t ask me why these days things are so quiet in the state house. I don’t
understand it.
McETTRICK: That’s a shame, so anyway—
DUKAKIS: Great to see you both, glad we could put this together.
McETTRICK: Thanks for your time, we appreciate it.
DUKAKIS: Tell your wife to keep picking up litter—the former governor does it.
END OF INTERVIEW
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�OH-022 Attachments
Attachment A
Moakley, Michael Dukakis, and Ted Kennedy at event, 1970s,
photograph, (DI-0022), John Joseph Moakley Papers Collection
(MS100/10.4-015), Suffolk University; Boston, MA
Note: Original photograph is available for in-archive use only. Call 617-305-6277 to make an
appointment.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers, 1926-2001
Subject
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Boston (Mass.)<br />Legislators--United States <br />Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001<br /> South Boston (Boston, Mass.)<br />Legislators. Massachusetts<br />Politicians--Massachusetts
Description
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The paper of Congressman John Joseph Moakley are housed at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.<br /><br />The sample of items from the Moakley papers exhibited on this site are used courtesy of the Moakley Archive and Institute. The full collection documents Moakley’s early life, his World War II service, his terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate, and his service in Congress. The majority of the collection covers Moakley’s congressional career from 1973 until 2001. A <a title="Moakley papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> the the collection is available online. <br /><br />The collection is open for research. Access to materials may be restricted based on their condition. Please consult the <a title="Moakley Archive" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/moakley" target="_blank">Moakley Archive and Institute</a>, Suffolk University for more information.
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Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001.
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers (MS 100), 1926-2001. View the <a title="John Joseph Moakley Papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
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Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
Date
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1926-2001
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Items highlighted from the Moakley papers in this online collection are made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. <br /><br />Copyright is retained by the creators of items in the Moakley papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
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<div>
<div>
<p>Moakley Papers: Moakley Oral History Project<br />Enemies of War Collection (MS 104)<br /> Jamaica Plain Committee on Central America Collection (MS 103)</p>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
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Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University.
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300.7 cubic feet (521 boxes)
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English
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Text
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MS 100
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Boston, Mass.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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McEttrick, Joseph
Kalarites, Steven
Interviewee
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Dukakis, Michael
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Political Science Department, Northeastern University, Boston, Mass.
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See PDF transcript
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MP3 audio file
Note: Original audio recording is available for listening at the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Duration
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57:19
Time Summary
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Boston Harbor Islands p. 3 (00:20)
State house legislation p. 6 (07:57)
Campaigns p. 10 (14:49)
School desegregation p. 12 (17:40)
Improvements to Boston p. 15 (23:24)
Massachusetts state house (1960s) p. 23 (37:43)
Moakley as a model public servant p. 30 (50:42)
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Transcript of Oral History Interview of Michael S. Dukakis
Subject
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Boston (Mass.).
Boston Harbor Islands (Mass.)
Busing for school integration
Dukakis, Michael S. (Michael Stanley), 1933-
Massachusetts--Politics and government
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Michael S. Dukakis, former governor of Massachusetts (1975-1979; 1983-1991), discusses the
career of Congressman John Joseph Moakley. Among other topics, he reflects on Moakley's reaction, and his own, to Judge W. Arthur Garrity's 1974 decision in the case of Morgan v. Hennigan, which required some students to be bused between Boston neighborhoods with the goal of creating racial balance in the public schools. He also discusses issues that were important to Moakley during his career, including the cleanup of Boston Harbor and improvements to the Boston Harbor Islands; political campaigns and politics in general in the 1960s and 1970s, especially in Massachusetts; and Moakley's legacy as a public servant.
Creator
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Source
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Moakley Oral History Project
Publisher
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Date
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July 12, 2004
Contributor
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Kintz, Laura
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Copyright Suffolk University. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
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Moakley Oral History Project: http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/collections/show/1
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PDF (Computer file format)
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English
Type
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Oral history interview transcript
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OH-022
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/15912/archive/files/244956fe82fe9be033a72844a5ca1a37.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=mQyMHVzuVTWtvIZ4Fs1sNfPCPiDNhNlHpJCyWxkuoc6Uwxi2V7a1FoLw3z1C4jYWLg5d2M0xasCHGd1ahe-5fMAw0uISBpSNmwh703hbSGPw2Acm1c9filkpgZfviWKGSglFrynI2%7EM0zcEOsH644GRGYTbh76bntbKDVThACt00Z2SIBMshQGnwLoi2zTrZdRRCcuT4Y4YNv28kSg-k1dATwFvxXw1hdRlhEF-VVtfkgkgHP2%7E7QQg78UOnDiCFWPfNX%7EhiAKOdSRO9zjO-qdlnRDBgEsxuWde5TxyqcPLoRZzG39sVYD86Gfq-a3sz0ipnG5Sn3eNVEwQMf6GeOw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
10f6332d9931d41c8949ed049508297f
PDF Text
Text
Oral History Interview of Anthony Voto (OH-039)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Oral History Interview of Anthony Voto
Interview Date: February 15, 2005
Interviewed by: Jared Cain, Suffolk University Student enrolled in History 364: Oral History
Citation: Voto, Anthony. Interviewed by Jared Cain. John Joseph Moakley Oral History Project
OH-039. 15 February 2005. Transcript and audio available. John Joseph Moakley Archive and
Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Copyright Information: Copyright © 2005, Suffolk University.
Interview Summary
Mr. Anthony Voto reflects on his experiences growing up in East Boston, Massachusetts,
following the 1974 Garrity decision, which required students to be bused between Boston
neighborhoods with the intention of creating racial balance in the public schools. Mr. Voto
discusses his childhood in East Boston; his experiences attending a magnet school; the
appreciation for different cultures and people that he gained from attending a school with a
diverse student body; and the positive impact that he feels the results of the Garrity decision had
on the Boston Public Schools.
Subject Headings
Busing for school integration
East Boston (Boston, Mass.)
Magnet schools
Morgan v. Hennigan (379 F. Supp. 410)
Voto, Anthony, 1966-
Table of Contents
Mr. Voto’s background
p. 3 (00:14)
The beginning of busing
p. 8 (07:00)
Education at magnet schools
p. 9 (08:50)
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
1
�OH-039 Transcript
Educational values
p. 11 (10:40)
Schools in East Boston
p. 11 (12:00)
Friends’ involvement with busing
p. 12 (12:45)
Mr. Voto’s school experiences
p. 13 (14:05)
Media and violence in East Boston
p. 18 (23:00)
The importance of diversity
p. 22 (30:00)
Final reflections
p. 29 (44:00)
Interview transcript begins on next page
Page 2 of 29
�OH-039 Transcript
This interview took place on February 15, 2005, at Suffolk University Law School’s John Joseph
Moakley Law Library.
Interview Transcript
CAIN: This interview was taped on February 15, 2004 [sic-2005], at Suffolk University Law
School. I’m Jared Cain interviewing Mr. Anthony Voto. So, tell me a little bit about yourself
Anthony.
VOTO: I’m going to be thirty-nine years old in April. I was born in the city of Boston. I was
raised in East Boston. Since then I have moved several times to different communities. I live
over in Porter Square now and I’ve been employed by Suffolk University for twenty years as of
last week.
CAIN: Now, have you—what do you consider your home town itself? Is there—
VOTO: My hometown is always going to be where I’m from, it’s—I say with pride and
distinction, as it was back in the days of when Peter Faneuil was walking the streets in Boston,
they’d ask a Bostonian a certain question, and when the person answered they knew right away if
you were a Bostonian. They’d ask, “Well, what’s on top of Faneuil Hall?”, and you had to know
that there was a grasshopper on top of Faneuil Hall, and I’m very proud to say that I am a real
Bostonian. I’ve been questioned by people all over the world because of the way I talk and
it’s—I’m very proud I always say where I’m from. I’m from East Boston. I’ve lived in
Winchester; I’ve lived in a bunch of different communities.
I live—like I said, I live in Porter Square now. And when someone asks me where I’m from I
say I’m from East Boston and that’s where I’m from—and people say it now. They all want to
be from Boston. You meet someone, they’ll say “I’m from Boston” and you say, “Oh yeah?
Well what neighborhood are you from?” They’ll say, “Well, actually I live in Milton” and I’ll
say, “Well that’s not really Boston, huh?” (laughter) I’m a real Bostonian.
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
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�OH-039 Transcript
CAIN: (laughs) Good for you. So you grew up in East Boston and that was, let’s see, you were
born in East Boston, or—?
VOTO: I was born in the city of Boston, and the hospital is no longer there—it’s a part of
Brigham and Women’s Hospital now.
CAIN: Okay. And ah—
VOTO: I was born in 1966.
CAIN: Yep.
VOTO: That’s the interesting demographic set—not a lot of people were born in 1966.
CAIN: Yeah, that’s true. So, you lived in Boston until—
VOTO: I lived there, oh—
CAIN: (inaudible)
VOTO: Until I was in my middle to late twenties—
CAIN: Yeah.
VOTO: Until I got married, I moved to different places. I was first living with my wife in
Nahant and before that she was living in Winchester. I lived in Winthrop for a while. I live with
my second wife now; I live in Porter Square—live in the Somerville side of Porter Square.
CAIN: Okay, so we’re here today to talk about the busing of Boston students in the seventies
and during the time of the busing you lived in East Boston, right?
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
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�OH-039 Transcript
VOTO: Correct.
CAIN: Okay. And, how old were you at the time, you must have been—
VOTO: From your records it says ’75?
CAIN: Right, so—
VOTO: I thought it was a little bit sooner than that. I was nine years old. I was in the—I want
to say I was in the third grade—second or third grade. And there’d been a buzz about that they
were going to start busing, and my parents weren’t, you know—we definitely weren’t an affluent
family, and I noticed a flight, like kids start to leave—families leaving, going to different
communities.
CAIN: Mm-hmm.
VOTO: Going to private schools, parochial schools. That wasn’t happening in my family; there
was just—none of that was happening. There was no money. And I remember the first time that
students came into my school—I was lucky, I was going to the school in my neighborhood and I
wasn’t bused out, but they bused in—
CAIN: Right, right.
VOTO: —into the school, and at the time we had one teacher who was the best teacher in the
school. She was the best and she was also the disciplinarian. She was an African American
woman, so I had seen one woman and maybe a few other families, you know, like—my
neighborhood was Italian and Irish. That’s pretty much all I knew.
CAIN: Right. So what was your neighborhood like that you lived in?
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
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�OH-039 Transcript
VOTO: It was Italian. It was Irish. It was poor; it was—it was a poor neighborhood. That’s
city life.
CAIN: Mm-hmm.
VOTO: It’s a ghetto, and that’s the bottom line.
CAIN: Mm-hmm, yeah.
VOTO: People were poor there, you know?
CAIN: Mm-hmm.
VOTO: People are poor there now.
CAIN: Were you yourself isolated in your neighborhood? I mean, I know that some people
never went to other areas of Boston; did you—
VOTO: I went to certain places. My mother and father, they would try to enrich me. They’d
take me to different parts of town. My father was adventurous. He was the type of guy that
when he was growing up in the city, he’d go to different parts of the city, like for—we’d go to
Franklin Park [Zoo]—perfect example, there’s a place we’d go.
We’d go out by the Arboretum,1 I’d—yeah I’ve been everywhere. At nine, ten years old, pretty
much I was on my own. Wherever the T2 was—we were on the T as kids—no supervision. I
mean, I could end up in Newton on the Green Line. (laughter) This would be at ten years old,
when I’d tell my mother I’m going out for the day, and I’d come back hours later. She would
have no idea that I was in Newton, I was in—on the Red Line heading into Quincy or something
like that. That’s what it was like. (laughter)
1
The Arnold Arboretum is operated by Harvard University and is located in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
“The T” is short for MBTA, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which operates the Boston area’s
subway system.
2
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
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�OH-039 Transcript
CAIN: So—
VOTO: I see kids today, ten years old, on the train—
CAIN: Oh yeah, yeah.
VOTO: I see them.
CAIN: Did you find that other kids in your neighborhood really hadn’t been out of the area,
or—?
VOTO: No, a lot of kids in the neighborhood were the same way; wherever the T was, we were
on the T.
CAIN: Same way, huh? Yeah.
VOTO: To the extent we were traveling—no, like, I had been to Florida. You know, a family
trip, but nothing extensive. I mean, I’ve been through New England, New Hampshire. But the
city—I’ve been around the city.
CAIN: Yeah, yeah. So, what was the name of the school that you—
VOTO: Samuel Adams. Samuel Adams Elementary.
CAIN: And prior to them starting to bus the students in, what were the demographics like at
your school?
VOTO: It was Italian, Irish, maybe we had one student of color, but it would be like Cape
Verdean, Portuguese.
Page 7 of 29
�OH-039 Transcript
CAIN: Yeah.
VOTO: That was it. It was predominantly Irish and Italian, mostly Italian.
CAIN: Now, do you remember when you—you mentioned earlier but—do you remember when
you first heard that there were going to be students bused to your school?
VOTO: Yeah, you hear from the adults, people were talking at the table—
CAIN: Right, right.
VOTO: Not knowing what’s going on, but—and then you noticed—you started to notice
families leaving, not knowing why they’re leaving.
CAIN: So you didn’t understand at the time—
VOTO: Didn’t understand, right. I was too young, I didn’t know (inaudible).
CAIN: Yeah, yeah.
VOTO: I wasn’t a teenager, I was very young.
CAIN: Mm-hmm. So what was the first day like when they came into your school?
VOTO: It was—it was a shocking experiment. I say it was an experiment because I think they
wanted to see how people reacted. The schoolyard was definitely a better place because after
you had beat everybody in a—you know, a specific sport, and we played games that only—
unique to, like, the city—that most people had never even heard of, but we play them there, and
then—and now you have new kids on the school lot there. That made a big difference, and you
know when you look at someone and—we’re different; we look at each other, but you notice
we’re different right away, but there was no hostility—there was no hostility at a young age.
Page 8 of 29
�OH-039 Transcript
CAIN: Mm-hmm.
VOTO: You don’t know—even though, you know, some of adults around you—you hear
certain things, but when you’re still that young, you have to really be twisted to be thinking—
like you saw—you would see, that as time went on it was the older students that had issues
because once someone puts something in your head, it’s tough to get rid of right?
CAIN: Right, yeah.
VOTO: To be against something—I think they were just against it just to be against busing.
CAIN: So do you think that if you were older, you might have had a different—
VOTO: I might have, I might have.
CAIN: Right, because you really don’t know.
VOTO: And then I was—as I got older—when I was in the seventh grade I went to a school,
also in East Boston, but it was what they called a magnet school3—and this is once again where
they bus in students—I don’t know what they call them now but it was a magnet school. And
(pauses) I was in the seventh grade. It was—once again, I was into athletics so I got to meet a lot
of different people because, you know, people play sports; that’s the bottom line. So I really
didn’t have an issue—but there were people that had issues.
CAIN: Mm-hmm.
VOTO: And the school that I went to was from seventh grade to twelfth grade, so here I am a
seventh grader, not—I mean, in a school—like, if you think you’re in the ninth grade—whatever
3
Magnet schools are schools offering special courses not available in the regular school curriculum and designed,
often as an aid to school desegregation, to attract students on a voluntary basis from all parts of a school district
without reference to the usual attendance zone rules. (Definition from the Library of Congress.)
Page 9 of 29
�OH-039 Transcript
high school you went to—and you look at the seniors, they’re big—now you’re a seventh grader
in a high school of kids being bused in. Now this is—say I’m only in the third grade—this is
only four years after busing—it’s still a lot of issues, but we really didn’t have—in my school,
for some reason, there wasn’t the issues like they had—like up at East Boston High School,
which was only three or four blocks away. There were issues there. A lot of protests or violence
towards different individuals in a way.
CAIN: You were talking about the older people having issues with it. Do you remember how
your own parents felt about the situation, or—?
VOTO: They couldn’t do anything anyway.
CAIN: Yeah.
VOTO: What opinion could they have? It’s not like they could send me to private school if
they wanted to.
CAIN: Right.
VOTO: And elementary school—I went to the same elementary school that my father went to,
his father went to. And there’s really nothing that could have been—
CAIN: But other elders did have—
VOTO: Oh, people—well, you heard about the white flight—
CAIN: Right.
VOTO: That’s what it was all about—people left ’cause they didn’t want to—
CAIN: (inaudible)
Page 10 of 29
�OH-039 Transcript
VOTO: And I got an education. I received a good education—Boston Public Schools. The
bottom line is if you want to learn, you can learn. And I say—I say this, that it’s not the
teachers, it’s not the building, it’s the students. If you put the worse students in the city in
Newton Public Schools, the teachers are going to have the same results. Students don’t—they’re
not going to learn anything if you put the City of Boston—their public school teachers, you put
them in Newton, these teachers are going to look great. Maybe there are some good teachers and
some good things but it’s the students—if you want to learn. Perfect example: one of the best
schools in the state is Boston Latin School, and that’s a Boston Public School.
CAIN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
VOTO: That by far—it is the best school. One of the best.
CAIN: Did you have any siblings?
VOTO: I had a sister.
CAIN: Okay, and was she affected by this or was she—
VOTO: Umm, yeah. She was to an extent, but not—like, she didn’t go to a magnet school—I
was in a magnet school—she went to a middle school. It was strange how they set it up because
they kind of knew that there were certain schools in the neighborhood that they weren’t busing
into.
But in East Boston, they had a middle school, then they had the school that I went to that was a
middle school, also, and a high school—that was the magnet school. Then there was East
Boston High School which they bused in, but the way the City of Boston does it is like, if you—
I’m not sure of what the exact way it is but I believe, like, if you wanted to do woodworking, like
a trade, you went to East Boston High School. If you wanted to be an electrician, you went to
Page 11 of 29
�OH-039 Transcript
Charlestown High School, so they were busing people into those schools so they had specific
trades.
I remember seeing the trouble. I remember seeing on the news, because I always watched the
news, and a lot of it happened over in South Boston. East Boston had its issues, but a lot of it
was over in South Boston.
CAIN: Did you have friends that were—because you said to me before that it was basically a
lottery, right, that—
VOTO: Yeah, you would pick your school. There was no guarantee, that’s why people were
leaving. You couldn’t necessarily go to the neighborhood school. Yes, I had friends that were
bused from that time—I remember more in high school, they’d be bused out to Madison Park.
CAIN: Mm-hmm.
VOTO: They’d be bused to different places in the city. There were issues, you had to worry.
You walked to a certain neighborhood—may not even be the kids in school; it may just be
someone in the neighborhood. But yes, I had friends that were bused.
CAIN: They were, huh?
VOTO: Yeah, I was lucky. I don’t know, I must have hit it right but students were certainly
bused into the school that I went to.
CAIN: How did—now how did your friends feel about the change?
VOTO: They couldn’t do anything (inaudible).
CAIN: Were they upset by it, or—?
Page 12 of 29
�OH-039 Transcript
VOTO: They didn’t like it. Most of the kids I know that were bused, I’d say—and a lot of times
you’d have to worry about being robbed or something like that. It was the same way back in the
other way, coming back into East Boston—and there would be neighborhood people, and you
hear—it might not be the students in the school —the problem might be people in the
neighborhood—animosity that’s built up.
CAIN: Yup. So in your own school, did you become adjusted to the demographics shift in your
school?
VOTO: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. Well when I was younger, yes. And in the magnet school I
actually chose to go there because it was, like I said, it was considered one of the best schools. It
wasn’t quite an exam school because it was—but it was an experiment, it was called the Umana
Harborside School of Science and Technology, and they tried to gear everything towards
science, technology—that’s what they pushed. And I went—I chose that school because you
could choose these schools like the magnet schools, and there were other people in the city of
Boston choosing this school. So I ended up—I didn’t get sent there, I chose to go to this school.
And now it’s a middle school, it’s no longer—it’s called Joseph H. Barnes Middle School.
But I did choose to go there, and the demographics were primarily—it was—it wasn’t even fiftyfifty. I’d say it was predominantly people from other neighborhoods, whether it be Chinese,
Spanish, Black, you know, different cultures—and South Boston, Charlestown. So there was a
lot of different people in this school.
I knew I wanted to go to college, and I figured that was my best shot with no guidance—my
parents didn’t tell me where I could go.
CAIN: Mm-hmm.
VOTO: I would just pick, I mean, you know, I want to go here; I’m in the seventh grade.
CAIN: So you say you chose to go to the magnet school when you went in seventh grade—
Page 13 of 29
�OH-039 Transcript
VOTO: Because that would keep me in the neighborhood.
CAIN: Right, because it was in East Boston.
VOTO: It was in East Boston. But if you didn’t choose one of these schools, I think the way it
worked, they could send you to another school.
CAIN: They could send you—right—
VOTO: So they knew what they were doing—there was something going on; I don’t know what
was going on, but if you look at it, you say, “Well why did they start magnet schools?” If you
interview teachers—“What was the purpose of it?” It was—I could stay in that community, but
it was diversity in that school; it was really diverse. It was different. Very few kids from my
neighborhood went there.
CAIN: Yeah.
VOTO: All of my friends, and two of my closest friends. I had, like, dozens—maybe like three
or four of them went to this school. Because you had to have certain academic levels to get into
school.
CAIN: So what was class like when you were in middle school first, when the busing first
happened? What was the classroom like when you started? Do you remember?
VOTO: Umm, there were no issues in the classroom.
CAIN: No?
VOTO: No. Nope. People knew that—a lot of people were there to learn. I mean, there were
fights—I’ve seen fights in the classroom; it had nothing to do with color or anything like that.
Page 14 of 29
�OH-039 Transcript
No, there were fights and it would be primarily an East Boston kid, fighting with a South Boston
kid. Dorchester guy fighting with a guy from West Roxbury, or something like that. The only
ones that were really quiet were the Asians. Very quiet. Never started any trouble. They came
to school every day. And very little—in this school, there was very little in the way of racial
issues.
CAIN: So when you went to the magnet school, it was still the same way like that? There
weren’t big racial issues?
VOTO: Nope. Nope. But in the other schools, I know there was. Like you go to South Boston
High, East Boston High. I don’t know why—I don’t know why it was like that.
CAIN: So obviously, at that young age when you were in the middle school, kids typically
didn’t get that upset about being integrated into the classroom.
VOTO: No, I mean, it was nice—I mean, to be honest with you, now you’re getting into middle
school, you’re beginning to be like a teenager and you’re coming into yourself—you’re looking
at different girls. It’s a natural thing, and vice versa, it’s the other way. God created some very
beautiful people and it was a nice thing.
I mean, you learn a lot of things. I learned culture for sure. I learned culture, all different types
of musical backgrounds, which I would have never got if I was in the strictly all this, all that—
like Japan. Japan, it has everything. But to me it’s a boring place. Homogenous to me, I don’t
like it. I like things different. I like to look at something different.
CAIN: Mm-hmm.
VOTO: Rap music, come on. I knew what rap music was before—
CAIN: Yeah, before anybody knew.
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VOTO: Asian music. I knew where Chinatown was.
CAIN: So, I’m sure you think that—to say the class became racially balanced, would you
disagree with that statement, or would you say it became more culturally balanced, I mean,
what—
VOTO: I say more culturally balanced. I mean, okay, within the school I know that they had
the top students in one class and the lesser students in another class. What they did— they had
something—they had some sort of an experiment—I don’t know if this came from the
Department of Education—but they’d put you in these pods in the classrooms. I don’t know
where you went to school, but our classrooms were all glass so you could see in—I swear they
did this on purpose, so that instead of having a closed door, you would look out and see
diversity—you would see diversity and the teacher would—there’d be a person in the pod—
there’d be four teachers and there’d be a person in the pod that could watch the whole pod. It
was—I think it was planned. Subliminally, you’re constantly—if you see something all the
time—
CAIN: Right, then you get used to it.
VOTO: You get used to it. Whereas if the door was closed—it’s like communism in Russia;
once the doors open up, they change—I could be wrong, but it makes sense now that I look back.
It makes sense
CAIN: Yeah, it does make sense.
VOTO: But, when you went to high school, did you have—we had like five or six classrooms,
and we would call them pods.
CAIN: Yeah. Well, we called them quads because we had—
VOTO: But did you have glass windows? We could see—you could see people.
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CAIN: No, there wasn’t glass, but—
VOTO: We could see what was going on. But yeah, the teacher could see.
CAIN: That’s interesting. So—
VOTO: Could be for safety, but maybe not. Your brain is powerful, and they know that.
That’s what they go to school for. Educators, they want to—
CAIN: It seems like a major point you’re making is that—
VOTO: Come on, forget about sitting in the classroom. You have to go to gym!
CAIN: Yeah. (laughs)
VOTO: Think about it, now you’re changing and undressing. It’s a big thing. You know what
I’m saying?
CAIN: Yeah.
VOTO: That’s a big issue. So picture the obstacles that you’d have to overcome.
CAIN: Right.
VOTO: It’s not sitting with you, but just think about you going into your high school, you’re
white, now you’re all changed and you’re in gym, and now you’re changing and you got a
Chinese guy here, a Spanish guy here, a black guy there, black guy there [tapping the table].
Maybe you never came in contact—now you’re actually changing, so—and there were no
problems. I’m telling you, there were no issues. Like in this school—you went to the other
school, there were issues. I mean, there were fights, sure. There was this and there was that.
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But it wasn’t like—people weren’t constantly trying to protest at our school because we chose to
be there. It was the schools that they didn’t want to—like you see the historical perspective—
South Boston. I mean, East Boston High had some issues. I know that because I would hear,
“Oh, they’re fighting up at the high school” or something.
CAIN: So this is at the magnet school you’re talking about?
VOTO: The magnet school was good—it was good.
CAIN: Right, because everybody wanted to be there?
VOTO: Everybody wanted to—pretty much. Most of the people wanted to be there; they knew
why they were there.
CAIN: So you think that with—if you didn’t have a choice in the matter and you were forced,
then that would make hostility rather than—
VOTO: Of course. Who wants your arm twisted? That’s what it was. They were twisting—
and I wonder if they started the magnet school program because—it was a work in progress kind
of thing for them; they had never done anything like this before. You know?
CAIN: Mm-hmm. Now obviously it seems like there wasn’t that much going around your
schools, but was there media around your neighborhood in East Boston, or—?
VOTO: Yup.
CAIN: There was?
VOTO: Yeah, there was media. And we had issues—forget the school busing thing, there
was—they tried to integrate neighborhoods and there were issues about—
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CAIN: How did they try to integrate neighborhoods?
VOTO: Well, mostly like public housing developments in the city, they integrated them.
Before, like South Boston would be the public housing development for the poorer Irish—we
had in East Boston the poor Italians and so on (tapping table) and so on. But I think over the
years, the government started to mandate to the city that you had to have X amount—to have
money. I think it’s still this way today. You had to integrate your public housing.
It’s like anything you hear, you have to have a certain balance or mix. Right now the problem is
there’s an issue with the Boston Police Department. They’re complaining that it’s not integrated
enough. But yeah, when they tried to integrate the neighborhoods there was a lot of animosity.
That I really remember—fights and just violence.
CAIN: So, did you—
VOTO: And that had nothing to do with schools, this is just the neighborhood now.
CAIN: This is just your neighborhood now?
VOTO: Yeah, now, I’m still young, I’m probably not even a teenager—but it was all centered
around the housing projects. It still happens to this day. You hear about it. Like Charlestown,
there’s always problems.
CAIN: Mm-hmm. So in your neighborhood you really didn’t find that any violence started as a
result of the busing or anything, did you?
VOTO: No. No, I don’t think it had anything to do with busing. I just think they just saw it as
outsiders coming in. It would be like any kind of outsider who came in. You’d be an outsider
and you’d be tested. But they had to leave and, I mean, I know a really good person, if I could
get in touch with you to interview and he really went through it because he’s African American,
and this guy—and he’s one of those guys, he’s from East Boston, and he’ll always be that. He’s
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a really good guy. And he would tell us stories about what it was like when his family moved in
and things people would say and do to him, and he’s a really nice guy. People have (inaudible).
It took years and years before they can integrate the neighborhood again. Now, if you look at
East Boston, it’s predominantly minority, which that wasn’t happening in the ‘70s and ‘80s. It
was like—it was really, We’re going to keep people out, we’re going to keep people out. I mean,
they fought an airport—to keep an airport out, people. When it came to fighting against—“We
don’t want people to move in”. And that’s what was going on. Now it’s diverse, it’s a diverse
neighborhood. Really diverse.
CAIN: So as time went on, did you find that—obviously, you didn’t have a real first-hand
feeling of any dissent with the busing because you chose to go to a school later on that was a
peaceful environment. But did you find that anything changed over the years, for better or
worse, because of the busing in your neighborhood? Did you find that anything changed? You
know, like people that were against it in your neighborhood—not necessarily you but—or for
it—did they change their minds as things happened or things went on?
VOTO: (pauses to think) Some people did. Some people never liked it and the people that
didn’t like it were the ones who sent their kids to private schools.
CAIN: So from your first-hand witnessing, you saw that basically anybody that didn’t like it,
you saw pretty much everybody pulling out—
VOTO: They went to the parochial schools. Even in a poor neighborhood, there’s a class
system, and the class system existed. The poorer you were, the less likely you were to go to the
parochial schools and that’s just the bottom line. There’s nothing you can do. When all you
have is all you have, you become resourceful and you adjust to it. What would be the point if my
mother and father couldn’t send me to a parochial school, but then they’re telling me they don’t
like what’s going on in this school? They have to make the best situations, say, The only way
you can get out, and not just getting out of the school, is to get out of the neighborhood and make
something of yourself—is to get an education. And that’s all they could do. They didn’t have
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the money, they didn’t have any other resources, we didn’t have a parent or a relative that would
sign for us to go—we didn’t have that, and a lot of people didn’t have that. Come on, I don’t
think they were going to the parochial schools for the Catholic education.
CAIN: Right.
VOTO: I mean these people, they weren’t going to church on Sundays, and the education is just
as good. I’ll match whatever I got from my education—as I went on in high school, I did
transfer to a private school on my own, because it was my choice, my choice. Because I thought
I’d have a better chance at getting into a college. But once again, I chose to go—I went to school
in Lynn, which is a diverse community—I wanted diversity. I went to an all-boys school for one
year and I hated it. I couldn’t stand it. So I left.
CAIN: Mm-hmm.
VOTO: So you could tell, the people that didn’t like it, did it—without saying, “I don’t like it,”
they don’t have to say whether they like it or not. They just—they did it. People that didn’t like
it and said it, are the people that you would see on TV. They’re telling you—because they can’t
do anything, they can’t do anything.
CAIN: So you found living in East Boston that it was one of the more peaceful neighborhoods
per se, as to, basically, if they didn’t like it—they went to parochial schools.
VOTO: They went to parochial schools, yeah.
CAIN: So do you think because of that, that’s why there wasn’t that much violence or upset in
your area?
VOTO: Yeah. Yup. That’s true. “Let the city send people wherever they want; they can put
them in this neighborhood, but we’re not sending our kids to those schools.” That was the
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mentality of a lot of people, or they would just move out of the neighborhood, move into the next
town, which would be a town like Winthrop, which is the next town over. Small town.
CAIN: So, as you—you went from middle school where this first happened, and then you went
to the magnet school. Did you develop any strong feelings that you had towards a side, as to this
is—“It’s good that they’re integrating these kids through busing,” or “No, I don’t like it”? Did
you develop any strong feelings?
VOTO: I didn’t think about it. You don’t have—when you’re that age even in high school—
you can talk to the top high schools students. Yeah, they may be book smart, but they don’t have
wisdom. It took me years and years later as an adult to see that when I go to certain places,
certain neighborhoods in the city, I go into—I’ve been all over the world. I’ve been in Africa,
I’ve been the only white person in a situation where there’s Asians or blacks or Hispanics, and
I’m not intimidated and I feel comfortable and I adjust to the situation. Whereas I see a lot of
people, they get very nervous when they’re in a situation that they’re not comfortable with their
surroundings. But at that age, you don’t know. It’s tough.
I bet though when you talk to the older people—I’m not talking about older students; like the
teachers, people that were really there, they’ll have an opinion. They’ll say, “It worked,” “It
didn’t work for me”—because I don’t know what they were trying to accomplish, all I know is
that I was put into a situation, and mine was a little bit different. I wasn’t the person going on
the bus. People on the buses were coming in. I chose what I wanted to choose. You’re going to
hear all different stories. You’ll hear a different story. I remember, they’d give you a form and
you’d pick what school you’d want to go to and my parents—I loved them and everything—but
they weren’t educated and they [said], Oh whatever you want to do. As long as you get an—
study, study, study. You’ve got to learn, you’ve got to learn.
CAIN: So now that you’re at your age now, do you find that you’ve learned a great deal from
your youth, with going to the schools that you did?
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VOTO: Oh yeah, definitely. You know, people talk—they talk a good game like they’re out for
diversity and this and that. But if you look at where most people live, they want to live in a
suburb, they want to be with only this kind of person. It doesn’t matter—that’s what they want.
They’ll say, Oh yeah, well why don’t you live in a neighborhood like that? I knew. I grew up in
a neighborhood that was—like I said, it was one way and then it switched, and I stayed there. I
didn’t leave. Go to a neighborhood like Dorchester; very diverse neighborhood. Huge
neighborhood. People lived there for life. They could say, “I want to leave.” Some people do
leave; they may want to live in Scituate or something like that, but, people say they want things
but they really don’t. Action is the best thing, you know?
CAIN: So exactly what things made you look different—just more that you should try to just go
out in the world?
VOTO: I honestly believe that from being exposed at a young age to difference—me being the
type of person that—like I said, I’ve been in a lot of different countries. And I grew up and
when I do look back, I say, “Whoa, here I am, standing on a hill in South America,” and I say to
myself, “I’m just a guy from East Boston.” But if I was close-minded, I might not have taken
that trip. But I think that it’s because of all of the years of having diversity—real diversity. I’ve
definitely grown. I was always curious about the other person, because the other person was
always there, you know?
CAIN: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
VOTO: If two different people walked in the room, it’s only human nature—if you don’t have
the ability to say, “Well maybe I might be interested in what this person next to me is going to
say,” then you’re not doing yourself any good at all. So I learned to be able to be around people,
and adapt to my surroundings. It doesn’t happen a lot in the United States.
CAIN: So you definitely contribute the fact that you met different ethnicities in your middle
school when they started coming in through the busing, and then when you went to the magnet
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school—because you were young—you started at a young age—you think that that was most
important in—
VOTO: Yes. Definitely.
CAIN: And if it had started later—
VOTO: If I was a teenager, my mind probably could have been made up by—people are
impressionable, you know?
CAIN: Yeah.
VOTO: People will do whatever they’re pushed to do, or they look up to adults, and sometimes
they’re looking up to the wrong people. Come on, when I was a kid I thought that you could dig
a hole to go into China. But then when I first met someone who was Chinese, I realized—I
looked on the map and said, “You can’t dig a hole and get to China!” You know what I’m
saying? A lot of people have never, at that point, they never had seen anything except what they
knew, and you’re looking at your own people. Come on, Irish and Italian neighborhoods, there
was a class system. It was totally segregated. It’s the same way in Chinese neighborhoods,
there’s segregation. In their own neighborhoods there’s segregation, in Hispanic neighborhoods
and in African American neighborhoods. It’s a fact that there is this group, and then there’s that
group. And by throwing everything up—you get a pot, if you just keep everything warm and
don’t mix it up—you know, you got soup, what happens? It starts to burn. Once you mix it up,
it makes for a good stew.
CAIN: I like that. So although you weren’t yourself—because you were too young, so young,
and because you didn’t find yourself directly related with, per se, the busing, now when you just
know about it and hear about it, and you think about all of Boston, do you think that it was a
good thing that they did it?
VOTO: I think it is, yeah.
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CAIN: You do?
VOTO: Yeah.
CAIN: Simply because of the integration of the cultures you’d say?
VOTO: Yeah. Not only should they bus to the city of Boston, but they should do it Greater
Boston-wise. Get kids from Newton and ship them into the inner city. You know, I played
football, I played baseball. We’d go to Newton, we’d play them and we’d hear them say, “Those
kids are carrying knives!” We weren’t carrying knives! We didn’t have to carry knives. We
would just beat you up and that was the bottom line! We were hardened kids, but people say
things and that’s just not true.
CAIN: And if—
VOTO: People probably felt the same way about them. People coming into—when I say them,
I mean people coming into a neighborhood that’s different, whether it be—I don’t know what it
was like. I don’t know what it was like at that young age but I know that the people that I know
that were bused into the minority neighborhoods, they had issues, just like they had over in the
white neighborhoods, and I think it was always revenge. “Oh, this person this.” “Oh, when they
come over to Southie High, we’re gonna do this.” I don’t know. I’d like to hear what it was like
from going into those neighborhoods because I don’t know because I wasn’t there.
CAIN: So you can only say that you think it was good because based on your own experience, it
was a great experience for you?
VOTO: Yeah. Someone that was bused out into a big neighborhood, like a white person going
to a black neighborhood, might say, “I didn’t like it.” I stayed in my own neighborhood. I had
my safety net around me. I had a safety net. I felt good in my own neighborhood but within
there it was totally different. My school day was different—it was totally different. I could tell
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my friend, “Oh yeah, I met this girl today.” “Oh, what’s her name?” “Oh, her name is Yung
Chim We,” or something like that—whatever a Chinese name was. Oh man, you know?
Whereas my friend in the other school was like, “Oh, I talked to Kelly today,” you know what
I’m saying? There’s a big difference.
CAIN: Yeah, yeah.
VOTO: And my friends do say I’m a little bit different then them. And I can go up to anybody
and start a conversation. Culturally, I know certain cultures. Like know that a Chinese name
means something. When you meet someone who’s Chinese, it means something. I wouldn’t
have known that!
CAIN: Yeah. If it hadn’t had happened.
VOTO: You think that they name us—okay, you’re Jared, I’m Anthony, but their name when
they name them—it means something. Which I would have never known that.
CAIN: And obviously you made plenty of friends all across the spectrum when you went
throughout your schooling.
VOTO: Yeah.
CAIN: By having that experience.
VOTO: Names. I can remember some of the names of some of these people. And I do run into
them occasionally here and there in the city—in a city of what? Six hundred thousand people?
It’s very common to run into people. I can be seen all over the city. You never know where you
could see me, and people have seen me and said, “What are you doing over here?” And I say,
“Well, I’m just hanging out, I’m getting some food over here.” Like Saturday, I’ll be in
Chinatown eating dim sum with a friend of ours—my wife’s friend, who’s Chinese. And my
wife’s from New Hampshire and she never had dim sum. I said, “Oh, I’ll take you for dim sum.
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You need to eat dim sum, it’s good!” So now we’re going with her Chinese friend. Have you
ever had dim sum?
CAIN: No, what is it?
VOTO: See, you have to go for dim sum. I’m going to take you for dim sum!
CAIN: (laughs) Okay.
VOTO: Yeah, I’m going to take you. I’m going to email you and say, “Oh, we’re going for dim
sum!”
CAIN: (laughs) Alright.
VOTO: You sit at the tables, and they’ll ask you, “Do you want to sit together?” I’d say, “No, I
don’t want to sit together, I want to sit with the Chinese family,” or whoever’s in there at the
time, and you sit at the table and it could be a Chinese couple—another Chinese couple with
their kid and you eat dim sum. They say, “Oh, you want chopsticks?” I say, “Sure, I’ll eat with
the chopsticks,” and women push around this cart and—what look like little dumpling things—
I’m trying to explain to you—like dumplings, like Peking ravioli. They might have prawn or
something. And you just point, and then she takes it and you get a card and she punches your
card, puts it on the plate—and you can have, like, five or six different things on your plate, you
see what I’m saying?
CAIN: Yeah. Yeah.
VOTO: Instead of having, “I only want to eat meat and potatoes,” but the thing is, you don’t
know what’s coming by on the cart. It isn’t on the menu. And you look and see, Do I like that?
It’s definitely a good place if you want to go and impress someone. Like a girl, you want to go
and take her on a date, and she’s never done it, she’ll say—and if she thinks that this is dumb or
[she’ll say], “Eww,” or something like that, then that’s not the girl you want to go with because
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you want someone who’s open-minded. And my son’s ten years old and he’s been to dim sum a
dozen times. We go—we like it there.
CAIN: So obviously it seems like—would you say that this—going through younger schooling
days—do you think that it was one of the best experiences you’ve had, or—?
VOTO: Yeah. Definitely. When I was in that magnet school, so I was in the eight grade, and
they’d let you try out for varsity baseball and I was good enough. I made the team, and they
said, Okay, we’re going to play you on JV [junior varsity]. There was a lot of kids on the team
but they’re all from different neighborhoods. So as time went on, now I’m in high school, I get a
call from one of the kids I played with—he was on a team in Roxbury. There was me, and then
my friend who was a pitcher, and he said, “I want you to play for us. You’re going to play on
our team.” And most of the team was black—we were these white guys. He said, “Oh, you’re
going to have to take the train,” because we didn’t have the car—we couldn’t afford a car. So
we took the train, we get off at Dudley Station, and—he was worried about us; he was worried
that people would give us a hard time, but we were two white kids with baseball uniforms on and
people didn’t really hassle us that much. I don’t think we—we never had an issue. But I would
have never met them, I would have never played baseball—I played baseball all over the city. I
played in the Park League system, and this guy had a team. He tracked me down and I met him
at that school, and he was one of the best players on the team. So I made friends all over the
city.
CAIN: Did you?
VOTO: Yep.
CAIN: Obviously, you wouldn’t take any of it back.
VOTO: No, no. It was a good thing. (laughs) At 600,000 people, that’s really only a small
neighborhood—the city of Boston.
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CAIN: Yeah, that’s true. So, is there anything else you want to say about—
VOTO: No, thank you for the interview, and I hope that I was a little bit enlightening and
humorous.
CAIN: Absolutely.
VOTO: And wherever you go with it, good luck. But I think it was a success. I hear a lot of
intellectuals say, Oh, the whole busing thing! But for me, it opened my eyes and it gave me the
sense that I can get out. I have a chance to get out. I can do something different. Every day, I
grew up across from the harbor, and I see buildings, skyscrapers—now, there’s significantly
more—and I’d look and I’d say, “Wow. That’s the American dream right there. That’s the piece
of apple pie. And I want my piece.” And I believe this is because I was surrounded by different
things. If I was just going one way—if you look at a white wall all the time like I’m looking at
right now, it’s pretty boring. Like, you eat your eggs the same way—that’s pretty boring. It’s
good to have eggs Benedict or over-easy.
CAIN: Yeah. Good parallel.
VOTO: That’s it!
CAIN: (laughs) Alright, thank you Anthony.
END OF INTERVIEW
Page 29 of 29
�
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Title
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers, 1926-2001
Subject
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Boston (Mass.)<br />Legislators--United States <br />Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001<br /> South Boston (Boston, Mass.)<br />Legislators. Massachusetts<br />Politicians--Massachusetts
Description
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The paper of Congressman John Joseph Moakley are housed at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.<br /><br />The sample of items from the Moakley papers exhibited on this site are used courtesy of the Moakley Archive and Institute. The full collection documents Moakley’s early life, his World War II service, his terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate, and his service in Congress. The majority of the collection covers Moakley’s congressional career from 1973 until 2001. A <a title="Moakley papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> the the collection is available online. <br /><br />The collection is open for research. Access to materials may be restricted based on their condition. Please consult the <a title="Moakley Archive" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/moakley" target="_blank">Moakley Archive and Institute</a>, Suffolk University for more information.
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Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001.
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers (MS 100), 1926-2001. View the <a title="John Joseph Moakley Papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
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Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
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1926-2001
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Items highlighted from the Moakley papers in this online collection are made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. <br /><br />Copyright is retained by the creators of items in the Moakley papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
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<div>
<div>
<p>Moakley Papers: Moakley Oral History Project<br />Enemies of War Collection (MS 104)<br /> Jamaica Plain Committee on Central America Collection (MS 103)</p>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
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Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University.
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300.7 cubic feet (521 boxes)
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English
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Text
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MS 100
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Boston, Mass.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
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Cain, Jared
Interviewee
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Voto, Anthony
Location
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Suffolk University Law School, Boston, Mass.
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See PDF transcript
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MP3 audio file
Note: Original audio recording is available for listening at the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
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45:06
Time Summary
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Mr. Voto’s background p. 3 (00:14)
The beginning of busing p. 8 (07:00)
Education at magnet schools p. 9 (08:50)
Educational values p. 11 (10:40)
Schools in East Boston p. 11 (12:00)
Friends’ involvement with busing p. 12 (12:45)
Mr. Voto’s school experiences p. 13 (14:05)
Media and violence in East Boston p. 18 (23:00)
The importance of diversity p. 22 (30:00)
Final reflections p. 29 (44:00)
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Title
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Transcript of Oral History Interview of Anthony Voto
Subject
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Boston Public Schools
Busing for school integration
East Boston (Boston, Mass.)
Magnet schools
Description
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In this interview, Anthony Voto, who grew up in East Boston, Massachusetts, in the 1960s and '70s, reflects on the impact of Judge W. Arthur Garrity's 1974 decision in the case of Morgan v. Hennigan, which required some students to be bused between Boston neighborhoods with the goal of creating racial balance in the public schools. He discusses his experiences attending a magnet school; the importance of diversity in schools; and what he sees as the positive long-term outcomes of Garrity's decision.
Creator
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Source
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Moakley Oral History Project
Publisher
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Date
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February 15, 2005
Contributor
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Kintz, Laura
Rights
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Copyright Suffolk University. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
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Moakley Oral History Project: http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/collections/show/1
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PDF (Computer file format)
Language
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English
Type
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Oral history interview transcript
Identifier
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OH-039
-
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PDF Text
Text
Oral History Interview of Kirsten Alexander (OH-040)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Oral History Interview of Kirsten Alexander
Interview Date: February 22, 2005
Interviewed by: Laura Muller, Suffolk University student from History 364: Oral History
Citation: Alexander, Kirsten. Interviewed by Laura Muller. John Joseph Moakley Oral History
Project OH-040. 22 February 2005. Transcript and audio available. John Joseph Moakley
Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Copyright Information: Copyright © 2005, Suffolk University.
Interview Summary
Kirsten Alexander, who grew up in Jamaica Plain and Brookline, Massachusetts, during the
1970s, discusses the racial climate in the Boston Public Schools during that time period. The
interview covers her family’s community activism and support of desegregation; the experiences
of her adopted brother, who was African American; the racism that she saw in some of the
Boston Public Schools; the importance of living in a diverse society; and her hopes for the future
of the Boston Public Schools.
Subject Headings
Alexander, Kirsten, 1969Boston (Mass.)
Boston Latin School (Mass.)
Busing for school integration
Morgan v. Hennigan (379 F. Supp. 410)
Table of Contents
Ms. Alexander’s background
p. 3 (00:20)
Her African American adopted brother
p. 4 (02:41)
Early school experiences
p. 5 (03:45)
Her parents’ activism and views
p. 7 (06:15)
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
1
�Violence and racism on buses and in the schools
p. 8 (11:19)
Her feelings and reflections
p. 12 (19:49)
Interview transcript begins on next page
Page 2 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
This interview took place on February 22, 2005, at Suffolk University Law School’s
John Joseph Moakley Law Library.
Interview Transcript
LAURA MULLER: Today is February 22, 2005, and we’re here at the Suffolk Law School
doing an interview for the Moakley Archives Oral History Project. The interview is with Kirsten
Alexander. Kirsten, would you just tell us a little bit about yourself, where you’re from, that
kind of thing?
KIRSTEN ALEXANDER: Sure, I’m originally from Boston, I’m thirty-six years old, and I’m a
marketing and editorial consultant. I’ve had my own business for about four years, and I moved
back to Boston in 1995, after being away for school and graduate school.
MULLER: So you grew up in Boston?
ALEXANDER: Mm-hmm.
MULLER: What neighborhoods did you live in?
ALEXANDER: Well, let’s see, when I was about—just a few months old, my parents moved to
Roxbury and we lived there until our house was being torn down for urban renewal. My parents
got bought out and bought a house in Jamaica Plain [JP]. My parents got divorced and my dad
moved to Brookline eventually, so I spent some time there and ended up high school there, or
finished high school, but stayed in JP. I now live in Dorchester.
MULLER: Okay. Where did you start school? What was the first school that you attended?
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
3
�OH-040 Transcript
ALEXANDER: I started at the Dennis C. Haley School in Roslindale, which was a—I didn’t
realize it at the time, but I found out a couple of years ago that it was a math and science magnet
school.1
MULLER: What neighborhood were you living in when the Garrity decision2 that required
forced busing was made?
ALEXANDER: We were living in Jamaica Plain.
MULLER: Did you live in—you didn’t live in the same neighborhood for your whole
education.
ALEXANDER: Well, I did—I did.
MULLER: You did.
ALEXANDER: Until I left Boston.
MULLER: Okay. So the first school was the math and science magnet school. What other
schools did you go to?
ALEXANDER: Then I got into the advanced placement classes and they made you jump around
for those. For fifth grade—so I was at the Haley from kindergarten through fourth grade, and
then at the Dennis C. Haley—sorry, the James Hennigan for fifth grade, then at the Martin
1
Magnet schools are schools offering special courses not available in the regular school curriculum and designed,
often as an aid to school desegregation, to attract students on a voluntary basis from all parts of a school district
without reference to the usual attendance zone rules. (Definition from the Library of Congress.)
2
The Garrity decision refers to the June 21, 1974, opinion filed by Judge W. Arthur Garrity in the case of Tallulah
Morgan et al. v. James Hennigan et al. (379 F. Supp. 410). Judge Garrity ruled that the Boston School Committee
had “intentionally brought about and maintained racial segregation” in the Boston Public Schools. When the school
committee did not submit a workable desegregation plan as the opinion had required, the court established a plan
that called for some students to be bused from their own neighborhoods to attend schools in other neighborhoods,
with the goal of creating racial balance in the Boston Public Schools. (See
http://www.lib.umb.edu/archives/garrity2.html)
Page 4 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
Luther King for sixth grade, also the advanced work classes, and then at Boston Latin School for
seventh, eighth and ninth grade. Then I left to go to Brookline High School.
MULLER: So you chose those schools? Well, not chose them, but they were based on the fact
that you were in the advanced placement program. That’s why you—
ALEXANDER: Right. The reason we ended up—my brother is three months younger than I
am, and he’s African American. He’s adopted. And I’m white, and we had a very hard time
finding a school that would take both of us. Originally we wanted to go to the Trotter School,
which was where all the kids on our street were going, but when we signed up they decided that
our race would be assigned based on the race of the parents. Then when my brother got there,
they said, No, he’s not white, so he can’t come here. So we had to scramble and find another
school. I think I was at the Haley at that point. So he went to a neighborhood school for a week
and then ended up at the Haley. But we couldn’t go to the Trotter because both of us couldn’t
get in and my parents obviously wanted us to be together.
MULLER: Yeah. And that was your mother—or both parents—
ALEXANDER: And my dad.
MULLER: How old were you and what grade were you in when busing started?
ALEXANDER: I was five and starting first grade.
MULLER: So it was at the very beginning. Were you bused as part of the program? Were you
bused to another school?
ALEXANDER: The magnet schools, everybody was bused to anyway, so we had already been
bused for kindergarten. I was bused all throughout my school career, but it wasn’t like they said,
Sorry, you can’t go to this school anymore, you have to go to a different school. But we
certainly were on a bus.
Page 5 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
MULLER: Do you remember what the first day of school was like after they started busing?
ALEXANDER: No, I mean, there was—we had a fantastic principle, Mr. Barry, and he knew
every kid in the school. Our school was sort of in a weird place. It’s not in a residential
neighborhood. It’s right on the highway. It’s not a place where people would go and
demonstrate, necessarily. So I don’t remember anything special about the first day of school. I
was probably more excited just because it was the first day of school, generally. (laughs)
MULLER: Did you have neighborhood friends that were going to that school, too?
ALEXANDER: No.
MULLER: You didn’t?
ALEXANDER: No, they all went to the Trotter School, which was tough on us because all of
our friends were going to a different school.
MULLER: Did they experience any busing or anything like that that you know of?
ALEXANDER: Well, we all did to the same degree. The Trotter was also a magnet school. It
was an arts and music magnet school.
MULLER: Did you lose contact with any of your friends because of going to a different school
than them?
ALEXANDER: No, we were such little kids, and they lived on our street or were close family
friends so we still saw them.
MULLER: So you had a brother who was in the school system, too.
Page 6 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
ALEXANDER: Right.
MULLER: He’s the only other sibling?
ALEXANDER: No, then I have a younger sister who’s five years younger, and she ended up at
the Trotter when she entered the public schools.
MULLER: Was the experience hard on your brother, do you think?
ALEXANDER: Yeah. Not so much at the Haley, but once we were at different schools, and
certainly once he got to Latin School, his experience as an African American boy in a white
family was extremely hard on him. The racism that he experienced was very different from what
I experienced.
MULLER: How did your parents feel about the busing issue, considering that they had a
racially mixed family?
ALEXANDER: Well, they certainly felt it was important to have racially mixed schools. We
knew Charlie Glenn,3 who was one of the people who wrote the desegregation plan, so our
neighborhood I think was pretty supportive of desegregation. And my parents went to
information sessions to find out what was going on and I know my mother was really angry at
the behavior of a lot of the other parents who would march into meetings and disrupt them.
Obviously the attacks on children in buses were really scary for us so our family avoided certain
neighborhoods in the city for a very long time. We didn’t go to South Boston; we didn’t go to
Charlestown because we felt that it wasn’t safe.
MULLER: Were those places you had been familiar with before the situation?
3
Charles Glenn is a professor at Boston University who from 1979 to 1991 served as director of urban education
and equity efforts for the Massachusetts Department of Education where he oversaw the administration of state
funds for magnet schools and desegregation and was responsible for the nation's first state bilingual education
mandates. (from the Boston University website, http://www.bu.edu/uni/faculty/profiles/glenn.html)
Page 7 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
ALEXANDER: Not really. We’d done a little bit of tourist stuff. We’d gone to Castle Island
in South Boston, we’d gone to the Bunker Hill Monument, to the [USS] Constitution. The only
other times that I remember going to those neighborhoods when I was a kid was when we had
swim meets, and that was always a group of us.
MULLER: Were they [her parents] involved in anything outside of just the meetings and things
like that? Did they get involved in any groups in the community?
ALEXANDER: Yeah, they were very active in the community. That was why they moved to
Roxbury. They were—my dad was working on Model Cities, I think as a staff person, while he
was in graduate school. I think my mother was on the board, of maybe Model Cities or
something else like that. They were very active in the community, and still are very active in the
community.
MULLER: What is Model Cities?
ALEXANDER: It was a program that brought urban planning into the neighborhoods so that
community residents were coming up with the vision for what they wanted for their
neighborhoods rather than it coming from the top down.
MULLER: So that played into their opinions of the busing and desegregation?
ALEXANDER: Yeah, and it also—I mean, it’s very strange for a white family to move to
Roxbury in 1969. It was a volatile time, but they actually felt safer in Roxbury than where they
had been living in Cambridge because they knew a lot of people and people knew them, and it’s
true, we were fine.
MULLER: Do you think they would have felt the same way if they hadn’t had a child who
could have been a target for some kind of hatred?
Page 8 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
ALEXANDER: (pauses) I think it was certainly more personal, but they were—(pauses)—they
were really working for social justice, so I don’t think they would have felt dramatically
different. And the parents in our neighborhood, it seemed like, felt the same way, even when
they just had white kids. So we had a lot of friends with interracial families, particularly through
adoption.
MULLER: So there wasn’t really any tension in your neighborhood?
ALEXANDER: I don’t think so. There was one family on our block that we—we lived on a
tiny dead end street, and one family sent their kids to parochial school. I don’t think they were
supportive of busing. Everybody else sent their kids to the public schools, at least in the
beginning and at least with our generation of kids, and my sister’s generation I mean, it’s only
five years later, but several of them ended up in private school.
MULLER: Did your parents’ feelings influence your feelings? Did you basically feel the same
way they did?
ALEXANDER: Well, I lived through it as a student, so I think it’s different than as a parent.
I’ve been to a number of these busing events and most of the people there, almost all of the
people there, have been the parents, and they still have this huge amount of resentment and anger
at what was quote/unquote “done” to them. I don’t think that’s true for the kids. I think it’s a
very different thing that we went through. For me, I don’t know how much of what happened to
my brother, in terms of racism, we shared with our parents. In that sense it was different. But I
certainly agreed that busing and the goals of busing were positive.
MULLER: Did you witness or experience any violence being on a bus, going to school
everyday?
ALEXANDER: Yeah. When I was in sixth grade at the King School we were driving through
Roxbury and a kid, a black kid, actually, threw a rock at our bus and it went through the window,
shattered the window right in front of me. It was a really sunny day, and I remember the shards
Page 9 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
of glass landing on my friend Tommy’s head. He had an Afro at the time. It was this sparkly,
almost diamonds, all over his head. We had all ducked. It was terrifying. It’s funny, his mother
doesn’t remember that happening. She insisted that it never happened, but I have such a clear
memory of it. I knew at the time it wasn’t us per se, it was just sort of residual anger, and that’s
what you do when you see a school bus, you throw rocks at it. Which is a horrible thing to have
happen.
I think what was more difficult for me were the assumptions that if I was white, I was racist.
That happened to me once. I sat down on the bus next to a white kid instead of a black kid, and
the black kid said, “Oh, you’re a racist because you wouldn’t sit next to me.” And the white kid
that I sat down next to was a neighbor and he said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Her brother’s black. She’s not a racist.” And the guy was like, “Oh, okay, sorry.”
Or the racist behavior by teachers, particularly, or actually only, at Latin School. The
institutional racism that I saw at the King School where we were racially mixed advanced
placement kids who were only there for a year—the rest of the kids were stuck in this horrific
school that had a gym where the boards were poking up. You couldn’t run around in the gym;
you would trip over the floor. No space to play outside except what was covered—the parking
lot. Staff that didn’t care very much for them. You got the sense that they were just being
written off. We were the special kids, we were gonna go to Latin School, we were gonna do
well, we were gonna go to college. And we were white.
MULLER: So you noticed the differences between—
ALEXANDER: Absolutely.
MULLER: I can imagine that having an effect on the way you saw it. Did you deal with any
blatant opposition to the way you feel from people who were against it? Did you ever have any
confrontations or anything like that with anyone?
Page 10 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
ALEXANDER: (pauses) No, I think by the time I really met a lot of other kids who were
maybe from families who opposed busing it was at Latin School, and I think they knew enough
not to talk about it. I think a lot of people, a lot of kids left. The people who were really
opposed to it, they just left Boston, or they left the public schools. So there was actually
probably a lot less anger within the schools themselves than you might think.
There were racist incidents. Latin School was heavily Irish Catholic, and I’m not Irish or
Catholic, and that could feel intimidating sometimes, like around St. Patrick’s Day. There was a
lot of pressure to wear green, and Irish pride. Some of that to me represented the bad stuff that
had happened earlier. I never felt comfortable with that. I saw kids saying anti-Semitic things.
You certainly heard racist things. I think I once got slapped by an African American girl in gym
class for really no reason, except maybe that I was white. I don’t know.
MULLER: Do you remember how old you were when that happened?
ALEXANDER: Seventh or eighth grade, I think. I mean, the school system still had all of this
residual—(pauses)—racism. Blacks could get in in higher numbers, but they didn’t get any extra
help. Literally my brother went up to the teacher after class and said, “I didn’t understand this.
Can you help me?” and he said, “If you didn’t understand it the first time, you don’t belong
here.” Just no support.
MULLER: Whereas a white student, they would help them.
ALEXANDER: I don’t know, but certainly it wasn’t encouraging. You had lower test scores to
get in, so you probably needed extra help, but there wasn’t any. And so as a result, by senior
year, there were very few African American students left.
MULLER: Do you think that was as a result of the administration, or do you think it was just
the teachers personally having issues?
Page 11 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
ALEXANDER: I think it was mostly the teachers. Teaching in Latin School is a plum job.
You get there because you have a lot of seniority, and you don’t want to see kids fighting, so you
go to Latin. But a lot of the teachers, to me, seemed very burnt out. They didn’t have that spark,
or they just didn’t care that much. They weren’t—maybe they had started out as good teachers
but they weren’t particularly good teachers anymore. (laughs) Anything that was going to be
extra effort they didn’t want anything to do with.
But we also had an instance where my parents went in for a parent-teacher meeting, and they
were sitting in the room when the teachers were talking about my brother. One of them used the
n-word, not realizing that my white parents were my black brother’s parents and were of course
shocked when my dad stood up and confronted the teacher. That was sort of the feeling at the
school at the time.
MULLER: How did the teacher react to that?
ALEXANDER: Oh, they were mortified, I think. They should have been mortified at what they
said, but they were more mortified that the parent was there.
MULLER: Do you think the anger on the part of the teachers was—could be contributed to
busing? Do you think that made it worse? Or do you think—?
ALEXANDER: Well, I heard teachers talk about how they were there the first day at South
Boston High School, or Charlestown High School, and they’d been through a lot and I don’t
think most of them were racist, but they certainly were angry at what had happened to the school
system because there had been enormous changes. At that point, they were close to retirement
and they just wanted to end their days teaching as soon as they could. I think there was, like
everywhere else in society, there were some who were racist, or racist to some degree, whether
they knew it or not.
MULLER: Did you notice any media around ever during your schooling?
Page 12 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
ALEXANDER: Not really. We were out in Roslindale (laughs), so it didn’t really come to us, I
think. We had a quiet school that was integrated. My brother and I were not the only siblings
that were black and white, for instance. There were lots of kids of all different backgrounds who
wanted to be there because it was a good school. (inaudible)
MULLER: Do you think the whole program was a good solution to try and end the de facto
segregation that existed?
ALEXANDER: I think—was it a good solution? I don’t think there was much choice at the
time. The city council and the school committee really didn’t do anything, so it ended up falling
back into the lap of the court, and they came up with a plan that—the plan they came up with
was the plan they came up with. There was a short period of time to implement it, and it didn’t
go very well. People were upset. But I think—I don’t know how the schools are today as much,
but I certainly had a good experience there. It was integrated. It made a big impact on my life
being in integrated schools. (pauses) A really big impact on my life.
MULLER: Do you think it had the same effect on your siblings? Was there any sort of
evolution in the process that you saw, given that your sister was five years younger than you? Do
you think you had the same sort of experiences?
ALEXANDER: (pauses) Because my brother and I were the same age—I mean, we were like
twins—I saw what happened to him much closer than she [her younger sister] did. But in terms
of being in a school that was integrated I think we had similar experiences. It allowed us to get
to know other kids as kids, with all sorts of backgrounds. I learned about kids with different
religions. Like Jehovah’s Witnesses. We had a girl who was a Jehovah’s Witness, and she
couldn’t participate in any of the holiday celebrations we had. So that was an eye-opener for me
because I didn’t know anything about that. Even meeting friends who were Catholic and hearing
about confirmation, and going home and saying, “Why can’t I get a confirmation?” (laughs) I
think those were all really important. And then knowing kids who were—who came from
immigrant families from all over. Kids who spoke Spanish at home, kids who spoke Russian at
Page 13 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
home. And then also just kids from all the different neighborhoods, just mixing it up. It was
great.
MULLER: So that, sort of, end of the whole busing/desegregation is what you and your parents
hoped would be achieved?
ALEXANDER: Yeah, I think we all benefit by living in a desegregated and really blended
society. We’re becoming more and more that way, and the more of us that are comfortable with
it, the better off we are. (pauses) I worry about the trends of people who have the means living
in communities that are very isolated and just hold people like themselves, who look like
themselves, who have the same kind of backgrounds. I think it’s kind of stifling, really.
And I’ve made a point of living in communities where my brother can come to visit me and I
don’t have to worry about the police stopping him on the street. I saw that in Brookline when I
moved in with my dad in tenth grade because I wasn’t happy at Latin School and went to
Brookline High School, which was worlds better for me. But the first day of school at the end of
the day I said, “There’s something weird.” And I just couldn’t put my finger on it at first and
then I realized that there had only been a very small number of black kids in my classes, and
mostly the same kids. And I was in the advanced classes, or the honors classes, or whatever, and
it wasn’t until I went into classes that were not tracked, hard classes that there were more
minority kids. I just felt really weird, like this just isn’t right.
MULLER: Do you think this had something to do with the fact that schools weren’t racially
mixed, and they weren’t—
ALEXANDER: Well, Brookline is one of the Metco4 schools, so it has quite a few students
from Boston who are minorities, but they weren’t being placed into the honors classes. And you
can debate why that was happening, but I don’t think it was because they were dumb. (laughs)
4
The Metco Program is a grant program funded by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is a voluntary program
intended to expand educational opportunities and reduce racial imbalance, by permitting students in certain cities to
attend public schools in other communities that have agreed to participate. (Taken from the Massachusetts
Department of Education website.)
Page 14 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
To me, I felt that school was an integrated place, and to be in a classroom that wasn’t integrated
just felt awkward to me.
MULLER: So you have a daughter who is very young.
ALEXANDER: Yes, she’s almost two.
MULLER: How do you feel about her education, and being educated in the Boston Public
Schools?
ALEXANDER: Well, it’s a tricky situation. I mean, you want what’s best for your kid, and
I’ve seen many people that I know have kids leave the city, sort of the trend. The assumption,
really. As soon as I got pregnant, people started asking me when I was moving. This isn’t—the
perception is that this isn’t a place to live if you’re middle class or wealthy, and you have kids.
Or you send them to private school or parochial school, but God forbid you should send them to
public schools. What a disaster [said sarcastically]. When in fact I’ve done enough work with
the schools that I know there are plenty of good schools. And I also know the schools that
people think are good, like Latin School, aren’t necessarily good, from firsthand experience.
If we stay in Boston, we will certainly look at the public schools for our daughter, who is
showing every indication of being really bright. I think now, just as it was then, the people who
understand the system, understand when the deadlines are and which schools are the good
schools, that they end up working the system pretty well, but it’s a lot of work. My mom
volunteered at our school, and then became a paid parent coordinator eventually when we were
little, and I can see that happening again with us.
I’ve also watched the charter school movement really closely and I volunteered with kids in one
of the charter schools, so I see that as a really promising development, even though it’s not the
liberal thing. I don’t really care, whatever is—it seems like the public schools in cities all over
the country have been deserted by the middle class and that the teachers unions are not
generating enough energy, and principals can’t get enough done to really make the changes that
Page 15 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
need to be done, but that charter schools and some private schools like the Epiphany School in
Dorchester have made huge strides with kids that in the public schools would have been written
off.
MULLER: What kind of work did you do with the public schools? Was it just volunteer work?
ALEXANDER: There’s a school right near where I live that needed community support for
some grants that it was doing and also for fairs and things like that, so I volunteered at the
science tables. We were giving out worms and seeds. The kids were planting seeds. Things like
that. Also I was on the committee to help raise some money for the school. And then through
my work, I work for a national children’s foundation. We met repeatedly with the
superintendent’s office with a parent organizing group called BPON [Boston Parent Organizing
Network], so we saw a lot about what was going on in the schools, talked to a lot of people
involved in those things. Then I track what’s going on with test scores, charter schools, all that
stuff.
MULLER: Have you worked with any children that are in the public schools? You said you
worked with some charter school kids. Do you know anything about their experiences in the
public schools?
ALEXANDER: Sure. There are several kids in the religious education program at our church
who are at Latin School now and other Boston Public Schools, so I’m teaching that program
right now. Actually, we’re doing oral histories. (laughs) So I talk with them about their
experiences, and their parents.
MULLER: Have any of them been bused, or—? Because they’re still doing it now.
ALEXANDER: Sure, I mean, this is a big gaping wound that is still really fresh for a lot of
people. (pauses) Yes, many of them have to take buses. (pauses) The busing term is so loaded
in a lot of ways. Do you call it desegregation, do you call it busing, is it forced busing, all of that
stuff. I think the reality is, until you have enough good schools in the neighborhoods, that people
Page 16 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
are going to want to get bused—in our neighborhood they finally built a couple new schools, but
they hadn’t built anything in years, and we have the most kids in the whole city. There was no
way for all of the Dorchester kids to go to school in Dorchester. There just isn’t any way.
MULLER: So you think it’s still hard for students today to deal with the kinds of things that
people were dealing with when you were in school?
ALEXANDER: Well, the schools have changed a lot. They’re so heavily minority now. A lot
of people who could afford to leave the system did, and so what you’re left with is, in most
cases, schools that don’t have a lot of parental involvement, or the parents need a lot of help
being involved. If you’re like our neighbors, and you come from Cape Verde, and you didn’t go
to school yourself, you don’t really know what to ask for. Versus if you’re my parents and you
have master’s degrees from Harvard. (laughs)
MULLER: So do you—?
ALEXANDER: You should push. (laughs)
MULLER: Do you think it’s too different to compare now to then?
ALEXANDER: (pauses) I think that so many people have written off the public schools that
it’s just a whole different animal now. A lot of white parents who try the public schools end up
in private schools eventually. Or they start off in parochial school and end up in Latin School.
It’s this shuffling of resources. I did actually visit one of the public schools for work. I was
interviewing a French teacher who had won an award, and sat in on her class in the first week of
school a couple years ago. She was fantastic. A wonderful teacher. But there weren’t enough
chairs in the classroom for all the kids to sit in. It was just shocking to me how many kids were
in that class. And the assumption was that there would be attrition and the kids would leave, but
what kind of message does that send to a child that you literally don’t have a seat?
Page 17 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
I think there were other things besides busing. Proposition 2 ½, I remember that very clearly,
when that happened, because all of a sudden we no longer were given pencils and paper. We had
to bring our own.
MULLER: So Proposition 2 ½ was to—?
ALEXANDER: It limited the amount of money the city could tax people on for services, for
property taxes, so immediately there were cuts in services all throughout the city. The redlining
that happened also had a big impact on people moving, to the point where I think people—white
people became afraid of black people moving into their school, moving into their neighborhood
because they figured that that meant their property values were going to decline and be erased.
It’s sort of layers on layers of things. There’s racism. I still hear it, my husband still hears it if
he goes to the bar, the white bar, or the white barber shop. He’ll hear the most atrocious things
said, to the point where he’s said to the proprietor, “I’m gonna leave, and I’m not gonna come
back, if I keep hearing this stuff.”
But I think there’s hope. I think the city in the last ten years since we’ve been back has changed
a lot. A lot of new people are there, a lot of young families are trying. If you get enough people,
then it’ll turn around.
MULLER: Are you glad that you came back after being away?
ALEXANDER: Oh, yeah. It’s been exciting to be part of the revitalization of Dorchester and
to see change happen. Not just in the physical space but in people’s brains. And to try to bring
back a positive look on the future rather than a beaten-down feeling about the past.
MULLER: Do you have any last, final comments you want to make about the issue?
ALEXANDER: I think the main lesson to be learned is that there has to be a lot of discussion
and a lot of community process, and that the government shouldn’t get in the way of that. And I
Page 18 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
don’t mean the federal government, I mean the city government, which definitely got in the way.
They knew this was coming, and they just didn’t want to deal with it. They didn’t want to put
their political heads on the line. That was a big mistake, so I hope that doesn’t happen again. I
think people learned from that.
MULLER: Yeah. So you want to sort of carry on the whole revitalization thing and you want
to keep your daughter involved.
ALEXANDER: Yes. I feel that—my daughter’s already been to rallies. (laughs) We were big
supporters of gay marriage, and we went down to the state house, and she was out there, you
know, a tiny little baby, she’s there holding a sign. (laughs) I think it’s important to stand up for
what you believe in and follow through, and I’m proud of my parents for sending us to the public
schools even when it was tough. Not that they had a lot of choice, because they didn’t have a lot
of money back then. (laughs) (pauses) I didn’t talk about it but I have a stepbrother also who’s
older, and he was at a local middle school, not bused, and it was so bad for him that that’s why
my dad decided to move to Brookline.
MULLER: So then he ended up in the Brookline schools?
ALEXANDER: He ended up in the Brookline Public Schools, and I ended up there. All of us
ended up there eventually, actually. When my mother remarried when I was a sophomore in high
school, she moved to Brookline also, where my stepfather lived. A lot of that had to do with our
experience at Latin School. It just was clearly not going to be a place where my sister was
happy.
MULLER: Right. And that’s because of the racism?
ALEXANDER: Just the whole institutional attitude. It was a very repressive kind of place.
They literally squashed the creativity out of you, and had a mold they were trying to squash you
into. (laughs) I did fine academically, but I was just miserable. I lived with my dad for three
years, not my mom, which was tough for her, but it made a big difference to me ultimately. It
Page 19 of 20
�OH-040 Transcript
also gave me a different perspective on what I’d been though, being in a different school system
where kids were very liberal-minded. But we were studying apartheid once and somebody said,
“Well, maybe we should go on a field trip to Roxbury,” and I thought, My God, how offensive—
to take a field trip (laughs), having lived there. But I just thought it was shocking that people
living less than a mile away had never been to an historic African American community. But
that’s what it’s like when you live a segregated life. You’re just not exposed to as many things.
MULLER: I guess we can sum this up now, and I guess my last question is do you see the issue
the same way now as you did then? It seems like you’ve kind of already touched on that from
getting the legacy of your parents, and—
ALEXANDER: Really I have no idea what happened during busing. We were so sheltered.
Nothing happened in our neighborhood. Nothing happened in our schools. Our parents
protected us from everything. But I married a historian, and I started reading things like
Common Ground5 about what had happened during the time I lived in Boston when I was a kid,
and a lot of pieces came together for me. I feel like I understand a lot more about what was going
on when I was a kid, and certainly the adults and how they’ve reacted over time.
MULLER: I think that’s all we have for today, so thank you for your time.
ALEXANDER: You’re welcome.
END OF INTERVIEW
5
Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families is a Pulitzer-prize winning book
written by J. Anthony Lukas and published in 1986. Lukas chronicles the Garrity Decision era from the perspective
of three families, two white and one black.
Page 20 of 20
�
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers, 1926-2001
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Boston (Mass.)<br />Legislators--United States <br />Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001<br /> South Boston (Boston, Mass.)<br />Legislators. Massachusetts<br />Politicians--Massachusetts
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The paper of Congressman John Joseph Moakley are housed at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.<br /><br />The sample of items from the Moakley papers exhibited on this site are used courtesy of the Moakley Archive and Institute. The full collection documents Moakley’s early life, his World War II service, his terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate, and his service in Congress. The majority of the collection covers Moakley’s congressional career from 1973 until 2001. A <a title="Moakley papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> the the collection is available online. <br /><br />The collection is open for research. Access to materials may be restricted based on their condition. Please consult the <a title="Moakley Archive" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/moakley" target="_blank">Moakley Archive and Institute</a>, Suffolk University for more information.
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers (MS 100), 1926-2001. View the <a title="John Joseph Moakley Papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
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<div>
<div>
<p>Moakley Papers: Moakley Oral History Project<br />Enemies of War Collection (MS 104)<br /> Jamaica Plain Committee on Central America Collection (MS 103)</p>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
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MS 100
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Boston, Mass.
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Muller, Laura
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Alexander, Kirsten
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Suffolk University Law School, Boston, Mass.
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39:51
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Ms. Alexander’s background p. 3 (00:20)
Her African American adopted brother p. 4 (02:41)
Early school experiences p. 5 (03:45)
Her parents’ activism and views p. 7 (06:15)
Violence and racism on buses and in the schools p. 8 (11:19)
Her feelings and reflections p. 12 (19:49)
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Transcript of Oral History Interview of Kirsten Alexander
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Boston (Mass.)
Boston Public Schools
Boston Latin School (Mass.)
Busing for school integration
Magnet schools
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In this interview, Kirsten Alexander, reflects on her childhood in Jamaica Plain and Brookline, Massachusetts, during the 1970s and the impact of Judge W. Arthur Garrity's 1974 decision in the case of Morgan v. Hennigan, which required some students to be bused between Boston neighborhoods with the goal of creating racial balance in the public schools. She discusses the racial climate in the Boston Public Schools during that time period; her and her siblings' school experiences; and the importance of diversity in society.
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
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Moakley Oral History Project
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
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February 22, 2005
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Kintz, Laura
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Copyright Suffolk University. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
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OH-040
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/15912/archive/files/343a8449c898be670bfe85213fd297e4.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=guazs1L4HxMayI-B4sSTlZjzOSdH7GBbejchLEwvD9P06eZEeWAynH5jTfHNQYka8ssP5R0YIPFOz9TbC%7EZi0LEYE5gFxG1oDz68irNkaS44rsqVcZX1nJ9%7Eou9kzlhKdiIuwi3FKx4YApNqBCRbedzxzna%7E%7EJYuu7g7xL8uN8YG3xbp2-vykjva5qibg80pl0O92FcYhwaOQfq3qGMCoB9ZsvTDP0PKZZauSe-GiARmF11ZzGbM6FSZxLSkJg8LltesBqpfOm96fPy1fmYELENRDpwgZ7GqLBEPTeksSXO8LZ%7EVGqQihV2CNYRgWWUimN6lgB9WZvaImAruFpZ%7EaA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
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PDF Text
Text
Oral History Interview of Henry Allen (OH-042)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Oral History Interview of Henry L. Allen
Interview Date: February 28, 2005
Interviewed by: Rhea Ramjohn, Suffolk University Student enrolled in History 364: Oral
History
Citation: Allen, Henry L. Interviewed by Rhea Ramjohn. John Joseph Moakley Oral History
Project OH-042. 28 February 2005. Transcript and audio available. John Joseph Moakley
Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Copyright Information: Copyright © 2005, Suffolk University
Interview Summary
Henry L. Allen, a lifelong resident of Boston, reflects on the Boston Public Schools and the city
itself during the time of the Garrity decision, which in 1974 required some students to be bused
between Boston neighborhoods with the intention of creating racial balance in the public schools.
In this interview, he discusses his extensive community work in support of school desegregation;
his and his family’s experiences with the Boston Public Schools; the racial dynamics of Boston
from the late 1960s to the early 1990s; and his opinions of the current state of Boston and its
schools.
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
1
�Oral History Interview of Henry Allen (OH-042)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Subject Headings
Allen, Henry L.
Boston (Mass.)
Boston Public Schools
Busing for school integration
Magnet schools
Morgan v. Hennigan (379 F. Supp. 410)
Table of Contents
Mr. Allen’s background (education and family)
p. 3 (00:30)
Involvement in school desegregation efforts
p. 8 (11:43)
Community’s reaction to court’s decision
p. 14 (29:00)
His family’s school experiences
p. 15 (31:10)
Community dynamics
p. 19 (40:45)
Impact of media
p. 21 (46:47)
Reflections on his experiences
p. 22 (50:42)
Final thoughts on Boston’s current educational situation
p. 25 (58:05)
Interview transcript begins on next page
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
2
�OH-042 Transcript
This interview took place on February 28, 2005, in the John Joseph Moakley Law Library at
Suffolk University Law School.
Interview Transcript
RHEA RAMJOHN: Today’s date is Monday, February 28, 2005, the time is approximately
1:10 P.M., and I, Rhea Ramjohn, am here with Mr. Henry Allen at the Suffolk University Law
School conducting the interview about his experience during the 1970s with the desegregation
order from the federal court.
So what is your full name, Mr. Allen?
HENRY ALLEN: It’s Henry L. Allen.
RAMJOHN: Henry L. Allen. And where did you grow up?
ALLEN: I was born and raised in Roxbury.
RAMJOHN: And did you live there your whole life?
ALLEN: I’ve lived in Boston my whole life, and when I was fourteen, we moved from Roxbury
to Mattapan. Was in high school through the years that we lived in Mattapan, and I went to
college in Boston and my family lived in Brighton. So I’ve never left Boston. I’ve been here in
different neighborhoods my entire life.
RAMJOHN: Oh, okay. What college did you go to?
ALLEN: I went to Boston State College, which was the old teachers college for the city of
Boston. And in 1981 it was merged into UMass Boston, so it no longer exists.
Page 3 of 26
�OH-042 Transcript
RAMJOHN: I see, okay.
ALLEN: But it was the kind of formal, primary teacher training college for people who were
going to teach in Boston. So over many, many decades the vast majority of people who taught in
the Boston Public Schools were graduates of; it had different names, it was the Teachers’
College of the City of Boston, Boston State Teachers College, so it went through many names,
but it always had that prime purpose.
RAMJOHN: I see, okay. So you never really moved out of the city of Boston?
ALLEN: Just for graduate school.
RAMJOHN: Oh, okay, alright, I see. And what was it like to live in Roxbury and Mattapan?
ALLEN: I’m sixty-two, so this goes back to growing up in Roxbury in the 1940s and early
fifties and Mattapan in the mid- to late fifties. Roxbury, when I was growing up, was
predominantly a Jewish community. My family is Jewish. But it also was somewhat diverse
even in the mid- to late forties, early fifties because as the African American community was
growing in Boston after World War II and the kind of migration of the black community in
Boston as a group was from Beacon Hill, South End, Lower Roxbury, so there was some degree
of diversity in there, but it was a poor, working class community. In the section of Roxbury that
I lived in, it was pretty substandard housing, people were renting—a significant number of
people were renting from absentee landlords, so there was already a degree of disinvestment and
kind of decline in the neighborhood beginning in the late forties, early fifties.
I don’t know whether you read Death of an American Jewish Community,1 but it’s a history of
the migration of the Jewish community from Roxbury to Mattapan and out of Mattapan, and my
1
Death of an American Jewish Community was written by Hillel Levine and Lawrence Harmon and first published
in 1991.
Page 4 of 26
�OH-042 Transcript
family was part of that, and some of that was a response to internal racism within the Jewish
community, some of it was real estate speculation and blockbusting, so there was a lot of
movement and some turmoil in the community when I was growing up and moving from
Roxbury to Mattapan and then out of Mattapan. But in terms of the schools, the schools were
places that we walked to. I went to schools in Roxbury and they were nothing to shake a foot at
then; there were already problems in the Boston Public Schools that far preceded the
desegregation orders.
RAMJOHN: And what schools did you go to?
ALLEN: I went to a small elementary school on Columbia Road called the Atherton, which had
been torn down in the 1950s [1960s—corrected by narrator]. Then I went to the Christopher
Gibson School, which is actually the school where Jonathan Kozol taught at when he wrote
Death at an Early Age.2 Then I went to Latin School3 for a few months and was a Latin School
dropout, then I went to Patrick T. Campbell which later became the Martin Luther King, and
high school, I went to Boston Technical High School.
RAMJOHN: I see, okay. And what was it like in high school then?
ALLEN: (pauses to think) Well, Technical was one of the exam schools even then, so there
were three exam schools. So in that sense it was obviously different from the other high schools
in the city because of that exam and nearly everyone who was at my school, the expectation was
that you were on a college track, so that it was academic and it was focused on academics and
college track and college entrance, so it was a serious academic preparation in that regard.
You know, the one thing I will say is that through all my years, which I think helped shape some
of my values and attitudes, I had one African American, one teacher of color in my entire history
of going to the Boston Public Schools, from kindergarten through twelfth grade, and that was in
2
Death at an Early Age: The Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children in the Boston Public Schools
was written by Jonathan Kozol and first published in 1967.
3
Boston Latin School is a public exam school and the oldest public school in the United States.
Page 5 of 26
�OH-042 Transcript
high school; my high school health teacher was a man named John O’Bryant,4 who later became
a member of the Boston School Committee. He and I remained very close friends for, you know,
from the 1950s until his death, and I worked on his school committee campaigns. But it was a
defining experience in that one began to see the segregation; certainly in the teaching and
administration there wasn’t a single black or Latino administrator or any other administrator of
color that I ever met going through the public schools beginning in 1947 when I started
kindergarten until I graduated in 1960. So the only person of color I saw in a classroom was
John O’Bryant, and I never saw a single person of color in an administrative position. And that
of course didn’t change very much by the time that Garrity brought his court order5 because it
also—his court order—you know how I talked about student assignment, but segregation in the
teaching faculty as well.
RAMJOHN: Yes. So that brings us to your family. When did you first start your family?
ALLEN: Let’s see, I got married in 1966, so a couple years after I graduated from college,
which was in 1964. My wife was also at the same college I was at; we met in college and got
married in ’66 and we decided to live in Roxbury. It was mostly kind of a political decision, that
we wanted to live in the heart of the black community, I think both in terms of our family values
and our own values, and feeling like—believing in integration and that we should try to kind of
live and understand and work in the African American community. So we lived in Roxbury for
actually seven years until we had two children, and then we lived in an attic apartment, and so
we decided to move out. And in 1972, we bought a house in Jamaica Plain, maybe ten minutes
away from where we lived in Roxbury. So our daughter was born in 1969 and we adopted our
son—he’s African American—we adopted him a year and a half later. So they both spent their
early years in Roxbury, going to school in Roxbury at the Trotter School.
4
John D. O’Bryant (1931-1992) was the first African American member of the Boston School Committee. Born
and raised in Boston, O’Bryant attended the Boston Public Schools and Boston University. He lost his first bid for
the school committee in 1975 but was elected two years later. In 1992, Boston Technical High School, where he
taught for several years in the early 1960s, was renamed the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science.
5
In his June 21, 1974, opinion in the case of Tallulah Morgan et al. v. James Hennigan et al. (379 F. Supp. 410)
Judge W. Arthur Garrity ruled that the Boston School Committee had “intentionally brought about and maintained
racial segregation” in the Boston Public Schools. When the school committee did not submit a workable
desegregation plan as the opinion had required, the court established a plan that called for some students to be bused
from their own neighborhoods to attend schools in other neighborhoods, with the goal of creating racial balance in
the Boston Public Schools. (See http://www.lib.umb.edu/archives/garrity2.html for more information)
Page 6 of 26
�OH-042 Transcript
RAMJOHN: I see. What was it like to live there with your family in Jamaica Plain?
ALLEN: In JP [Jamaica Plain] or Roxbury, or both?
RAMJOHN: Both, yeah.
ALLEN: I mean, we were very comfortable in Roxbury; the community that we lived in was a
very stable, family-oriented part of the community. People were warm and generous and their
hospitality—we always felt very, very welcome living in Roxbury. We moved because we
needed a house and we had an opportunity to buy this house in Jamaica Plain, very
inexpensively. Jamaica Plain was and is a great place to raise a family. We enjoyed being there
since 1972, where our children were raised. They continued in the Boston schools. I was very
involved in the community affairs in Jamaica Plain, so it was another community where, because
of its diversity, both ethnic and class diversity, it was a place that we felt very comfortable living
and raising our family.
RAMJOHN: So did both your children attend the Trotter School?
ALLEN: They both went to the Trotter School; they both went then to the Wheatley Middle
School in Roxbury. So when we moved to Jamaica Plain they were bused from Jamaica Plain to
Roxbury to first the Trotter, then the Wheatley, and then they both went to Latin School. And
my daughter graduated from Latin School in 1987, and my son lasted only two and a half years
at the Latin School. It was not a positive experience and some of that was, what he and we
ascribe to, I think, some troubling racial dynamics and attitudes on the part of some teachers and
administrators at the school, not a lot of, at that time, a lot of strong support for minority
students, and so he left Latin School in the middle of the ninth grade and actually became a
Metco6 student so he went to Brookline High to finish high school.
6
The Metco Program is a grant program funded by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is a voluntary program
intended to expand educational opportunities and reduce racial imbalance, by permitting students in certain cities to
attend public schools in other communities that have agreed to participate. (Taken from the Massachusetts
Department of Education website.)
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RAMJOHN: I see. And did you all choose as a family for both your children to attend the
schools that they went to?
ALLEN: We did. Even during the early years of desegregation, the magnet school system7 was
somewhat exempt from the overall court orders and so children who were in those magnet
schools could remain in those magnet schools; that was the Trotter,8 the Wheatley, and a couple
others, and so our children could remain there. We chose to have them there, and of course in
terms of the exam school, they took the test, and got admitted, so yeah, these were choices that
we made for our children.
RAMJOHN: I understand. Okay, with the federal court’s decision to desegregate the Boston
Public Schools, how did you find out that day?
ALLEN: Well, a little context and background. Since the early 1960s, I had been involved in
working around school reform and school desegregation issues. So this didn’t come as a surprise
or a shock, it was something that my wife and I completely supported and felt like it was the
absolutely just and moral thing to have happen and was long overdue. So I had worked on
various school committee campaigns starting in the 1960s actually, when I was in college. There
were reform organizations; the Citizens from Boston Schools was one, which was not dealing
explicitly with issues of racial segregation but was dealing with issues of the quality of
education. So I was involved in working with some early campaigns. I got involved, as I said,
in working on John O’Bryant’s school committee campaigns [and] Jean McGuire’s run for the
school committee.
I had worked in the sixties as a volunteer with the Urban League and with Operation Exodus and
with other community organizations that were really focused on school desegregation. I think
it’s fair to say that in Boston, the primary focus of the civil rights struggle in the late fifties
7
Magnet schools are schools offering special courses not available in the regular school curriculum and designed,
often as an aid to school desegregation, to attract students on a voluntary basis from all parts of a school district
without reference to the usual attendance zone rules. (Definition from the Library of Congress.)
8
The William Monroe Trotter School, which opened in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood in 1969, was the country’s
second magnet school. The first magnet school was McCarver Elementary School in Tacoma, Washington.
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through the sixties and early, midseventies were the schools. And in other communities, housing
or public facilities or whatever it was, was kind of a key focus of the civil rights struggle, but in
Boston, it really was the schools and that started—really, it’s a longer history that goes back to
the nineteenth century, but beginning in the late 1950s, there were activists like Ruth Babson and
Ellen Jackson and others, and the local NAACP and the Urban League who were trying to bring
issues of equity and fairness and justice and fighting against segregated schools.
And of course the history of the court order, details, as Judge Garrity does, not only the
unwillingness but the deepening of the actions of the school committee to further segregation
even while it was denying there was such a thing as segregation and even while it was
completely stonewalling the forces within the African American community and its allies that
were trying to get the school committee to admit that there was actual segregation within the
schools. So I was somewhat involved in the politics of school desegregation in Boston in the
sixties and seventies and was aware of the court case, and so when it came, I and my family were
very strong supporters of that.
RAMJOHN: I see. And so what was your profession at the time?
ALLEN: Let’s see, when I graduated from Boston State in ’64 I went to graduate school [at]
New York University, got a master’s degree in history, came back, and for one year I taught in
the Boston schools. I taught at an old high school called Boston Trade High School, which has
been closed for decades, so that was my one year of teaching experience in the Boston schools.
And then I went back to teach, starting in 1966, to teach U.S. history at Boston State College,
where I had graduated from. Because Boston State was very much implicated in the segregation
of the Boston Public Schools teaching faculty, I did with others a lot of work to try to
desegregate the student body at Boston State. At that time, Boston State was on Huntington
Avenue, right across the street from Mission Hill and just a short distance from Roxbury, and
Boston State itself, as I said, was very segregated. In my graduating class in 1964 of three
hundred students, only two African American students, and no Latino students or any other
students, maybe one or two Asian. And that pattern continued, so if Boston State was one of the
main feeders for teachers in the schools and Boston State was segregated, guess what?
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So I taught at Boston State for eight years, from 1966 to 1974 during all of that turmoil around
school desegregation. And what I and other faculty did there was to work to integrate the student
body and the teaching body, and so we worked to get more black students into the school, special
programs. We supported black students when they had sit-ins and demonstrations, took over the
school, forced the school to hire black faculty, admit more black students. And that began to
have some impact, therefore, as students came into Boston [State], black students, graduating,
teaching in the Boston schools. So I was teaching and organizing within the schools and also
during this time working as a volunteer for places like the Urban League and other groups. And
then in ‘74 I was actually fired from my teaching position at Boston State, in part for the work
that I was doing around desegregating the student body and the faculty, and also that was during
the years of the anti-war movement and I had been active in that and working with other faculty
and students, so I was fired.
Then I went to work for an adult education center that was working with people involved in
workplace and community organizing. So we were like a school where people came and took
workshops and courses around the political situation and understanding the schools. We had a
whole program on the schools and school desegregation and school reform. And when
desegregation occurred, we at this school had a lot of workshops and courses for parents who
were involved in parent councils to give them an understanding of the history of the Boston
schools, the politics of the schools, the history of desegregation. We used Judge Garrity’s
decision, the printed decision, as a text, so people could understand where that segregation came
from, why he ruled the way he did.
And at the same time, beginning in ‘75, our kids were in the schools. I was elected to the parent
councils that were set up by Judge Garrity, so, between ‘74, ‘75, and ‘83, while I was working at
this Boston community school, this adult education center, I did a lot of work on those parent
councils and eventually became the co-chair of the Citywide Parent Advisory Council for three
to four years. That was my major involvement besides the Boston community school, and the
education work we were doing with parents who were on councils. I myself was directly
involved, as a member, in doing—whereas Judge Garrity set these councils up to monitor the
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desegregation effort, many of us felt that we had to go beyond monitoring and the parents had to
become an active, vibrant voice for desegregation for school reform.
And so there were, during this period of time—which I think is one of the untold stories of
school desegregation in Boston—there were literally hundreds upon hundreds of white parents
who were actively involved in the school parent councils. And who were, even if on the one
hand they may have been committed to school desegregation or they may have just had their kids
in schools and were being bused. There were parents that said, Our kids are in these schools and
we want these schools to work and we want them to be safe, we want them to be places where
they can learn and we need to be involved. And Judge Garrity knew that he had limits to what
he could do with his federal court order, which really had to do with school desegregation, but he
was always very supportive of parent involvement, parent engagement. He had us, and I testified
in his court a number of times around what we as parents were seeing in the schools and I think,
and I know this, in more sort of off line conversations with him, that he felt the more power the
parents could have to engage the schools and to hold the schools accountable was something that
he supported.
RAMJOHN: What did you see in the schools? What was it that you were testifying about?
ALLEN: (pauses to think) There were really two things that we were focused on as parent
activists and organizers. One was to do as much as we could to support desegregation because
we saw desegregation no longer as a question of absolute justice for minority parents and
students, but that entwined in the very definition of a quality education is a diverse education, is
people knowing and understanding different communities and cultures and learning from one
another. So part of our effort was to ensure as much as we could that schools were safe and
welcoming and that diverse parents were very much involved in these parent councils to help
create that kind of environment and role models that everyone could see.
And the other thrust was of course about a range of issues that had to do with quality of
education, that could be anything from the condition of the buildings and organizing and
advocating for more money to fix up buildings, to pushing the school system to hire more and
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more minority teachers, because the court order said there had to be a minimum and we were
always pushing beyond the minimum. It could mean the quality of the curriculum, it could mean
that parents had a right to know what their children were supposed to be learning and how to
hold the schools accountable to make sure their children were learning what the system was
supposed to teach them, and if the children were having challenges then what was the system
doing to provide support services. These are very similar issues to what people are talking about
today and they were very much present in the seventies and early eighties when I was involved
as a parent activist.
And so we found, of course, things were very uneven in the schools. There were schools where
there was good administrative leadership, strong teachers, always room for improvement, but
then other schools where the education was much weaker, and what was the school system doing
about removing principals or teachers that weren’t cutting it? So our role as parents was to gain
as much information and knowledge about the school, the school system, curriculum, teaching,
learning, and to hold the schools accountable to us as parents.
RAMJOHN: Exactly.
ALLEN: And I think this was all in the context, of course, of supporting desegregation; we
know that there was a parallel movement obviously through ’74, through the late seventies, early
eighties, of others who were opposing desegregation who wanted to take the school system back,
pre-1974, and who would argue that the schools were fine and we should have neighborhood
schools. Having taught in the Boston schools before desegregation—my wife also taught in the
Boston public schools before desegregation; she taught at South Boston High School, which was
an entirely white school and she saw what was happening there in terms of overcrowded classes,
a very small percentage of students going on to higher education, a very high drop out rate,
violence against students of color who tried to enroll there in the late sixties when she taught
there—everything that would give the lie to people arguing that these schools were functioning
well, and that our children were getting good education. What Garrity, of course, argues in his
court order is that this is endemic through most of the entire school system and that
desegregation became a way, if people could only realize it, of not only bringing justice to
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minority students but radically transforming the quality of education for all students, and that
was what my commitment was to at this time.
RAMJOHN: Yes, so obviously you had the support of your wife during this time, but how did
your children feel about the decision? Did they understand what was going on?
ALLEN: They were quite young when it started in ‘74 and ’75, so I don’t think there was a clear
understanding of that. One always hopes that as a parent that you’re inculcating certain values
into your children and I think—I think we’re quite fortunate that our children are 35 and 33. My
son is a Boston Public School teacher himself now and he’s very committed to teaching in
Boston. Our daughter manages a non-profit organization. So they have certain values and I
think, as they went through the Boston Public Schools, because they went to the integrated
schools they had experiences that were absolutely vital to their development as whole human
beings.
I remember when Judge Garrity died and my wife and I went to the wake and then the funeral—
but at the wake we met his family and my wife and I both said to his family—to his two
daughters that we met, that our lives and our children’s lives were completely enriched and made
whole by school desegregation. Then his daughter started crying and we started crying because
he had been so vilified and he had to have Secret Service protection for him and his family
through all of those years, and even at the funeral, there were federal marshals at the wake and
the funeral because of continuing death threats against his family. So I always thought he was an
extraordinarily courageous man who did the right thing, and I think our children understood and
believed that this was the right thing as well.
And their experiences were generally positive. My son, as I said, being African American has
experiences different from my daughter’s, who is white. He had some very difficult times at
Latin School, because of course Latin School was, up until ’75, ’76, almost entirely white until
Judge Garrity ordered desegregation of the exam schools. I think it was very difficult for
students of color at the Latin School. Where did you go to school?
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RAMJOHN: I actually grew up in Trinidad.
ALLEN: Oh, okay.
RAMJOHN: But I went to high school here. I went to Fontbonne Academy. But I understand
the Latin School system. Now, what I understand at this time was that the race of the children
often fell under what the race of the parent was so that your son, for instance, would be listed
officially as white. Was that true?
ALLEN: No, we would list our son [as African American]; I mean people could play that game
if they wanted to, and some did I think. You could determine the racial ethnic identity of your
children. Yeah, we did that, so he was always—as he got older he determined his own identity.
He’s of mixed parentage, so his birth mother is white, his birth father is African American and
Cape Verdean, but he always defines himself as African American.
RAMJOHN: And how do you feel your community reacted to Judge Garrity’s decision? The
community in which you lived at the time?
ALLEN: We lived in Jamaica Plain at the time and again, I think its fair to say that Jamaica
Plain was one of the neighborhoods where there was much more acceptance of Judge Garrity’s
ruling and its implications and effects on the community, that while it was disruptive to some
families and resulted in children being bused to schools outside the neighborhood, you never had
in Jamaica Plain what happened in South Boston or parts of Dorchester. It was just the opposite.
I think you had, generally, an acceptance and a belief that at least we’ll try this or we’re
wholeheartedly in support of it, but you didn’t have the kind of resistance that you had in other
neighborhoods.
RAMJOHN: I see. And do you feel that your neighbors were supportive of you and your role
in being a parent activist?
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ALLEN: (inaudible, followed by quiet laughter) We actually lived on a small, dead end street
where most of our neighbors were quite elderly and did not have school aged children. There
were people that had lived there for decades. And we had very good relations with our
neighbors, sort of friendly. I would say they tended to be somewhat more conservative. They
were predominantly white, but didn’t have school aged children for the most part. But we never
felt any hostility. I mean they certainly knew who I was; I was in the newspapers, I testified in
Judge Garrity’s court, or I was leading a demonstration, or whatever it might be. Who I was and
my position was quite clear, and I never felt any hostility from my neighbors about my role in
supporting school desegregation or our children going to desegregated schools.
RAMJOHN: Did you have any fears as a parent for your children?
ALLEN: I think, besides all the other normal fears that parents have for children (laughter), I
think we certainly had concerns about our son and what was happening with him at Latin School.
I also ran for Boston School Committee in 1983; it was the first year where people were running
for city council and school committee as a result of redistricting and so there used to be, before
’83, a five member at-large school committee. And beginning in 1983, the school committee
was elected four at-large and nine districts, so I ran from the Jamaica Plain/West Roxbury
district. And that certainly caused—because West Roxbury was in fact a neighborhood that
resisted desegregation, not in the violent way that may have happened in South Boston, but still a
lot of resistance.
So I was a very public figure in support of desegregation and that did have some impact on both
of our kids at Latin School in that there were insults hurled at them. Our son was actually
assaulted once by some white students from West Roxbury. And so I think they did, to some
extent, especially our son, pay the price for our own activism in support of desegregation.
RAMJOHN: I see. I’m sorry to hear that. What did you tell your children about school that
year?
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ALLEN: Well, I mean, this was sort of an ongoing education for all of us, and as they went
through the Boston schools, in the mid- to late seventies, early eighties. And we did what all
parents tried to do in terms of giving them support and talking to them about what was going on
in the schools and the turmoil. They were somewhat removed from some of that because the
Trotter and the Wheatley were already integrated. And Latin School was Latin School, and it
was bad for a lot of kids, white, black and other. It was not a very nurturing or warm
environment, and it was sometimes much more difficult for students of color, so all you can do is
give them the support and try to explain what’s going on and why.
RAMJOHN: And did the school administration—did the city ever contact you to prepare you,
to prepare your child for the first day of school? Did they give you any suggestions or guidelines
about how to speak with your children about what was going on in the schools that year?
ALLEN: Now which year are you talking about?
RAMJOHN: In 1974.
ALLEN: Okay, so that year—our daughter was just in kindergarten that year and our son wasn’t
yet in. So at the precise time of the court order, because I was talking more about the kind of
period [from] ’74 to early eighties, but right at that point in time, I cannot recall what, if
anything, the school system did. I would doubt if the school system did very much; perhaps they
sent out something. But again because our daughter was at the Trotter, it was already sort of a
nurturing, supporting environment, the teachers, the administration, so I think that was an
exception.
RAMJOHN: Did you ever pull your children out of school?
ALLEN: No, no, we were always totally committed to school desegregation, and they were
attending the Boston Public Schools.
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RAMJOHN: But your son was the only one who ever switched schools because of
discrimination?
ALLEN: Right, so I suppose actually I have to take back what I just said because yes, we did
pull him out. He pulled himself out; he said he no longer wanted to stay in Latin School and we
looked at a lot of alternatives and because he was African American we applied to Metco and he
got accepted and went to Brookline High for the end of his sophomore [freshman—corrected by
narrator] year, and then his junior and senior year.
RAMJOHN: And how did your children commute to school?
ALLEN: While we were in Jamaica Plain, they were bused to school from the bottom of our hill
to the Trotter or the Wheatley. And when they went to Latin School they actually either took a
bus or we would drive them.
RAMJOHN: Okay, so they would take the public transportation if you didn’t drive, okay, I
understand. Did they ever complain about any problems commuting to school?
ALLEN: Not that I recall.
RAMJOHN: Okay. And did you have a relationship with your children’s teachers throughout
their Boston Public School education?
ALLEN: We tended to be involved as parents, as parent activists. I think both of us did all of the
standard stuff in terms of open houses and meetings with teachers. But I also was on the school
parent councils, so I had a direct involvement in those schools. So yeah, we had relationships at
least through the elementary and middle school, the Trotter and the Wheatley. Less so through
high school and I think that’s not atypical in terms of students beginning to kind of want some
distance between themselves, their parents, and the school.
RAMJOHN: Yes. And did you find the teachers helpful?
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ALLEN: Generally, yeah. I mean (pauses to think)—I think most of our experience with
teachers was that if you were active and involved and knew your rights and knew the right
questions to ask, then people would be responsive. But if parents were going and didn’t know
the system and didn’t quite know what they could or should ask it was much more difficult so
that’s part of what I think is critical of parents knowing their rights and getting support from
other parents, you know, how to engage teachers and administrators.
RAMJOHN: Did your views as a parent regarding the desegregation of the schools, did those
views ever conflict with those of the teachers?
ALLEN: You know, I think that would be more with our experience with Latin School, which
we found quite rigid, inflexible. The attitude was theirs that we’ve been doing it right for three
hundred plus years, this is the way people get a good education, it’s the best school in the
country, etc., etc. So there was a rigidity at Latin School where there was much less openness to
whether you were white or black, but I think that rigidity had a much more profound impact on
black students and parents than it did on white because it was an added element of race on top of
the element of this is just the way it is and it’s not going to change. So I think that was our
experience with Latin School.
RAMJOHN: And how do you feel overall about your children’s education in the Boston Public
Schools?
ALLEN: We think that our daughter certainly received a good education; she actually ended up
liking Latin School. It was something that she could adjust to and it kind of connected to her
strengths. She was a strong reader, and that’s really at the core of that if you can read
voluminously and whatever. And she went to Harvard from Latin School so she was happy and
then she went to graduate school at UCal [University of California] Berkeley, and so she did
very well. And our son, even though he had a very hard time [and] I think it was more difficult
for him, he did fairly well at Brookline High School and then he went on to Sarah Lawrence
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College, so they both got a very good education and part of that obviously has to be because of
the Boston Public Schools.
RAMJOHN: And did your wife continue teaching at South Boston High?
ALLEN: No, she taught there just for a few years and then when the kids were born, she stopped
teaching and then she did other work. She did actually go back teaching but to a girls’ Catholic
high school in South Boston called Cardinal Cushing High School. It closed down a number of
years—she taught there for fifteen years until it closed and now she’s a college professor. She
teaches ethics and philosophy at Mass Bay Community College. But she went back to South
Boston to teach at this school, Cardinal Cushing High School, for about fifteen years.
RAMJOHN: And did she herself experience any verbal attacks or assault for your family’s
participation in the desegregation?
ALLEN: (pauses to think) Verbal perhaps, arguments with people, but nothing that I think
would be serious.
RAMJOHN: Did your community in Jamaica Plain change substantially after the decision was
made?
ALLEN: Not immediately after, and I think the changes that took place in Jamaica Plain were
much more the result of the speculative real estate market and gentrification. And so there had
been sort of successive waves of gentrification in Jamaica Plain that had more to do with the
housing market. Obviously schools are not unrelated to that and do have a role to play in the
determination of the value of housing in a community, in a neighborhood. But I think what was
really happening in Jamaica Plain in terms of the housing market was really, to a significant
extent, independent of what was going on in the schools—that it became a very hot market and
people simply couldn’t afford to stay there, their kids couldn’t afford to buy the houses they
lived in or rented.
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So there was a very radical change in substantial parts of Jamaica Plain beginning in the late
seventies, early eighties, then again in the late eighties, then again in the early nineties, these
successive waves, so that the value of real estate just was extraordinarily high, inflated over
those years. I think that clearly as wealthier people moved into Jamaica Plain with school aged
children, many of them, I think, rarely if ever gave the schools a fair chance in terms of looking
at what was going on in these schools, what was the quality of education. There was a sense
that, well, Boston’s in turmoil, the schools aren’t good, we’re raising our children, but we’re not
going to send them to the public schools. And so they would choose private schools, alternative
schools, or they would leave Jamaica Plain and move to a suburb. So they might have moved in
when the market was heating up, had the money to pay more for a house, had no children—it’s a
syndrome. Then they’d have children, next day they were school-age; they might send them to
kindergarten or preschool, then they’d leave. New people would come in who perhaps didn’t
have children, who had very young children; they weren’t thinking necessarily immediately
about the school, so the cycle kept going. Jamaica Plain, as a neighborhood, has radically
changed since we’ve been there in terms of—especially, kind of, the class composition.
RAMJOHN: I see. And how did you feel about the politicians during this time?
ALLEN: Well, there were good ones, and mediocre ones, and bad ones. No, I mean, if you go
back to the 19—to pre-desegregation, there were very few political leaders at any level in the
city that one could say were civil rights activists and supporters. Generally the political
establishment was resistant to school desegregation and other kinds of progressive reforms in the
city. I think it was the year—I’m trying to think of the year John O’Bryant was first elected to
the school committee—it was 19—.9 When he was elected, he was the first African American to
be elected to the school committee in the twentieth century. And only one person had been
elected to the city council since the 1940s, and that was Tom Atkins, and so we had an almost
exclusively white political class. And that only began to change in the late seventies, early
eighties, and then with this district representation battle that took place in the early eighties, to
elect people by districts rather than at-large. And this is a phenomenon around the country,
where at-large dilutes minority voting strength.
9
John O’Bryant was elected to the school committee in 1977.
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And so you did, beginning in the eighties, have more people of color elected both to the school
committee and the city council. And of course you had the mayoral election of ‘83 in which Mel
King ran and mobilized very significant constituencies within communities of color. And Ray
Flynn won that election, and while he was an anti-busing activist in the seventies as a state rep
from South Boston, most people agree he was not a hater and he was not vicious and he was not
actively racist. He was someone who really, to a certain extent, worked, when he became mayor,
to heal divisions and to be reaching out to the African American and the growing Latino
community. And so I think as Boston’s demographics changed, you could see a radical
difference from the sixties and early seventies and to the mid- to late eighties. And so those
changes have just taken place over time and I think the political leadership was clearly very
resistant and hostile to school desegregation in the sixties and seventies and continued to be so
throughout the seventies, and then I think it began to change in the eighties.
RAMJOHN: Did you ever feel abandoned by the politicians?
ALLEN: No, because most of them I never felt were with me in the first place. To be
abandoned means that they were there and they left you, but if you believe that they weren’t with
us to begin with, then it was only we felt like they were on the wrong side of history. History
was marching ahead and leaving them behind.
RAMJOHN: Did you have any contact with the media?
ALLEN: Yes.
RAMJOHN: And what kind of contact was that?
ALLEN: Mostly as a parent activist and organizer and my role on the Citywide Parents Council
in mid- to late seventies, early eighties. And so I sometimes was a spokesperson for the
Citywide Parents Council talking about either support for desegregation or in the different
campaigns that the parents were leading around upgrading school facilities, preventing school
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closings, arguing for reducing class size, arguing for parent role in evaluating principals and
selecting principals. So there was media coverage, an obviously very intense media coverage of
the schools.
It was always a struggle to get the media to recognize that parents were a legitimate
constituency, and they were a voice to be heard and respected. And that voice needed to be
represented in the media and that was never easy. It usually happened when there was a crisis,
conflicts. We weren’t ones that the media would normally turn to to get a comment; that was
usually the elected officials or someone who was easily recognizable as a stalwart busing
opponent would get talked to. But I think the press generally did a poor job of listening to and
respecting the voices of particularly white parents who were involved in and supporting
desegregation. There was always this myth that desegregation was this suburban conspiracy and
was just black parents, and I think ignoring an important constituency that was in support of
desegregation and aligned with black parents and white parents who kept their kids in the
schools, joined parent councils and worked to make the schools safe and better.
RAMJOHN: So how do you feel you were portrayed by the media or in the press?
ALLEN: What would my memory tell me about that? (pauses to think) I mean, generally I
would say it was a struggle to get the media to focus on the issues that we were talking about and
the portrayal was more like, sometimes, can activists be trouble makers rather than what are the
issues and these are our kids in the schools and we are trying to play a responsible role in holding
the schools accountable. Occasionally, you’d get a good story, but it wasn’t easy. I think mostly
we were ignored.
RAMJOHN: And do you think the media played a major role in shaping people’s opinions
around the country at that time?
ALLEN: Oh, absolutely. I think what people saw in obviously in ’74, or ’75, ‘76 was buses
rolling, buses being stoned, people being—students being assaulted, demonstrations against the
integration of the schools. That was what people saw, that was the story. Clearly that was a
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significant part of the story, but too often what they missed was how many schools where buses
rolling up where there was no tension, where there was no violence, where people were trying to
make this change work. And I think that’s where the media did a disservice to the community, to
black and white parents and students who were in favor of desegregation and trying to make it
work.
RAMJOHN: Now some people would say that they were against busing because they shouldn’t
feel that their children should have to go to another city or another town—
ALLEN: Another neighborhood.
RAMJOHN: Another neighborhood—that’s right—that they had never even been to and that
that’s the reason that they were against busing. How would you respond to that?
ALLEN: I think there are different levels of concern that parents had, and confusion, and I think
ultimately one must respect the decision that any parent makes about the safety and education of
their child. And that’s a decision best left to the parent and there were choices of course in terms
of saying, “No, they’re going to parochial school or private school.” And even within the school
desegregation effort, eventually there were many more choices that parents had, but not initially
like, “You’re assigned to this school.” And I think there were some remembering that Boston
was a very segregated city; the housing patterns were almost entirely segregated. So white
people and people of color of the city had very little opportunity to interact, to engage with one
another around what do we have in common in terms of our children and our hopes and fears and
our communities. And so busing did come as a shock given that lack of experience, that lack of
opportunity that white and black parents had.
The work force was segregated, housing was segregated, and it’s an argument that people make,
that, Why don’t we go slow? Why didn’t we ease in desegregation? And the counterargument of
course is that once Judge Garrity found that the children were being deprived of their
constitutional rights, how do you say that these few children this year will get their rights but
these other children will wait two, three, five, eight years? I mean you couldn’t do that legally
Page 23 of 26
�OH-042 Transcript
and morally, and so yes, this is a dilemma, it’s a challenge. You have the history and the context
of Boston and the kind of community it is, and then you’ve got the rights of African American
children, and in the balance you have to go with the rights of these children and the city had to
make that work. And I think the lack of leadership on the part of the political class, elected
officials, the media, to work day in and day out, to make it work. But of course you remember
that the resistance to Judge Garrity’s order was so intense right to the day that he issued the
order, and the school committee kept taking actions to resist any kind of integration and elected
officials kept resisting it.
And so I think it was a firestorm waiting to happen, but I don’t know that there would be any
way to deny the rights of those children. I think a lot could have been done to make the streets
safer, the schools safer, to prepare parents. And one of the important things about the parent
councils that Garrity set up was in fact they became one of the few places in the city where black
and white parents could meet and talk. Those were the ones that sent their kids to the schools,
those that were boycotting or not of course were left out of that dialogue, left out of finding
common ground for themselves and their children.
RAMJOHN: So through your experiences, working for the desegregation, what was it that
motivated you? What kept you going through this very difficult time?
ALLEN: I think it starts just with one’s own ethical world view and sense of values and what
you believe is the meaning of justice and what it means to have a conscience. You try to act on
those values of an ethical world view and your sense of justice and remain true to that as much as
you can, and the world is full of compromises as always, and you make those. But I think what
kept us, my wife and I, our children, going was the particular set of values that we have and our
belief that desegregation was absolutely the right thing to do, legally, ethically, morally. And
that’s what motivated us and our belief that this had to happen.
RAMJOHN: Looking back now do you think the court’s decision affected the city of Boston in
a positive way?
Page 24 of 26
�OH-042 Transcript
ALLEN: Oh, a profoundly positive way. I mean, it was with a great deal of pain and turmoil
and some suffering and no one should discount how hard it is to have justice. If one could snap
their finger and say we’re all equal, we’d be living in Neverland. But in order to bring about this
change, it was going to be traumatic, and of course in many ways, there is still some of that
trauma. We’re still trying to work forwards in this city, we still have segregated neighborhoods,
our schools are re-segregated in some ways. Yet we don’t have a school system which
consciously discriminates against students of color, that are making policies everyday to
discriminate; we don’t have that. We may have a school system that needs vast improvement
and changes, but we’ve ended legally sanctioned discrimination and segregation in our schools.
We have much more diversity in this city at all levels because I think in part the trauma that this
city went through to dismantle segregated schools. And I think the city is far healthier for having
gone through that at that point and I don’t know what the alternative would be. The alternatives
that people talk about is, well, let’s take twelve or thirteen years, let’s do it a grade at a time, or
let’s integrate housing and then schools would be integrated. And I think well, if people thought
resistance to school desegregation was intense, how about resistance to housing integration? Dr.
King and a lot of others tried it and maybe we’ll have courts someday that rule that that has to
end, but that wasn’t an option then. What we had then was a federal judge finding legally
sanctioned segregation, and that had to end.
RAMJOHN: Well, my final question for you today is how do you feel about the city of Boston
today, especially the Boston Public Schools?
ALLEN: We’re still living here; we have no intention of leaving. Our son lives in the city, as I
said, teaches in the city, is raising their daughter in the city. We remain hopeful that Boston—
being a place where it embraces diversity and embraces the rights of all people to live in all
neighborhoods and to send their children to schools. We think that it’s not only the kind of
demographic changes that compel that, but also that people’s attitudes and values are changing.
We’re not anywhere near where we need to be as a city and a community, but certainly that’s
changing.
Page 25 of 26
�OH-042 Transcript
And I think the Boston Public Schools have enormous challenges. Some of that is having to do
with high stakes testing and graduation requirements and the lack of preparation of students to
pass those tests, and the fact that much more money and resources are needed to upgrade the
schools. I think parents need to achieve much greater power in the Boston Public Schools to
hold those schools accountable; those are still battles that are going on. I think it’s absolutely
critical that organized parents and organized teachers, and the teachers union, become allies in
fostering deep and profound change in the Boston Public Schools. I don’t think the schools can
change in Boston unless the teachers help to make it change and that means the union has to be a
progressive force and I think the parents have to be a progressive powerful force. I see much
more hope in that than I do in any top down reforms that come from business people or
foundations or anyone that says, We’re going to make these changes and try to force that without
engaging the entire school community in a process of profound understanding of the changes that
are needed. I remain hopeful that that will happen but it’s still going to be a fight.
RAMJOHN: Well, thank you very much for today.
ALLEN: Great, thank you.
END OF INTERVIEW
Page 26 of 26
�
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers, 1926-2001
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Boston (Mass.)<br />Legislators--United States <br />Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001<br /> South Boston (Boston, Mass.)<br />Legislators. Massachusetts<br />Politicians--Massachusetts
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The paper of Congressman John Joseph Moakley are housed at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.<br /><br />The sample of items from the Moakley papers exhibited on this site are used courtesy of the Moakley Archive and Institute. The full collection documents Moakley’s early life, his World War II service, his terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate, and his service in Congress. The majority of the collection covers Moakley’s congressional career from 1973 until 2001. A <a title="Moakley papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> the the collection is available online. <br /><br />The collection is open for research. Access to materials may be restricted based on their condition. Please consult the <a title="Moakley Archive" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/moakley" target="_blank">Moakley Archive and Institute</a>, Suffolk University for more information.
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Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001.
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Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers (MS 100), 1926-2001. View the <a title="John Joseph Moakley Papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
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1926-2001
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<div>
<div>
<p>Moakley Papers: Moakley Oral History Project<br />Enemies of War Collection (MS 104)<br /> Jamaica Plain Committee on Central America Collection (MS 103)</p>
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</div>
<div> </div>
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300.7 cubic feet (521 boxes)
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MS 100
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Boston, Mass.
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Ramjohn, Rhea
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Allen, Henry
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Suffolk University Law School, Boston, Mass.
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1:00:37
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Mr. Allen’s background (education and family) p. 3 (00:30)
Involvement in school desegregation efforts p. 8 (11:43)
Community’s reaction to court’s decision p. 14 (29:00)
His family’s school experiences p. 15 (31:10)
Community dynamics p. 19 (40:45)
Impact of media p. 21 (46:47)
Reflections on his experiences p. 22 (50:42)
Final thoughts on Boston’s current educational situation p. 25 (58:05)
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Transcript of Oral History Interview of Henry L. Allen
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Boston (Mass.)
Boston Public Schools
Busing for school integration
Magnet schools
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In this interview, Henry L. Allen, a lifelong resident of Boston, reflects on the impact of Judge W. Arthur Garrity's 1974 decision in the case of Morgan v. Hennigan, which required some students to be bused between Boston neighborhoods with the goal of creating racial balance in the public schools. He discusses his activism efforts in support of school desegregation; his children's experiences in the Boston Public Schools during the mid- to late 1970s and early 1980s; racial dynamics in the city over the past several decades; and the current state of the city and its schools.
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
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Moakley Oral History Project
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
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February 2, 2005
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Kintz, Laura
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Copyright Suffolk University. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
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Moakley Oral History Project: http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/collections/show/1
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OH-042
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/15912/archive/files/15764ef5506b2a4545d42f9a8be1de36.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=BkEstiZFFiNo5et%7EsRI1Sm24drl69s4UN6m9f4PVtc8yIzfqgQcIk78Sw8HncCPWZvqrMkEQwrJz-tiNPu70CEWoYeMy0un7gVWmnFvyd7q43BGb6KTFCNnWgvmYjjpxstELGeR790a0kjLsdC2hVqrGrItw1jC05J35H1A6IhrmDRd7fv9etEHqrzmud7rHhTJmGgwNu5snREL1IC4G-d2dOnHtviC5gadNug4sffBFLFx5IZjftc99-944VnMUpOCBZ4EVytLBmPKULupVni8bTH9DIt61V1Hr7qdWmLO8EWDEHNqTCpL1ulSnQ8U6w30exWRRdrrwfFpII2r47Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
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PDF Text
Text
Oral History Interview of Brian Wallace (OH-043)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Oral History Interview of State Representative Brian P. Wallace
Interview Date: March 2, 2005
Interviewed by: Matthew Wilding, Suffolk University Student from History 364: Oral
History
Citation: Wallace, Rep. Brian P. Interviewed by Matthew Wilding. John Joseph Moakley
Oral History Project OH-043. 2 March 2005. Transcript and audio available. John Joseph
Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Copyright: Copyright © 2005, Suffolk University.
Interview Summary
Brian P. Wallace, a Massachusetts state representative and resident of South Boston,
discusses the impact of the 1974 Garrity decision, which required students to be bused
between Boston neighborhoods with the intention of creating racial balance in the public
schools. As an aide to then-state representative Ray Flynn, Representative Wallace witnessed
firsthand the feelings of local politicians in the aftermath of the decision. In this interview he
reflects on the reactions of the city’s residents to the decision; the impact of media reports;
Congressman John Joseph Moakley’s position on the issue; and the negative effects of the
decision on the city of Boston and its schools.
Subject Headlines
South Boston (Mass.)
Busing for school integration
Flynn, Raymond L., 1939Garrity, Arthur W., Jr., 1920-1999
Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
Morgan v. Hennigan (379 F. Supp. 410)
Wallace, Brian P., 1949Table of Contents
Part 1
Representative Wallace’s background
p. 3 (00:07)
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
1
�Reactions to and impact of the Garrity decision
p. 4 (00:55)
Congressman Moakley’s position
p. 9 (15:49)
More on the impact of the decision
p. 9 (16:40)
Part 2
More on the impact of the decision
p. 13 (00:22)
Lack of regard for other solutions
p. 18 (13:48)
More about the effect of busing on Congressman Moakley
p. 19 (16:39)
Boston schools today and the legacy of busing
p. 20 (19:20)
Interview transcript begins on next page
Page 2 of 23
�OH-043 Transcript
This interview took place on March 2, 2005, at the office of State Representative Brian
Wallace at the Massachusetts State House in Boston.
Interview Transcript
MATTHEW WILDING: It is March 2, 2005. This is Matt Wilding interviewing. Can you
introduce yourself, please?
BRIAN WALLACE: State Representative Brian Patrick Wallace.
WILDING: And where are you from, Brian?
WALLACE: South Boston, Massachusetts.
WILDING: Where did you go to school?
WALLACE: Grammar school in South Boston, South Boston High School. I attended
Loyola College in Montreal. Boston State College and Emerson College.
WILDING: And when did you graduate high school?
WALLACE: In ’67.
WILDING: When did you start working in the public sector?
WALLACE: It was actually 1970 that I started working at the state house for then-state
representative Ray Flynn.1 I worked as an aide for him full-time then and then part-time four
years later.
WILDING: And what was your position at the time of the Garrity decision?2
1
Raymond L. Flynn (1939- ), a Democrat, represented South Boston in the Massachusetts State House of
Representatives from 1971 to 1979. He later served on the Boston City Council from 1978 to 1974, then as
mayor of Boston from 1984 to 1993.
2
The Garrity decision refers to the June 21, 1974, opinion filed by Judge Arthur W. Garrity in the case of
Tallulah Morgan et al. v. James Hennigan et al. (379 F. Supp. 410). Judge Garrity ruled that the Boston School
Committee had “intentionally brought about and maintained racial segregation” in the Boston Public Schools.
When the school committee did not submit a workable desegregation plan as the opinion had required, the court
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
3
�OH-043 Transcript
WALLACE: I was an aide. I was an aide to Ray Flynn at that time.
WILDING: When did you first hear about the decision?
WALLACE: We had heard it was coming down sometime in June. We knew all about the
case obviously from the lawsuit. I think it was June twenty-first, if I’m not mistaken, that we
were actually walking out of the building, and we ran into the governor at the time who was
Frank Sargent. He was the one who actually told us that the decision had come down that
day. I think it was June twenty-first.
WILDING: And were you expecting the decision?
WALLACE: Well, yeah, we were expecting it, we just didn’t know—it was getting late. I
think it was the last day of school and it was getting very late, especially given the fullness of
the plan. If it was a simpler plan it might have been easier to install or to put together, but
this wide-sweeping plan with only a couple of months to do just gave everyone a fit basically.
WILDING: Now do you think this decision could have been prevented?
WALLACE: No, I don’t think it could have been prevented. I think the federal court had to
step in. There were a lot of plans on the table. This was the most radical plan. One of the
plans that we had asked them to start that September was to start with the first grade kids.
Start with them so that no one would be grandfathered in. It would be—all the first grades
across the city would be included in the plan. Second grade would basically go on as was.
There were other plans to just do high schools; there were a number of plans on the table.
This was by far the most far-reaching and the most radical of the plans.
WILDING: Now was this the plan you guys were expecting to see?
WALLACE: No, no. This was way beyond what we expected. This was basically telling
parents that you have no control over where your kids go to school and they’re going to
school in two months regardless of what you feel or what your input is. This was a done
established a plan that called for some students to be bused from their own neighborhoods to attend schools in
other neighborhoods, with the goal of creating racial balance in the Boston Public Schools. (See
Page 4 of 23
�OH-043 Transcript
deal. There was no more community process. This was Judge [W. Arthur] Garrity saying
that, you know, “I’m sticking it to a lot of these communities and I don’t care what you think
about it. Here’s what’s happening and take it or leave it.”
WILDING: So what was your initial reaction?
WALLACE: I was pissed to be quite honest with you, because I knew from going to school
in South Boston, I knew from working in the state house, and from being a city kid, you
know, a pretty street smart kid from the lower end of Southie, I knew that this was going to
have a devastating effect not only on parents and the kids but the school system in general.
When ninety-three thousand were in school a day June 21, 1974, they were now sixty
[thousand] or sixty-one [thousand]—we knew that this was going to destroy the school
system, it was going to destroy education. It would take thirty years to get back on track and
they still haven’t, and it was going to destroy all the sports programs that we had worked too
hard to keep. It was just a bad plan made by a guy who didn’t understand anything about
Boston, South Boston, Dorchester, Roxbury, or anything.
WILDING: What was Flynn’s professional reaction?
WALLACE: He was the same as I was. He was very upset. Ray was a great athlete at
Southie High. He understood the breadth of this plan. He understood that this was a death
knell for the schools and this was going to force parents not only out of the schools but out of
the city; out of our town, out of (inaudible), Hyde Park, Dorchester, Charlestown, East
Boston. This was going to be white flight at its greatest and that’s exactly what we saw.
People left in droves. Some of them to never return, some of them are back now that their
kids are grown but they couldn’t, they wouldn’t, they refused to send their kids to a school
that they didn’t approve of, and they in turn left the city.
WILDING: As far as communities are concerned, what did you see as a reaction with
people who did stay?
WALLACE: Some people had no recourse; some people didn’t have money to leave and
they didn’t have money to send their kids to Catholic school, parochial school. So one of the
http://www.lib.umb.edu/archives/garrity2.html)
Page 5 of 23
�OH-043 Transcript
things we did was we formed our own academy, South Boston Heights Academy, where a lot
of the kids who couldn’t afford to leave, couldn’t afford a parochial school actually went to
school for a number of years over there. It was a substitute for the public schools.
Other people held their kids out of school for a year. Other kids never went back to school.
There was a good three or four years there where kids were shortchanged. They lost their
education; they would go to school and then leave and it just—you know, there were a
number of kids that were lost in the system. Some of the kids got involved in violence
because of this and ended up in jail. There’s a kid I knew up from Southie who threw a rock
at a bus, which no one condoned obviously, but he got arrested for it and he ended up going
to jail. He got out, did something else. This kid became a career criminal and I’m not sure
any of that would have happened. You know, he wasn’t the nicest kid, but still, he didn’t
have a chance and it was too bad.
There was a lot of violence on both sides of the issue, on both sides of the buses, and none of
that was reported. If you had read any of the news reports those days it was the people of
South Boston who were racist and bigots and hated everyone and that really wasn’t the case.
That was unfortunate and that’s what the reporters reported, that’s what they were told to
report and they did. It ended up like we were the bad guys, we didn’t want blacks in our
schools.
In actuality we didn’t want our kids going to schools that we didn’t approve of. We wanted
to have some say in our kids’ education, but they turned that around. They turned that around
and because of the first day, because of the buses coming up the hill and all the problems, that
played into the media’s hands and they now had the scapegoat. It was never going to be
Garrity, the scapegoat was us. And we wore that. We’re still wearing that. We’re still
wearing it to this day. Some people when they think of Southie they think of racism, the
think of all these negative stereotypes and I wish they’d come over there spend some time
over there and see what a great community we have.
WILDING: You mentioned your involvement in South Boston Heights.
WALLACE: South Boston Heights Academy.
WILDING: Academy?
Page 6 of 23
�OH-043 Transcript
WALLACE: I really wasn’t involved in that. That was a number of parents who got
together and formed that and it lasted I think four or five years.
WILDING: How would you, at the time of the decision, both right before and right after,
how would you characterize the neighborhood of South Boston?
WALLACE: Southie was a very, very loyal community. South Boston High at that time I
would say was really kind of a focal point in the community. Most of the kids either went—
don’t get me wrong, kids from Southie went all over the place. In 1967 there was a picture in
the Boston Globe and there were twelve boys from Southie who were captains of high school
hockey teams that one year, which was unheard of; it was [Boston] Latin, [Boston] English;
just about every school within range, the captain of the hockey team was from Southie. It
was amazing.
Kids from Southie went all over the place and there were never any racial problems that I
know of. I had this kid named Louis Blackingmore; he was a black kid that grew up on D
Street. People didn’t think that we had blacks over here. We did, but we got along. This kid
was my halfback and I saw him the other day and he was hugging me and kissing me. They
were the ones who were forced out. It was unfortunate because people took out some of their
rage on people like Louis Blackingmore, Chris Baker, who was a black kid who was living in
Southie.
The plan enraged people on both sides. White and black. And I felt bad for those people
who had lived here their wholes lives who were now all of a sudden subjected to torment
from the very people that they grew up with. It really—it really—it got to the worst form of
people. It got to their inner soul and it was a terrible, terrible—those two years were the
worst years I think of my life. It was just awful around here. There were helicopters; you
know, you’d think it was a war zone. You wake up in the morning with helicopters and you
go to bed with them at night. Police beating up parents, patrons.
I don’t know if you know anything about the Rabbit Inn incident where the State Tactical
Police Force went in, and the night before there was an incident down there, and one of the
Tactical Police Force, they said something to them, so he came back with twelve or fifteen
cops all dressed up in riot gear so no one could see their face and they beat up the patrons.
Page 7 of 23
�OH-043 Transcript
There was a federal lawsuit about it but they split people over with clubs, and this is what
was going on then. It was just a horrendous time in our history.
WILDING: Now was that covered by the media?
WALLACE: Yeah, the Rabbit Inn was because we went to court. Ray Flynn and I were
actually coming back from a wedding when it was happening. I jumped out and I had my
tape recorder and I interviewed people who were still bleeding from the head, and we used
that tape. We went to court on that and some police got suspended or fired. So that was
reported but we were testifying on the city council on that incident the next week when Larry
DiCara came up—he was a city councilman—he whispered in Ray’s ear, “A black guy just
got killed on Old Colony Ave.” And it was like, “Whoa,” and we just stopped. He actually
hadn’t been killed; he got beat up. Right next to Blockbuster there on Old Colony and
Dorchester Street. They pulled him out of his car and he ran into a house. And this is what
was the everyday thing going on then. There were gangs roaming around and it was just—it
created a lot of havoc. It created a lot of needless violence.
WILDING: Could you talk about the arguments for and against the decision? Do you feel
comfortable with that?
WALLACE: Yeah! I mean, I understood that the school department dragged their feet on
what they said was racially balanced schools. In actuality we were shipping black kids who
were going to inferior schools to white areas that had inferior schools. The schools—the
schools were the same. They were just shifting people around. It just didn’t make any sense.
The black kids—I spoke to hundreds of them and they said to me, “It’s an insult to us as
well.” They said, “Why don’t they fix up the schools? Why don’t they make all these
schools Boston Latin and then we wouldn’t have to worry about this?” And they were
absolutely right. They were more on target than any of the press people, you know. They get
caught up in this, and they didn’t want to have to go to South Boston. They wanted to go
where they wanted to go. They were forced as well.
No one talks about how they were forced to go to Brighton. And one guy—I remember
talking to a guy who had a first-grade daughter. She was six years old and she went to school
in Brighton. Now he would have to take his daughter out at quarter of seven in the morning,
put her on the bus, send her to the other side of the city, not knowing anyone there. You
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know, he said, “I’m not gonna do that. I’m leaving.” That’s what people were doing. People,
rather than sending their kids—this had nothing to do with race. This was the first-grade
student going to Brighton. No one talks about any of that stuff, and of the stupid—I mean, I
spoke to Judge Garrity once. Actually I spoke to him a couple of times, but the first time I
met him was at the Brigham’s [Ice Cream] right down at the courthouse a couple years after
busing started, and I said, “Judge,” I said, “With all due respect,” I said, “had you ever been
to South Boston before you issued that edict?” He said, “I drove through there once.” And I
said, “Ah, figures.”
This guy did more to destroy the public schools, and he admitted it before he died. He said,
“It was wrong. It was wrong. The plan never worked.” And it didn’t. We said that thirty
years ago. We said, This plan will never, ever work. And it hasn’t. The schools have never
gotten better. The schools were better back then than they are right now. It’s unfortunate,
but we’re not going to sit here and tell you we told you so. My problem is that we lost a
generation of kids who just never recovered from that.
WILDING: Joe Moakley, in a different interview, had mentioned that as a politician he and
people around him kind of just didn’t want to touch the issue.
WALLACE: Well, Joe didn’t because Joe was a congressman. That was a little bit different
than being a state rep. Joe had other areas to worry about as well. Joe was representing the
whole ninth district. Joe couldn’t be out there as forceful as Ray Flynn could. Ray had South
Boston, you know. That was his district. And people were looking to Ray because he was
there every day. Joe was in Washington. So Joe kind of stepped back a little bit from it and
let us react. He was against busing but he—Joe got whacked. Joe got hurt by busing. He got
hurt a lot by it because people didn’t think he was out there fighting for them and Joe felt he
was trapped. He knew how bad it was but he was in a different office and he had to do what
he thought was right. A guy actually ran against him in 1976 based on Joe’s whole
performance on busing. His name was Bob Flynn, and Joe beat him, but still. The guy got a
foothold because people had thought that Joe kind of took a walk on them.
WILDING: Now as opposed to reaction, I’m more curious about the initial actions before
the decision. Was there an attempt on the level of state government, like Ray Flynn, to do
something before there was a decision?
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WALLACE: No, because once it got into the courts, there was nothing we could do. There
were some bills filed. One was the Parental Rights Bill saying that a parent had—I think it
was 36-34—had to agree to put their son or daughter on any bus to go outside the district, but
it just didn’t make it. There were a lot of bills filed, but nothing really went anywhere. Once
Garrity stepped in pretty much the die was cast, and this was the way it was going to be.
Come hell or high water, whether the school came to a crashing halt or the kids did well.
I remember being in Garrity’s court—this shows how much he didn’t understand—he said—
we were sitting there; Ray was sitting here, Kevin White3 was sitting next to him and John
Maclin was sitting next to (inaudible) who was a city councilor and neither one of us three
parties were talking to each other. And Garrity said, “Why can’t you three leave this room
right now and work this out?” We just looked at him. He didn’t get the politics behind any
of this stuff. Politics in Boston is tough and it was a lot tougher back then because there were
just a lot of hard feelings.
WILDING: (inaudible) Why do you think you couldn’t work it out?
WALLACE: It was just beyond—the plan was beyond workable. Just beyond workable.
You just couldn’t—you’re taking all the kids out of one town, sending them to another town
and sending all these kids into your town. It was like, “What the hell is this?” You know,
this isn’t what we signed up for. We want our kids to go to the schools we went to. And
there were some plans which said, “Well, let’s do twenty percent. Let’s start at 20 percent.
Let’s start at 10 percent! Let’s start lower than what Garrity needed or wanted or thought
was right and work it in.” But it wasn’t (inaudible). He would never bend. He never bended
on any of that stuff. And then kids got stabbed. There was Michael Faith, got stabbed
December sixth (phone rings, words unclear).4 He almost died. We had asked—we had a
big march the next day, that Monday, but the school was surrounded after that. People just
all of a sudden came up there and all of a sudden there was like five thousand people outside
the school. They wouldn’t let the buses out. It was some pretty heavy stuff.
WILDING: You mentioned a bit about the media a little while ago. Can you talk about how
the media handled the situation?
3
Kevin White (1929- ), a Democrat, served as mayor of Boston from 1968 to 1984.
In December of 1974, Michael Faith, an 18-year-old white student from South Boston, was stabbed outside a
South Boston High School classroom. James White, an 18-year-old black student from Roxbury, was arrested
at the scene.
4
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WALLACE: Yeah, the media was awful. Media was—I remember standing outside
Southie High on the third day and this guy—a well-known—I won’t say his name, but a wellknown national news correspondent who flew in that morning. He said to me—he had
actually flew in the night before because I had had coffee with him that night—and he said,
“Brian, do you think anything’s gonna happen today?” I said, “I don’t know, why?” He said,
“I hope so! I flew all the way in from California. [I] want to see something happen.” Their
opinion was that this was a cauldron just bubbling, and it was. It was bubbling and bubbling.
And they wanted to be there when it blew up.
The Globe especially. The Globe was awful. The Globe was so one-sided on this deal, it
was absolutely—you know, people in Southie stopped buying the Globe thirty years ago
because of the way they handled the situation and they haven’t bought it since. We were
furious with the Globe, the way they handled this. They just made us to be the bad guys. We
were racists, we were bigots, and no matter what we said or did, that never changed. And
that’s why Bill Bulger5 and all those guys have had it out for the Globe ever since. Even the
national reporters—the national reporters were there to see something happen. They weren’t
there to cover anything other than to see, waiting for this whole thing to blow up, and they
wanted to be there when it happened.
WILDING: Were the same things going on in other forced busing communities that were
going on in Southie?
WALLACE: In Charlestown there was. Charlestown—East Boston was exempt from the
plan because of the tunnel, so Charlestown, Hyde Park, Southie, a little bit of West Roxbury,
but Southie was the center. Southie was the focal—there had to be one community that
people would look to and it became Southie. We were probably the most close-knit
community. Charlestown wasn’t as affected. They were affected. It wasn’t total. It was like
40 percent or whatever. But we had parents—there was a group called ROAR, Restore Our
Alienated Rights, which Louise Day Hicks6 led, who Joe [Moakley] had beaten for Congress,
5
William M. Bulger (1934- ), a Democrat from South Boston, served in the Massachusetts House of
Representatives from 1962 to 1970, in the Massachusetts State Senate from 1970 to 1978 and as State Senate
President from 1978 to 1996.
6
Louise Day Hicks (1916-2003), a Democrat, served on the Boston School Committee from 1962 to 1967
(serving as chair from 1963 to 1965), ran unsuccessfully for the mayoralty of Boston in 1967 and in 1971, and
served on the Boston City Council before being elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1970.
She represented Massachusetts’ Ninth Congressional District for one term. It was in the 1970 election that
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and there were parents from all over the city involved in that. They actually went to city hall
and the city council chambers every Wednesday night and there were a couple thousand
people involved in that.
WILDING: Regarding the violence in Southie, do you think the violence was properly
represented? Was it as violent as the media made it out to be?
WALLACE: Yeah. It was bad. It got—the more the media played it up, the worse it got.
They made these kids—I mean, some of these kids had nothing in their lives and all of a
sudden they see themselves on the lead story of the national news. And the more they saw it
the more they thought it was cool. They’re on the—“Look it, there’s my friend on the
national news,” and these reporters interviewed these kids and they’d come down and talk to
them and they made them feel like because they were throwing rocks and because they were
lighting fires and because they were doing whatever that wow, this is interesting. The book
All Souls7 I think tells a lot about that. About how the kids would run—they would light fires
just to have the fire engines come down and just—it was a game. It was a game to these kids,
and the media made them out to be bigger than life. The media was—if the media had never
stepped foot in Southie, things might have worked out, but once they did, they just took it to a
whole different level.
WILDING: So you would characterize the media as the cause of the—
WALLACE: They were the instigators in a lot of the incidents, yeah. I remember one guy,
one camera guy who turned around, whacking a lady in the face with the camera. Not
meaning to—the horses were coming, and the guy turned around and whacked this lady in the
face and her son ended up decking him, and then a whole huge fight broke out. The horses
were awful. They would charge into the crowds and trample people. It was some serious
stuff there.
WILDING: Is there anything else you witnessed personally that you would like to put on
record here?
Moakley lost his first bid for Congress, in part because Hicks was an outspoken critic of forced busing in
Boston, which helped her gain support in South Boston. Moakley defeated Hicks in the 1972 congressional
election when he ran as an Independent so he wouldn’t have to run against Hicks in the democratic primary.
7
All Souls: A Family Story from Southie was written by Michael Patrick MacDonald and was first published in
1999. MacDonald describes his experiences growing up in the projects in South Boston in the late 1960s and
1970s.
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WALLACE: Just a lot of stuff. Just a lot of nasty behavior on both sides. Police—the
police didn’t want to do that. They had a guy named [Robert J.] DeGrazia8, who was the
police commissioner at the time, who didn’t know anything about Boston, putting guys from
Southie on the front lines. They didn’t want to be there. They didn’t want to have to do what
they did. And then having the horses come into the crowds. It was just a horrendous time in
our history.
WILDING: So this was police from Southie fighting their neighbors?
WALLACE: Yeah.
(pause—tape change)
WILDING: In this story, particularly at that time, there is a lot of talk about racism
specifically as a motivation for the problems. How much of a role do you feel racism played?
WALLACE: It played more and more as—it didn’t play a lot in the beginning, I mean
especially when the plan was first announced. Over the summer I think it got nasty. Actually
there was a big fight right behind you in that picture there (motions to picture on office wall
of a beach). There was a huge, huge fight between Columbia Point blacks and Southie right
on the beach there that got national headlines.
WILDING: Can you identify that beach?
WALLACE: That’s Carson Beach.9 It was a couple weeks before school started and you
could feel the tensions rising every day and you knew that something bad was going to
happen. But the more this played out, the more racial it got. I don’t think it started that way.
I think it started with the parents objecting to the plan. I think the racism played more and
more into it to the point where Michael Faith got stabbed up at the high school. People
were—I mean the kids—there was no learning going on at the high school. I had all kinds of
friends working up there—teachers and aides—and the state police were in the high school,
in the hallways. Full riot gear. That’s how the kids had to go to school. There was nothing
8
9
Robert J. DeGrazia served as commissioner of the Boston Police Department from 1972 to 1976.
Carson Beach is located on the South Boston shoreline of Dorchester Bay.
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going on at the high school; there was no learning—it was intimidation.
These kids went to the high school. They were—again—all of a sudden they became bigger
than life as well. It was just a ridiculous way to go to high school. Especially the seniors.
The seniors had gone to three years of just regular high school then all of a sudden, senior
year they’re on national TV every night, being called names, being interviewed on [television
channels] four, five, and seven, being interviewed by the Globe and Herald. It was amazing.
All of a sudden, this transformation that Southie became a focal point in the work for a while
there. Especially the first few weeks of busing. You wouldn’t believe the number of cameras
that were outside there. It was unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. We had people from
Tokyo, Australia. It was just nuts.
WILDING: How long did the media presence stay in Southie?
WALLACE: Stayed almost the first year. I mean, not to that level. There was always
media outside. I would say the first two weeks, the first month maybe. Yeah, right into like
middle of October it was that saturated and then it kind of dropped off. When they saw the
violence was lessening and lessening—it was lessening and lessening because no one was
going to school. Kids would just leave. And the parents weren’t coming up there because
the kids weren’t in school. And once they saw that—from my point of view the media was
there to see the violence, to see something happen. And once they saw that nothing was
happening, they kind of walked away from it. And they came back in December when
Michael got stabbed. They stayed for another month, nothing happened, and they walked
away again.
WILDING: Now you saw, I assume, and you can correct me here—I’m sure you saw some
media coverage in action. Do you think the media ever skewed things as it was happening?
WALLACE: The Globe skewed it all the time. The Globe skewed it all the time. I read
stories in the Globe and I said, “This didn’t happen,” you know. “Where’d they get this?” It
was a good lesson in journalism for us to see that. And years later some of the same writers
who made things up then were found years later making things up and they got fired for it.
We saw that first hand. It was just—it was a shock to see that the guy would write something
that were both witnessing. It was almost like Johnny Most—he was the Celtics announcer—
and he would say things and you’d say, “Well, where the hell’d he get that?” And it was the
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same way with some of these reporters. Especially the Globe. The Globe was just absolutely
out of control. They said things in their columns and editorials that were just—lies.
WILDING: What was the end result of the decision in relation to the city as a whole?
WALLACE: The end result of the plan?
WILDING: Yeah, of the plan.
WALLACE: It ruined the school system. It still has a terrible effect. We’re still paying
fifty-nine million dollars a year for buses. Kids don’t have schoolbooks. Schools don’t have
heat. We’re paying fifty-nine million dollars for buses. It’s absolutely ridiculous. It ruined
the sports programs. The sports programs in the last ten years have gotten back on track
somewhat, but there was a period there—I would say not the first years, because it wasn’t
actually that bad—the sports was actually able to escape. But a couple years later it was
just—a perfect example, I’m a sports announcer as well, I do games on TV for Boston Public
Schools, and when I was a senior in high school in ’67, if I went to a Thursday afternoon
game at White Stadium, say Southie against BC High [Boston College High School], there
would be probably eight thousand people in the stands. When I do the games now, or the
games when I did them—I stopped two years ago—on a Thursday afternoon there might be
nobody in the stands. Nobody. Zero. And my producer would say—we’re getting ready to
go live, he’d say, “Lock your cameras! Lock your cameras!” Because they didn’t want—if
the ball went into the stands, say somebody kicked the ball into the stands, they didn’t want
to show the stands because there was nobody there so the camera could only go to one spot.
I had a friend of mine, his name was Dukie Walze—Dukie Joyce, I’m sorry. He was a great,
great lineman at Southie High [in] 1963. Moved to San Francisco from ’63 to probably—
maybe ’65 to ’95. And he came back one day; Southie was playing Charlestown, which was
always a huge game. Eight thousand definitely. Because they’re all longshoremen, they all
took the day off, all cops and firefighters from both sides were back. And he came to White
Stadium, and he was almost crying. He said, “Brian, where are the people?” I said, “They
don’t come anymore, Duke.” He just couldn’t believe this. He expected to come home to the
game and there’d be ten thousand people there, eight thousand. He just couldn’t believe it.
That’s what happened. No one ever talks about that. No one ever talks about how the sports
programs were ruined. That’s unfortunate, because I was there. I saw it, you know?
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WILDING: In regards to the sports program, you’ve actually written about this, I’ve seen.
Could you just talk a little bit about the immediate effect on sports?
WALLACE: The immediate effects?
WILDING: Yeah. I know you wrote a little bit about teams falling apart and things of that
nature.
WALLACE: Well, yeah, I mean—yeah. The first year they played football. They
suspended the season. They suspended the Southie-Eastie game. The Southie-Eastie game
was the biggest game of the year. You couldn’t get a ticket to that Thanksgiving morning. It
was just sold out. Fifteen thousand seats sold out, both sides. And they didn’t play it that
first year, which was—we ended up going down to the park and (inaudible) played
Somerville. It was just horrendous.
And that was—that’s what I’m saying. That was—those things, Southie grabbed that. That
was their focal point. Southie looked to the high school for a lot of things. Sports would be
one of them. The Southie-Eastie game was the biggest thing of the year, and not to have that
was—it was a clear message that he [Judge Garrity] sent. I think he cancelled the game. I
don’t know. He was afraid of violence. We weren’t gonna have any violence at SouthieEastie, you know. Violence was happening everywhere else. Just—it just destroyed—like
my example is perfectly relevant. You go from eight thousand people to none. None. No
teachers, no parents.
Parents—one of the problems we have now is we don’t have parent-teacher stuff because
even today kids from North Dorchester are going to Southie High. Parents are working; they
can’t get over to Southie High, so there’s no give or take with the parents and teachers. And
that still happens today. If you live in Southie, and there’s parent-teacher night at Southie
High that night, parents can go up there after work. Parents aren’t going to travel all the way
from North Dorchester after work. It just doesn’t work and so the school system has failed in
a lot of different levels because of busing. Sports is one of them, I think parent involvement
is another. I think community support is another. Some people don’t even think Southie
High is a part of us anymore. They walk by like it’s not even there.
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WILDING: You mentioned a second ago, “He cancelled the game.”
WALLACE: Garrity.
WILDING: Garrity? Garrity cancelled the game?
WALLACE: Yep. He was afraid there was going to be violence there.
WILDING: Politically, I was curious as to what the impact of the decision was. Did this
change campaigning after the decision? Did it change the roles of politicians in Boston?
WALLACE: It had an immediate effect on the 1975 mayor’s race. It didn’t have an effect
locally because the local politicians were basically out—they were basically the ones who
were out front. Flynn,10 Bulger,11 Flaherty12—they were basically out front. And it affected
Joe in ’74, ’76 because this guy ran against him saying that he wasn’t a Flynn, he wasn’t a
Bulger, he wasn’t a Flaherty. He wasn’t out there on the lines every day. It had an effect on
that race.
But I think the big race was the ’75 mayor’s race where Kevin White was seen somewhat
leaning towards Garrity’s camp. White said—White never really came out and said whether
he was for or against the plan. He said it was his job (inaudible) and he never—which wasn’t
good enough for most people. In my area they wanted him to say he was with us and he
never did. So Joe Timilty ran against him in ’75. Joe probably would have beaten him, if it
wasn’t for the Red Sox being in the World Series that year. Because it just knocked the
election off the—Joe was gaining a point a day and was within three points of Kevin White
when the Red Sox were in the World Series. And there was a rain delay of three or four days
which knocked him back even further, so by the time people started focusing on the election,
Kevin had regained his momentum a little bit and beat Joe. He didn’t beat him by a lot. Beat
him by a couple thousand votes. But that had an immediate effect on that race.
10
Raymond L. Flynn (1939- ), a Democrat, represented South Boston in the Massachusetts State House of
Representatives from 1971 to 1979. He later served on the Boston City Council from 1978 to 1974, then as
mayor of Boston from 1984 to 1993.
11
William M. Bulger (1934- ), a Democrat, served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1962 to
1970, in the Massachusetts State Senate from 1970 to 1996. He was Senate President from 1978 to 1996. OH014 in the Moakley Oral History Project is an interview with Mr. Bulger.
12
Michael F. Flaherty, Sr., is an associate justice for the Boston Municipal Court and a former state
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And you know, Ray and Bulger both announced for mayor in 1975, but neither of them ran.
Ray ran for city council and he actually lost. He came in tenth—not many people know that.
He came in tenth with nine hundred votes behind Joe Tierney. But it spawned a lot of
candidates. Jimmy Kelly13 was one who ran. Pixie Palladino14 ran. She was in East Boston,
a Louise Day Hicks kind of person. She ran and got a seat in City Council. John Kerrigan
ran as opposition to me; there was another guy, but Kelly and Pixie were definitely two
that—their only reason for running was busing. And they both won. Across the city.
WILDING: Now do you think the—that these effects on Massachusetts—Boston
particularly—politics were beneficial, or were they negative?
WALLACE: As far as?
WILDING: Overall.
WALLACE: I think that they dissipated. Busing now is in the rearview mirror, so I don’t
think they—at the time—like I said, I think they had an effect on candidates running citywide
who were strong busing—anti-busing candidates, and they ran as such. And people just ran
and their slogan was “No Busing.” That was enough. It wasn’t about taxes or school. “No
busing!” And some of them got elected. So I mean, it wasn’t just Southie. Not just Southie
was against this plan. The city was against it. And you see a picture of “Palladino from East
Boston got elected to School Committee citywide,” and she ran—her platform was “No
Busing.” That had to tell you something. That wasn’t just East Boston that was supporting
her; the whole city was. There were a lot of candidates like that. There were a lot of
candidates who were on just anti-busing platforms, nothing else, getting elected.
WILDING: Was there any other solution to this?
WALLACE: Yeah, sure, yeah. The didn’t have to go—first of all they didn’t have to give
us two months to do it. Last day of school they came out with the plan. Jesus, you know, the
representative.
13
James M. Kelly (1940-2007), a lifelong South Boston resident, represented South Boston in the Boston City
Council from 1983 until his death in January of 2007. He served as city council president from 1994 to 2001.
OH-019 in the Moakley Oral History Project is an interview with Councilor Kelly.
14
Elvira “Pixie” Palladio (1931-2006), an outspoken opponent of busing, served on the Boston School
Committee from 1975 to 1977 and 1979 to 1981. With Louise Day Hicks, she founded the anti-busing group
Restore Our Alienated Rights, or ROAR.
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teachers were gone. We got it at three in the afternoon. School was out and the teachers
gone. Teachers didn’t know where they were going, didn’t know where they were going to
be teaching. Could have done it over a period of maybe six months. Had meetings in the
communities saying, Here’s what we’re doing. Here’s what we’re thinking of doing. What
do you people think? What if we—? You know, instead it was just, Here it is! Here it is!
You have two months to put this together. You have two months to change everything that’s
ever been known, and do it. And I don’t care how you do it, just do it. Your son’s going—
your son no longer goes to Southie High. He now goes to Brighton High. Your son in
Brighton now goes to West Roxbury High. You know? And that’s it. And your daughter in
the first grade now goes to Brighton. You know? People said, What? What is this? What
kind of society are we living in where we can’t even—where we have no say in where our
kids go to school?
And that was the norm. And that’s why—that’s why it erupted. That’s why people—you can
only push people so far. Especially with their kids. This guy—I’ll never forget this guy,
telling me about his six year old daughter, who he wouldn’t let cross the street without
holding his hand, now getting on a bus to go to Brighton. He said, “What do they expect? I
can’t do that. I’m going to have to move.” And that’s exactly what—you know, you don’t
get that kind of eruption from something that’s even somewhat amenable. It wasn’t
amenable to anyone.
The blacks didn’t want it. They didn’t want to be forced all of a sudden to come over here.
They wanted to go their own schools but they wanted them fixed up. That would have
been—instead of spending fifty-nine millions dollars a year on buses, spend it fixing the
schools up, or building new schools. They didn’t do that. They still haven’t done that. They
built three new schools in the past twenty years. I mean, that would have been the way to do
this. The way to do this would be even to say, Okay, we’re going to take two years, we’re
going to try to build three new schools in Roxbury, a new school in Southie, a new school in
Charlestown, and then do sort of the magnet school approach.15 There were a lot—there
were private schools, there were magnet schools. These were all presented, and he [Judge
Garrity] just [said], “Nah, I don’t want to hear any of that. Here’s what’s happening, it’s
coming down, you better deal with it, you have no alternative.” And we said, No, we’re not
going to do it.
15
Magnet schools are schools offering special courses not available in the regular school curriculum and
designed, often as an aid to school desegregation, to attract students on a voluntary basis from all parts of a
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WILDING: Can you talk a little bit about Joe Moakley’s role in this period in regards to
busing?
WALLACE: Yeah, like I said, Joe was a congressman, he [Garrity] was a federal judge. I
mean, Joe was in a tough position, being a federal official. The mandate is by a federal court.
He wasn’t a state rep, he wasn’t a state senator, he wasn’t a school committee person. He
was a congressman. As such, he—Joe wasn’t as adamant as some people would have liked
him to be, but Joe thought that that was the role that he had to play. He let the Bulgers, the
Flynns, the Flahertys, the Hicks’, the Palladinos do what they had to do on the local level and
he kind of sat back a little bit. Joe didn’t attend a lot of marches, and that hurt him I think. A
little bit, for a while. But people got over it. They understood. Joe wasn’t the screamer and
yeller. Never was. Joe Moakley was always a behind-the-scenes type of guy. Joe Moakley
was the guy who would get the Democrat and the Republican to agree on something. He was
always the dealmaker, and that wasn’t his style. It wasn’t his style to go out screaming about
this and that and the other thing. He was more conciliatory. And he found himself in a rough
position, you know. Speaking to Joe personally—I had many times—he felt that Judge
Garrity screwed us. But he thought that his position, being a federal official, didn’t allow
him to come out and say that as Bulger and Flynn had said it, because they were local
officials, and that’s the way he played it.
WILDING: Do you agree with his stance on this?
WALLACE: At the time I didn’t. Joe and I had words. I didn’t think he was doing enough.
He was mad that one of my friends was running against him. We worked it out, but at the
time I thought that Joe was—he was avoiding the issue. And talking to him years later, I
realized that he was doing what he had to do. He told me, “Brian, I was a federal official, it
was a federal court, a federal judge.” He said, “I wasn’t a school committee member
anymore. I wasn’t a city councilor.” And I said, “You’re right.” He usually was right.
WILDING: Looking back do you still feel the same way about all this as you did? Has
anything changed?
WILDING: No, I still feel strongly—I feel that Judge Garrity ruined the Boston school
school district without reference to the usual attendance zone rules. (Definition from the Library of Congress.)
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�OH-043 Transcript
system. I felt it June 21, 1974, and I feel it March 2, 2005. The guy just didn’t get it. The
guy just threw money—he threw buses at us. He walked away from the system. He had no
clue. This guy had no clue, and he had never been in South Boston. Probably had never been
in Roxbury. Didn’t know any of the people, how they reacted. Didn’t know how we lived,
how we got by, how we got by paycheck to paycheck. Didn’t know the pride that we had,
and just underestimated that completely—the pride and the loyalty we had to our schools.
The high school was more than just a building. (inaudible) It was more than just a building;
it was seen as the focal point of the community. And to take that away—to take that away
just—we said, No, we’re not going to let you or anyone else do that. This is our school. This
is where we went to school. This is where our grandparents went to school. This is where
our kids are going to school. We’re not going to let you take that away.
And everyone said, “Oh, no, you just don’t want the blacks coming in.” It was never that.
But the press would never say that. It was never about the black kids coming in. It was about
us being taken out of there. It’s eighty-five percent black now, but it was always—coming
from my standpoint anyway, it was about him telling us that our kids couldn’t go to our
schools, and that was—but if you read the stories back then it was all about, “Oh, they hate
blacks. They don’t want the blacks coming into Southie.” Some people—some people,
that’s exactly how they felt. There were people—there were racists out there in Charlestown,
there were racists in Southie, there were racists in Eastie. There were racists in Roxbury.
And some people felt that way. They didn’t want blacks anywhere near the high school. Still
do. But the majority of the people rejected this plan because they didn’t want their kids taken
away from their educations and they wanted to dictate where their kids went to school, and
that was taken away from them. And that building was taken away from us.
WILDING: With busing where it is today, are there signs of improvement, or is it still as
bad as it was?
WALLACE: I think some schools have improved. Some schools have—some schools—
they’re just changing the names. They changed the name of Southie High. It’s no longer
South Boston High School, it’s now the South Boston Educational Complex, housing
Monument, Charter, and Odyssey Schools. It’s three different high schools now. So they’re
doing that, and I testified in from of the school committee. I said, “If you think that by doing
this you’re going to erase busing, you’re not going to do it.” I said, “That’s what you’re
trying to do, calling this the Monument High School and Excel High School,” and I said,
Page 21 of 23
�OH-043 Transcript
“You’re not going to do it.” But that’s their idea. We’re dealing with people now who have
no idea about the history of the schools. There are a couple who do, but for the most part
they don’t. I don’t see a whole lot of good going on. Southie High—the Monument isn’t
bad. There is some education going on, but what you should strive to do is strive to make all
the schools like Latin, Latin Academy and O’Bryant. And there’s only three of them. Three
exam schools.
And the other schools have fallen by the wayside. It’s just a—it’s a shame, you know? It’s
really a shame. It’s not only the high schools, it’s the middle schools—Gavin School. Gavin
School, there is no education going on there. They’re fighting all the time. I was there—last
time I was there there were three fights while I was in there. It’s just a horror show. And it
all started with that decision. I feel as strongly today as I did then. And I said to Garrity, I
said, “You’re going to destroy the system. You’re going to destroy public education in
Boston.” I told him that in Brigham’s. And he said, “No, we’re going to make it better.”
And I said, “You just don’t get it.” That should be on his headstone: “I just didn’t get it.”
WILDING: Alright, in closing, is there anything else about this period that you want to have
on record?
WALLACE: No, I think we covered most of it. I just feel very strongly about the media,
about how they slandered us. They betrayed us and they didn’t know us. They never really
wanted to. They had a villain. A perfect villain, Irish Catholics. “They hate blacks.” It was
just so alien to some of us to read that about ourselves, because we never did. I guess we had
a lot of blacks living in Southie at the time, but they never said that. They said it was all
white. It was never all white. Boys’ Club the year before, the club member of the year was
Chris Baker, a black kid from E Street. But that was just swept under the rug. They had an
easy scapegoat with us and it sold papers. And we fought back. And they didn’t like that.
We fought back by stealing Globes and not buying the papers and not letting—putting cars
across the roads so they couldn’t get the trucks out. We did that on a number of occasions.
We fought back, and they didn’t like it. No one knew we fought back, but we did. And they
didn’t like it. And I think that’s—I think I’m more mad at the Globe than probably Garrity
because they at least understood—knew what they were doing. Garrity didn’t. Garrity had
no clue until the day he died how bad he messed up the system.
WILDING: Alright, well, thank you.
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�OH-043 Transcript
WALLACE: Okay.
END OF INTERVIEW
Page 23 of 23
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers, 1926-2001
Subject
The topic of the resource
Boston (Mass.)<br />Legislators--United States <br />Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001<br /> South Boston (Boston, Mass.)<br />Legislators. Massachusetts<br />Politicians--Massachusetts
Description
An account of the resource
The paper of Congressman John Joseph Moakley are housed at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.<br /><br />The sample of items from the Moakley papers exhibited on this site are used courtesy of the Moakley Archive and Institute. The full collection documents Moakley’s early life, his World War II service, his terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate, and his service in Congress. The majority of the collection covers Moakley’s congressional career from 1973 until 2001. A <a title="Moakley papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> the the collection is available online. <br /><br />The collection is open for research. Access to materials may be restricted based on their condition. Please consult the <a title="Moakley Archive" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/moakley" target="_blank">Moakley Archive and Institute</a>, Suffolk University for more information.
Creator
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Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers (MS 100), 1926-2001. View the <a title="John Joseph Moakley Papers" href="http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/ms100.pdf" target="_blank">finding aid</a> at the Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
Publisher
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Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts.
Date
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1926-2001
Rights
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Items highlighted from the Moakley papers in this online collection are made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. <br /><br />Copyright is retained by the creators of items in the Moakley papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
A related resource
<div>
<div>
<p>Moakley Papers: Moakley Oral History Project<br />Enemies of War Collection (MS 104)<br /> Jamaica Plain Committee on Central America Collection (MS 103)</p>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
Contributor
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Moakley Archive and Institute, Suffolk University.
Format
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300.7 cubic feet (521 boxes)
Language
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English
Type
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Text
Image
Identifier
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MS 100
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Boston, Mass.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Wilding, Matthew
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Wallace, Brian
Location
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Massachusetts State House, Boston, Mass.
Transcription
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See PDF transcript
Original Format
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MP3 audio file
Note: Original audio recording is available for listening at the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Duration
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59:43
Time Summary
A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview
Part 1
Representative Wallace’s background p. 3 (00:07)
Reactions to and impact of the Garrity decision p. 4 (00:55)
Congressman Moakley’s position p. 9 (15:49)
More on the impact of the decision p. 9 (16:40)
Part 2
More on the impact of the decision p. 13 (00:22)
Lack of regard for other solutions p. 18 (13:48)
More about the effect of busing on Congressman Moakley p. 19 (16:39)
Boston schools today and the legacy of busing p. 20 (19:20)
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Transcript of Oral History Interview of Brian P. Wallace
Subject
The topic of the resource
Boston (Mass.)
Boston Public Schools
Busing for school integration
Flynn, Raymond L.
Garrity, W. Arthur (Wendell Arthur), 1920-1999
Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
South Boston (Mass.)
Wallace, Brian P., 1949-
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Brian P. Wallace, a former Massachusetts state representative and longtime resident of South Boston, reflects on the impact of Judge W. Arthur Garrity's 1974 decision in the case of Morgan v. Hennigan, which required some students to be bused between Boston neighborhoods with the goal of creating racial balance in the public schools. He discusses the reactions that he witnessed from both politicians and Boston residents; Congressman John Joseph Moakley's position on the decision; and what he sees as the negative effects of decision on Boston and its schools.
Creator
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Moakley Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
March 2, 2005
Contributor
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Kintz, Laura
Rights
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Copyright Suffolk University. This item is made available for research and educational purposes by the John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute. Prior permission is required for any commercial use.
Relation
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Moakley Oral History Project: http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/collections/show/1
Format
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PDF (Computer file format)
Language
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English
Type
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Oral history interview transcript
Identifier
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OH-043