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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.
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�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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�OH-014 Transcript
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
Page 6 of 37
�OH-014 Transcript
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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�OH-014 Transcript
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.
Page 8 of 37
�OH-014 Transcript
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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�OH-014 Transcript
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-014 Transcript
“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.
Page 30 of 37
�OH-014 Transcript
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.
Page 31 of 37
�OH-014 Transcript
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.
Page 32 of 37
�OH-014 Transcript
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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�OH-014 Transcript
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
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.
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.
Publisher
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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.
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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
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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Bulger, William
Location
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University of Massachusetts President’s Office, Boston, Mass.
Transcription
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See PDF transcript
Original Format
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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
A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview
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
The topic of the resource
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
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.
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Moakley Oral History Project: http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/collections/show/1
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Language
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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/9e2113b4ce0e6453203ae6b794b8c0b7.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=kE2ZCl6plYNpsFhgs-ZSDW7Qi3fRcYeWe3F-XH8ygq0dWbjoGgXaORWkblIL%7EhtpfhnL2prGozFWPFl9e74zfjlltrha7Pcw1zxlEbEBsrJ45iD4wuMsmv-G3qp9lpcma8SssgSU20o6ASt1h0tNkPkbULOEiz-LUcadSLchdx53FifBRxqF4R-HhU5MIWx5W8eN1f4B3u6OKh7CPnBvx%7E3JRuWB9ItPkCqiNSHSf8Ux0oPyqfIVPMa%7E-nx2lPeKTJRuEiKzzk2lOHdTG754I03PJkg2CAM9yxztqtjlgK1ObWMyX9pFSlxDxztz7cE9Hyk484cGdhWv0f0FLH3dGQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
8f16cb3f1311362111380e28b8462f0b
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)
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
1
�Oral History Interview of Sean Ryan (OH-004)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
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
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
2
�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
Page 3 of 20
�Oral History Interview of Sean Ryan (OH-004)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
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
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
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�Oral History Interview of Sean Ryan (OH-004)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
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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19
�Oral History Interview of Sean Ryan (OH-004)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
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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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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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>
</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.
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Interviewer
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Caruso, Paul
Interviewee
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Ryan, Sean
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Law offices of Donoghue Barrett & Singal, P.C., Boston, Mass.
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See PDF transcript
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49:57
Time Summary
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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)
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Transcript of Oral History Interview of Sean T. Ryan
Subject
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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
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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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Oral history interview transcript
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OH-004
-
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
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�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.
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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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�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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�OH-003 Transcript
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.
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
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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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54
�
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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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<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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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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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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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-003
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/15912/archive/files/af29cdd3f823eb227ff4cd5ba740e01c.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=IEF6wgLdWQTYNdtg-K%7EV16QFEQJgLeEObNuqqJWG0ShHnXV75JZNFN6uEw2jdSVyVFHY21DxSp-XF-x2W9ATuDH9xq4cBOADRdmofMSFMukR5uY-b4VCb4IDPS7W01TPKiL7cSDGJkVl1nXou91eGN4kRkqN8xbDNnT8LneSfFumwHUtkNfKasSZcPyFFkh2orVaVx176NrnIcNxnlMJffZh3fVw6tWCdGz9U9F2JBwUJeJzFz%7EGEvuZyB2ayCWNfVSyF7hMLGvSNVWLZjXHOaHEEZavDj1YE9JNXGDVAM-TiavmJNBTSbb%7EIvraAiWJnm8K3v5qFKtAbFA8ssj4Pg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
46b4639efc2359b02735b633ef5a4e83
PDF Text
Text
Oral History Interview of Patricia Kelly (OH-051)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Oral History Interview of Patricia Kelly
Interview Date: March 15, 2005
Interviewed by: Joshua Steinberg, Suffolk University student from History 364: Oral History
Citation: Kelly, Patricia. Interviewed by Joshua Steinberg. John Joseph Moakley Oral History
Project OH-051. 15 March 2005. Transcript and audio available. John Joseph Moakley Archive
and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Copyright Information: Copyright ©2005, Suffolk University.
Interview Summary
Patricia Kelly, an administrator and former teacher in the Boston Public Schools, discusses her
experiences as an African American teacher in the aftermath 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. The interview covers her teaching experiences in Charlestown; the
racial tension in Charlestown during the 1970s; the impact of the Garrity decision on education
in Boston; and her memories of her students and fellow teachers.
Subject Headings
Busing for school integration
Charlestown (Boston, Mass.)
Kelly, Patricia A.
Morgan v. Hennigan (379 F. Supp. 410)
Table of Contents
Background
p. 3 (00:07)
Early teaching experiences
p. 3 (01:53)
Impact of the Garrity decision in Charlestown
p. 7 (09:58)
Experiences with racism
p. 9 (15:48)
Feelings about the decision
p. 11 (20:40)
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
1
�Students’ experiences
p. 15 (28:54)
Reflections on her experiences and the impact of the decision
p. 18 (35:46)
Interview continues on next page.
Page 2 of 21
�OH-051 Transcript
This interview took place on March 15, 2005.
Interview Transcript
JOSHUA STEINBERG: Would you care to introduce yourself, give a brief description of your
childhood? And we’ll start from there.
PATRICIA KELLY: Okay. Alright. My name is Patricia Anne Kelly, and I grew up in the
Bronx. I went to Catholic school from K to eight and then my parents moved us to New Jersey
where I went to high school. So I lived in New Jersey for four years. After that I came up to
Boston to go to Northeastern University. I graduated from there in 1974 and I started teaching
immediately after I graduated. I started teaching in the Boston Public School system in 1974.
I went to—in elementary school I went to a predominantly white school. It was predominantly
Italian. There were three kids of color in my grade. I still remember them: Haydee, Ralph, and
me. And when we moved to New Jersey my parents were looking for a school system that was
of high quality, so we moved to Tenafly, New Jersey, where, again, it was an all-white school
and I was the only black student in the entire high school until we had an exchange student from
Ethiopia. So I was the only black student there.
(pauses to think) And then I came up to Northeastern. I came up to Boston because my mother
and I had researched a lot of schools—we started up there on the East Coast and Northeastern
actually had a really good education department, which was unknown to most people because
they are known for engineering and they are known as a commuter school. But I got an excellent
education there. And my degree is in elementary education with a concentration in reading and
Spanish.
STEINBERG: Now, when you started teaching right after Northeastern, where did you teach?
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�OH-051 Transcript
KELLY: I taught in Charlestown. I taught at the Holden School. It was the first year of busing
for Boston,1 but there was no busing in Charlestown that year. That summer the mayor had
spent going around to the different communities talking to people about the fact that in
September students would be bused. What was decided was that even though the kids would not
be bused in Charlestown that year there would be black teachers taken from schools in black
neighborhoods and moved to Charlestown, and some white teachers were sent to black schools
in other parts of the city. Since I was brand new, I had no school to leave, but they placed me in
Charlestown immediately. So I taught at the Holden School.
Initially, that year, because of busing all of the teachers had two weeks to set up their classrooms.
So I was initially assigned to be the Title I teacher at the Holden School. Title I is a federallyfunded grants program; basically I would be doing remedial reading. I know that the NAACP
fought the fact that many of the new African American hires were placed in ancillary positions;
they were not placed in classrooms. The day before school started the assistant principal came
and told me that he had switched me to first grade. So I spent two weeks setting up my Title I
classroom to find out the day before school started, actually that afternoon, that the next morning
I would be teaching first grade.
STEINBERG: This is right when the busing was happening?
KELLY: This is right when busing was happening in the rest of the city.
STEINBERG: In the rest of the city, I see.
KELLY: So busing was not happening in Charlestown in 1974. Busing didn’t come to
Charlestown until 1975. So that year I had—there were in the school—in my school I was the
1
“Busing” refers to the result of 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 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 21
�OH-051 Transcript
only black teacher. But across the street at the Warren Prescott, I think there were three black
teachers there. Because the four of us commuted together. Wait a minute, no, there were two
because we commuted together. I’m trying to think if there were two there.
The first grade class that I had was an all-white class. Most of the kids came from the projects. I
think I had around twenty, twenty-one kids. And the Holden School had four teachers including
me. There were two kindergarten teachers. I was the first grade teacher. There was one other
teacher who was a second grade teacher. She was the teacher in charge. And then we had a Title
I teacher who came occasionally, who took my place. Because basically what they did was
switch me with the first grade teacher, who was supposed to be the first grade teacher.
STEINBERG: Now did they—you said how in 1974 they were rearranging teachers. Did they
specifically put you in Charlestown because you were black?
.
KELLY: Yes.
STEINBERG: And how did that—what was it like being in Charlestown at that time, being the
only black teacher?
KELLY: That year I lived in Roxbury so I commuted by train to Charlestown, and it was a
tough year. The first—well, first of all, the school that I was in, the four teachers there—the
teachers didn’t speak to me because they were mad about busing. So I was basically on my own.
I really didn’t have supervision and at the time, Charlestown had one principal for the four
elementary schools. So the school had—each school had an assistant principal, but because we
were so small we had a head teacher. The assistant principal was across the street at the Warren
Prescott School. So I saw the principal that year one time. He came and introduced himself to
me; it was during—when we were doing the Pledge of Allegiance. And then he left and I didn’t
see him again until many years later when I had long since left Charlestown.
Since I came to school by train, I had to walk through the neighborhood, and the neighborhood
was not receptive to knowing that busing was coming nor to the black teachers. There was one
Page 5 of 21
�OH-051 Transcript
time when I was walking past the boys’ club and I was surrounded by a group of men there who
were picketing about something there at the boys’ club, and I was trying to walk past them and
they started calling me a nigger. I was responding back to them. And fortunately the police
came and they took me off and took me to school. Because—and there were other times when I
would be walking to school and kids would pass me and call me names. The staff was also
not—nothing was done with the staff, as far as, These are new teachers in the building, this
would be—it’s a tough time, we all have to work together. Nothing was done like that. So
basically, we were really on our own. It was two other teachers at the Warren Prescott.
Teachers—basically, I would be walking up the hill in Charlestown and they would go by, be
driving and toot their horn, wave, and [I would] keep on walking. At one point I was walking
with a group of two white teachers, and some kids passed up and started taunting us. And they
[the teachers] crossed the street because it wasn’t safe for them to be with me either. It was an
unsafe time. Eventually, what I did was I went to the police station in the morning, which was
the stop before I had to get off. That train is gone now; it was the Orange Line then. I would get
off at the stop before and go to the police station, and they would drive me to work so that I
could be safe. So it was a hard time.
STEINBERG: I never realized it was that bad.
KELLY: The kids were totally receptive. The kids loved me. I loved them. It was my first real
class. I was real excited about them. They knew it. But it was me and the kids. I didn’t eat with
anybody. There was nobody—we had different lunchtimes so I ate alone except on Wednesday
when the nurse came in. We didn’t have specialists, so I was with the kids all day. I had a huge
turnout for open house because their parents had heard that they had a black teacher and they
wanted to know who I was. The teacher next to us said she had some of these kids’ brothers and
sisters and she hadn’t seen their parents. But the parents came out to see me.
The kids realized that it was not safe for me. They also realized that they were not in a safe
neighborhood. One child one time invited me to her house for a birthday party and then told me
Page 6 of 21
�OH-051 Transcript
that I wouldn’t be safe because her mother carried a gun. So—(pauses)—not that she thought
her mother would shoot me, but she felt like her neighborhood wasn’t safe. So—. (pauses)
STEINBERG: So this was all before the busing?
KELLY: Before busing started, right. This was the year before. But, remember, busing was
happening in the rest of the city; lots of things were happening in South Boston at the time. So
people are seeing this and I’m seeing it on TV every day. And, you know, people—I mean, one
child said to me—actually it wasn’t that year he said it to me, it was the next year when busing
started—that he had never seen a black person. So this was brand new. Charlestown was very
insular; it’s one square mile. It was predominantly Catholic—Irish-Catholic. People had Irish
and Italian [backgrounds]. And people had grown up and lived there for years; this was their
neighborhood. Boston already had a reputation of not being receptive and people stayed in their
own areas. So this was really big to have black teachers come in and be teaching their kids.
That was the first year.
STEINBERG: What was it like—now the second year, 1975, did Charlestown then start
busing?
KELLY: Right. Charlestown bused. The second year I was moved to a different school. I was
moved to the Bunker Hill School, which is on the other end of Charlestown. That year busing
did start in Charlestown. And the first day of school what they decided was that—there were
five black teachers who were in Boston—in Charlestown. There were two at the Harvard-Kent,
two at the Warren Prescott, and then I was at the Bunker Hill School. What they decided was
that to ensure our safety, they would put us in a van. We would meet a van in Charlestown and
they would basically bus us in. And that would keep up safe. So the first day of school what
they did was had us meet at the Bunker Hill Community College over there. And this van driver
was to drive us in. Now we could see on TV that it would be important not to go up Bunker Hill
Street because people out in the street and they were—I don’t want to say rioting, but they were
not happy. It was not a happy crowd out there.
Page 7 of 21
�OH-051 Transcript
The driver claimed that he knew the schools in Charlestown but the first school he took us to
was—the Harvard-Kent had been combined and I don’t know if it was the Harvard he took us
to—I think it was the Harvard School he took us to, which had been closed for years. It was an
abandoned building, so he didn’t know the schools. He knew them from way past. And he
ended up taking us—taking the two teachers who went to the Harvard-Kent school—he took
them there first; dropped them off. And then in the van—the three of us were in the van going
up Bunker Hill Street. So people were seeing us go by there in the streets. It was a really scary
time. Then they dropped off the two teachers at the Warren Prescott and then he continued on
Bunker Hill Street and took me to Bunker Hill School. Which meant that it was me and this
driver in the van, alone. People were looking in the van, and frankly, I would say that it was
probably one of the first times I feared for my life. Because I didn’t know if—how the people
were going to receive me. I didn’t know if I would be safe. You know, I don’t know the
community, I don’t recall seeing the police. What I do recall is when we were sitting at Bunker
Hill Community College waiting for the van, lined up along the highway there were the
motorcycle police; there were helicopters above us. And the presence of the police was
astounding. I mean, it was very—it felt like you were in an area of siege. You could see that
this was not, I’m going to school and teaching my lesson today and nothing’s going to happen.
You could feel the tension in the air. Everybody was on patrol and on heightened alert during
that time.
Anyway, that day, at the end of the day, my school—the schools were on different starting times
and ending times because of the busing. Because they had to use the buses for multiple runs,
what they did was some schools were early schools and some schools were late schools. So an
early school might start at 8:10 and a late school might start at like 9:10. Those times are
probably not accurate, but they are close. I was on an early school and the two teachers at the
Warren Prescott were on a late school schedule—later school schedule. The van drive—I was
very specific to the can drive, I said, “You need to pick me up first,” because we got out at 2:20
and the other schools got out closer to three o’clock. Well, that first day at the end of the school
day the teachers all left and I sat in the school. Then I think it was the principal who left and he
said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And then a little while later, the custodian left and he said, “I
really need to lock up the building.” So I sat on the front steps in Charlestown waiting for this
Page 8 of 21
�OH-051 Transcript
van to pick me up, not knowing if anybody were going to come down the street, where the
crowds were at this point, what was going to happen. The van driver came to pick me up at this
point and I said to the other teachers in the van, “This is my last day in the van. I am not safe
taking this van. I will take my chances in my own car.”
Now by then I had moved to New Hampshire so I was a lot safer in my own car because I could
come right off the highway and go straight to the Bunker Hill School without going down
Bunker Hill Street, without going down Main Street. The school was several blocks from the
border of Charlestown so people were not at that end. So it was much easier for me just to come
in, come to school, go out, get out of town. The school is right up the street from where
Schrafft’s used to be. It’s now condominiums so it’s no longer there. So that was the end of me
riding the van.
I had a first grade—what did I teach that year? I think I had a first grade class that year but I’m
not positive. I’ll have to go back and figure that out. I think I had first grade that year. And I
had a very small class and those kids were bused in. So I had very few white kids because
Charlestown kids were—many of them had left, many of them had gone to Catholic school.
Some of them had gone up to New Hampshire. Some of them were going to school where their
relatives lived. So I did have a very integrated class. I had Asians, blacks, and a few whites. But
I had a very small class.
And that was the time—and I still remember this child’s name, his name is Bobby Yandle. He
said to me he had never—he didn’t know any black people. Because what happened was at the
end of the day so the kids could get out, we would dismiss the kids who were bused, who were
all black kids. We dismissed them first and hold the white kids until the buses had gone, and then
we would dismiss the rest of the school. So one day when he and I were sitting there, he said to
me he didn’t know any black people. And I asked him—no, he started off the conversation:
“You know, we don’t like black people.” And I said, “Why?” And he said, “Because they kill
and murder people.” And I said, “Well, do you know any black people?” And he said, “No.” I
said, “Do you remember the little girl who was sitting next to you today in class?” I said, “She’s
black.” He said, “Really?” and I said, “I’m black.” He was surprised. So he didn’t know any—
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he had never met a black person. So he didn’t even know what a black person looked like or—it
was a concept to him. It was nothing that was real. And he and this little girl were very good
friends. Now they never played together outside of school, but they definitely played together in
school, and in school you know there were not—we didn’t use racial epithets. There were—the
kids got along together. We didn’t have racial fights. We were in an elementary school.
Now these were happening in Charlestown High School and other things were happening there.
But we were at our own end in Charlestown and the kids got along. Now as far as the teachers
go, there were a lot of questions for me. There were a lot of—I was the first black teacher they
had worked with. I had questions about my hair, where I lived. One teacher did one time invite
me to her home and when I went to shake her parents’ hand they took their hand away. (pauses)
So it was very interesting times. What would happen at the end of the day for me is I was
driving my car out and I would pull out—I would always leave with the teachers so I was—
never stayed after school alone. I would pull out with the teachers and I would get either
snowballed—there were neighborhood kids who would just blast me with snowballs or rocks or
whatever was available to throw. One time in the teachers’ room I mentioned that this is what
was happening to me every day.
STEINBERG: And these were older kids who were doing it?
KELLY: Yeah, these were older kids, not my students, though one of them was the older
brother of one of my kids. And his mother was my lunch attendant in my classroom. So I knew
the family, you know? I knew the mother and the youngest son. But the other son was
pummeling me with rocks at the end of the day. I mentioned it in the teacher’s room one day and
everybody said, Oh, no, that’s not happening, not for real. You know, whatever.
STEINBERG: So they didn’t believe you?
KELLY: Yeah, nobody believed that anybody—because they knew—these were their
neighbors. Teachers in this school had also grown up in Charlestown. So these were their
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neighbors, their friends, kids that they had taught. So they didn’t believe that they could be
doing that.
Well, one day we had a big snowstorm; it was really tough to walk. And I’ll never forget Alice
Slater. She grew up in the neighborhood. She lived around the corner. She was teeny. She was
around seventy years old. They had just changed the retirement age so that she didn’t have to
retire. She had taught there all her life. She had taught in Charlestown and lived in Charlestown
all her life. And I offered here a ride because she was an elderly woman and I thought, You’ve
got to walk down this hill—it’s all icy. We pulled out in my car and I got blasted with
snowballs. All in the windows—you know, hitting the windows, the sides of the car. And it
broke off the body side molding of my car. So I stopped the car and I got out to pick up the body
side—it had turned it up—so I got out to take it off the car and stick it in the car and Alice
jumped out of the car. And I said, “Oh, Alice, that’s okay. They will leave us alone now. Don’t
worry about it.” This little old lady ran into the school playground area and started running
across the lot. And I’m like, “Alice, come back! It’s slippery out there.” She turns around; she
comes back and she said, “I know those kids. I taught those kids. I taught their parents, and I
grew up with their grandparents. This has got to stop! I’m getting on the phone tonight.” And I
said, “Well, don’t worry about it. This happens every day.” I dropped her off at her house and I
went home. That was the last time that I was ever hit with a snowball there.
It really talked about the power of one person. The tight-knit (tape skips) neighborhood. And
the pride in that this was unacceptable. And I’ll never forget her. I will never forget Alice
Slater. She was the second grade teacher when I was—and I taught second grade with her that
year. It was quite a powerful lesson that I think we all could have learned from her. (pauses)
She stopped that. So when you think about it, this one elderly woman had all this power to stop
one person from being basically tortured every day. And what was I doing? I’m teaching. I
wasn’t coming in there to harm anybody. And it makes you think in retrospect: What could have
the priests done? What could the mayor have done? What could the politicians have done to
have stopped the ugliness that was going on in the city? I mean, they were multiple people.
They were people who were in power. This was one person. And she was not—nobody knows
her name. Her name is not up someplace. But she stopped it for me.
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And she was funny because she was—she claimed—she said, “I’m not prejudiced. The only
people I don’t like are people—I don’t care if you’re black, white, you know, whatever. The
only people I don’t like are people who are on welfare and stealing from the system!” (laughs)
So I wouldn’t get into political debates with her. But she also was a teacher who—every kid left
her room knowing how to read. They could read, write—they could read and do math. Those
were her two subjects and she drilled them until they got reading. She didn’t make them not like
reading but even the toughest kid she got to read. Now she didn’t teach any social studies or
science, or anything else. But those kids left reading. So I will always remember her for that.
Those were my beginning years in teaching.
STEINBERG: Now do you feel—I know how you mentioned the mayor wasn’t doing anything.
KELLY: Well the mayor was. He was going around—it was Mayor [Kevin] White at the
time—he was going around to different communities saying, “We need to be calm. We need to
do okay.” And I don’t remember anything else the mayor did. And I don’t remember what the
superintendent did. But I’m not so sure how genuine all the politicians were. I mean, they had
spent twenty years fighting busing. So it’s not like overnight they’re going to say, Oh, yeah, we
embrace it, deciding segregation. They are not overnight going to say, Oh, yes, we love this
plan, or, You really should give this a chance. There were a lot of outs to—a lot of ways to
avoid going to school that year. And, you know, people just—the people in power, I feel—I feel
that they could have done more. (pauses) I mean, we were a lost voice. I mean, here I am
paying union dues to the Boston Teachers Union and at that time they were fighting
desegregating the teachers. So I’m like, “Can I have my money back?”
STEINBERG: Yeah, you are wondering what you’re paying your dues for.
KELLY: Am I fighting this so that I can be out of a job? There was no sense of, Let’s pull this
faculty together, or, Now it’s happened, so you are in the union, so we have to figure out how to
protect you, too. Now before it started though, there had been workshops on—for teachers. And
I don’t know if they were just for new teachers but I remember attending some of these
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workshops where they talked about, So, how do you work with different races in the classroom?
Sort of lessons about how to live together, kind of thing. It was an ongoing professional
development for us. But I don’t know if there was ongoing professional development around
anything at that point.
STEINBERG: Yeah, it seems like they just kind of threw you into the mix and said, Here you
go.
KELLY: Here you go, good luck.
STEINBERG: Especially with the principal leaving you the first year.
KELLY: Yeah.
STEINBERG: So did you believe that busing was the correct decision to do or did you think
they could have done something else?
KELLY: Well, I think that—of course, it’s how many years in retrospect?
STEINBERG: I think like thirty.
KELLY: Yeah, thirty years hindsight. I think that there was a whole lot lost in the school
committee fighting the desegregation for twenty years. I think they set people up. The school
system wasn’t that great to begin with and people thought that they were losing a lot. They
really weren’t losing a lot. I think at that point—and, I mean, you’d have to check the
statistics—but I think only two percent of the kids who went to South Boston High were going to
college. That is not a great percentage.
STEINBERG: No, it’s not.
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KELLY: Yeah, so that’s not exactly, Oh, we are getting ready—now we are getting ready to go
over to Harvard to school. Nobody was getting a good education. I think that I understand why
they didn’t do it gradually. I think it might have been easier if you’d desegregated your
kindergarten, your elementary schools first. I mean, elementary school kids are more tolerant.
But the parents would have been crazy sending their kids, their young kids, to another
neighborhood. So there were—every solution had its negatives to it. Busing cost a whole lot.
There has been so much white flight that at this point school is predominantly kids of color. And
it’s taken a long time for there to be some—lots of pockets of really good education going on.
And the reputation hasn’t changed. People still think of Boston as having a substandard
education. Now, I was principal in Boston for five years. I know that there are pockets of
wonderful things happening in the system. I don’t think that a lot of people know about these
pockets. I think more and more are getting them.
I think that there are probably other solutions but I don’t think that there was the will to really sit
down and determine what they might be. And also time had run out. Something had to be done.
People were upset. I mean, one thing might have been to build better schools and put better
teachers in schools that had been neglected for years, which all of those schools were
predominantly in the neighborhoods where people of color lived. So there are—now we can
look back and see what other solutions might have been.
STEINBERG: But at the time—
KELLY: I think at the time that’s what had to happen. I don’t think that there were—because
they were really out of time. If they had—when Brown v. Board of Education had first happened
in 1954 if the school committee had said, Okay, let’s recognize our problem here and let’s take
five years to figure out what the good solutions would be, and to go to people and say, Look, we
are going to spend five years planning, then in 1960 they would have had a plan. But, you know,
they didn’t. They spent twenty years resisting it and spending lots of money fighting it. And so
now you’ve wasted all this money; you’ve wasted all this time. And Garrity puts this solution on
and bang, it has to happen.
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You know, suburbs didn’t touch it. Brookline is located in the middle of Boston, surrounded by
Boston. They’re not touching it. The suburbs got out of it. So that—I think that by waiting
there ended up being fewer resolutions. So I think that’s what had to happen.
STEINBERG: Now, you mentioned how in the first year—was it the first year that a lot of the
white kids left immediately, or was it a gradual process where you noticed that towards the end
of it—?
KELLY: No, I think the first year they were gone. In ’74 I had a full class of white kids. In ’75
I did not. So I think that they exited pretty quickly in Charlestown. I don’t know what happened
at other schools. I know that our enrollment at our school was pretty low. Even though I had
changed schools, you know, you could tell. One year I had a class of seven kids. (laughs)
STEINBERG: Now did—so in 1975 did the parents come to you first and say like, Look, I do
not like this—
KELLY: No. No—
STEINBERG: They just up and left?
KELLY: No, no, they were just gone.
STEINBERG: Just gone?
KELLY: No, they didn’t—I don’t recall parents—I don’t recall very many parents in the school
at all. They were just gone. They—you know—now, I wouldn’t have known who they were
because I hadn’t had their kids the year before because I had been in a different school. But the
class size was low and the class was predominantly kids of color who don’t live there, who are
being bused in every day. And nobody runs a class of seven kids. But that year we had to
because of—I had a class of thirteen kids one year. Class sizes are usually twenty-five.
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STEINBERG: Yeah, twenty-seven.
KELLY: You’re missing somebody. (laughs)
STEINBERG: Now, but did the—
KELLY: And those were the beginning years that I was there because eventually the schools—
the schools in Charlestown are small. Two of the small schools were eventually closed. The
Holden School is now a special needs. As I said before the Bunker Hill School is
condominiums. Expensive condominiums now, too. I’d love to go see my classroom. (laughs)
STEINBERG: Now how did the kids feel? I know you said a lot of them were minorities. Did
they enjoy being bused or—where were they bused from? How far away?
KELLY: You know, I had a first and second grade. You don’t know at that point that you are
being bused. You get on a bus in the morning because your parents put you on a bus and you go
to school just like you walk to school. And you go to school. It’s not like when you’re five you
say, “Oh, Mommy, I would prefer not to go to this school. I would rather go to this school.”
You are not talking about kids who are entitled kids. These kids did what their parents said to do
and their parents were taking a risk. I’m not so sure how I would feel putting my kid on a bus
going into an unsafe area. And I can remember standing in the window at my classroom
watching this bus come up the hill with these kids—these little faces peering out of the window,
watching things go on and thinking just right up the street there are people who are throwing
rocks at these buses with these little five-, six-, seven-, and eight-year-olds on the buses. I just
didn’t understand how people could do that. And this was a religious—(inaudible; tape change)
STEINBERG: We were talking about kids reactions—
KELLY: I was saying I didn’t understand how people could do this to little kids. Throw rocks
at buses or bricks or be out there chanting ugly things. When you’re talking about people who
were—went to church on Sunday. And this is what I’m talking about with the power of leaders.
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The priests should have been out there. Priests should have been in the churches saying, Don’t
do this. You can’t do this. This isn’t right. You know, protest in another way. Go down to city
hall and protest. But to stand there and be yelling things at little kids on buses, that was not
right. Even big kids on buses, that’s not right. Go where it is going to make a difference. This
five-year-old is not the one who created busing. Me, as a teacher, it didn’t make sense for the
teachers not to speak to me. I’m teaching their kids too. For them not to speak to me—I didn’t
create busing; I didn’t create the mess that the city was in that created busing. So these are—this
is where people don’t use the power that they have. They have the power in numbers. Go to city
hall and protest. And eventually protest for everybody. But—
STEINBERG: So did the kids come to you and say like, “I can’t believe this is happening”?
KELLY: No, no. Kids are unbelievable. They are resilient. They came every day. I had great
attendance. We were almost isolated. They came into the classroom—in both years—the first
year, I mean, I had my issues as far as the first group of kids that I had. I had poor kids. These
were really poor kids. I was providing everything for them. I loved those kids to death. This
was my all-white class. I mean, I can remember some of them. I can remember Ronald. I
remember the kid who talked to me about how her sister was going to have a baby and she was
happy, but the rest of the family wasn’t happy. She was sixteen. Families—one family had a
little boy who smelled every day so I had the mother in and I talked to her about it. The mother
smelled. They had no hot water in their house. These were poor families who were trying to do
the best they could and they got their kids to school every day. And I taught those kids how to
read and how to write and how to do math, and I worked myself to death with them because I
loved what I was doing. I made all my own materials. I would go to the store and buy stuff.
And I had a great education at Northeastern and I just thought—I called my mother one day and
said, “I think I have a bunch of geniuses in my class!” (laughs) And they weren’t. They had
leveled the kids that year and I had the lowest group, but I just thought that they were wonderful.
They next year I had an integrated class—I loved those kids. I thought they were wonderful too.
And those kids came every day to school. They worked their heart out. Now I’m not saying I
didn’t have discipline issues. There were kids who were kids. But they were there every day
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and they were not listening to—they heard what was going on around them, they couldn’t miss
it. But they were resilient and they were there to learn. I mean, it’s kids—kids are the lifeblood.
It was the parents and the older folks who were distracted by all the ugliness. I don’t
remember—I’m sure that there were probably some racists—some racial epithets said in the
class because kids didn’t know what they were saying because my kids were young. But the
racist acts that happened to me were mainly with the adults—were all with the adults not with
the kids.
STEINBERG: So over the years how did you learn how to—how did you learn how to cope
with that? I can imagine that being pretty tough.
KELLY: Well, as an African American woman growing up in the United States I learned how
to cope when I was probably two. My parents and all African American families teach their kids
how to cope as a person of color in society. I mean, I’d listen—I heard racial epithets in the
Catholic grammar school I went to. I remember in second grade the nun not calling on me and
saying to—trying to find out why. What was wrong with me? Why wouldn’t she?
It wasn’t like this was brand new as an adult for me. In high school, I went to an all-white high
school. I mean, I heard the word nigger. It wasn’t the first time. I had—my mother had to go
into the high school and tell the principal the French teacher needed to call on me and eventually
I was switched out of the class. We learned strategies about how to cope being a person of color
in an all-white—a predominantly white society. Well it was predominantly white. Not anymore.
Getting less though.
It was my job to make sure the kids in my class would also be resilient and know that when they
came to my classroom that they were in a safe place and that their job was to learn. That was
what our focus was. And I have fond memories of being with them in the classroom. I’d love to
know where some of them are right now. That was a long time ago.
STEINBERG: So looking back do you feel the same way about the Garrity decision now as
you did then?
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KELLY: Well, remember, I was a brand new teacher. While Garrity had an effect on my life it
wasn’t as I would be looking at is now reading the decision, studying it, weighing the pros and
cons. I was an excited first-year teacher—first-, second-, third-, fourth-, fifth-year teacher—
excited to have a job. I didn’t care if I was going to be sent to Timbuktu to teach. Actually
Timbuktu would have been pretty good. Height of education there. (laughs)
I was commuting. I loved what I was doing. I felt sad for the situation that a lot of my kids were
in. And sad for myself—I was fearful for myself, too. I mean, I moved out of the city during my
second year. I moved to New Hampshire.
STEINBERG: Did you move because of that?
KELLY: No. I moved out because rents were better. I got a bigger apartment. But it wasn’t
easy any place in the city. This was a tense, tense city. It was not a way for a new teacher to
come in, with no support. I mean, my principal that second year was a wonderful man, but he
was trying to cope too. And nobody was given skills about, So, this is what you do in this
situation. Now we all have emergency plans about getting out of buildings. We have plans—
none of my teachers leave here and get rocked. (laughs) And if something like that happened,
we would be on it. Everybody would be on it. It wouldn’t be like, Oh, nobody does that. That’s
not really real. We would deal with it. That didn’t happen then. Everybody was worried about
the atmosphere but nobody was doing anything about it.
So it wasn’t like I saw every day and thought, Oh, is this the right decision Garrity made? I was
sitting every day and thinking, How am I going to teach reading to Ronald tomorrow? And,
What am I going to do about the two kids who wet their pants every day? That was my focus.
So that’s where I was at.
STEINBERG: Is there anything else you want to cover that we missed?
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KELLY: No, I think—I think it’s funny to talk about this as historical times. I think of history
as World War I and World War II. (laughs) I lived through this. (laughs) But I think it was a
very, very important time that people don’t realize about. And really think about all of the
different pieces. It also makes you realize that—it’s made me stronger as a principal now
because you recognize that when you are dealing with any situation you have to make sure you
look at the multiple constituents in that situation. In this busing there were kids that we had to
deal with, parents, we had administrators. You also had teachers. And then you had the
minority groups in each place. You had the white teachers who were now being sent to
Roxbury, Dorchester, and possibly Mattapan. I don’t even know at that point. You also had the
African American teachers who were being sent to white neighborhoods. So you have to look at
how do you take care of all of those people? Because it wasn’t just about the kids and it wasn’t
just about parents.
You know, Common Ground, the book that talks about busing—he highlights the politicians, he
highlights the police.2 A lot of those people—he highlighted three families there. And the
families have to be dealt with too. You had to look at what was happening in homes when kids
were coming home after going through hostile neighborhoods. But there were a lot of people
who just were left—were forgotten. And I think that teachers were definitely forgotten and
definitely—I know the five African American teachers that were in Charlestown were forgotten.
I remember almost all of their names. Well, let’s see, Julia was one. Ernestine Alexander, she
died there, actually. She stayed in Charlestown. I eventually left. Ora McFarlane(??) was the
other one. Me. And I don’t remember the other woman and I can’t remember her name. She and
I actually commuted together. I used to drive her in. It was the—what was Julia’s last name?
Julia and Ora had come from the Trotter School. And they were—my understanding was they
were pretty good. Ernestine, it was her first year teaching. It was my first year, Ernestine’s first
year, and a teacher I can’t remember. It was her first year. I can see her now. Ernestine was an
older woman coming back. I had gone to college with Ernestine’s son.
STEINBERG: So she was—
2
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 21
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KELLY: Yeah, she was—she had to be in her forties. Because we were twenty. I was twentythree. So she was probably forty-something. She’d gone back to school to study teaching and
then we ended up together. And her son, actually—I think James Alexander works for—I think
he works for WGBH, or maybe Chronicle. Maybe Channel Five. I don’t know, one of those TV
stations. Small world.
STEINBERG: Well, I thank you for doing this. And I really appreciate it. If there is anything
else I think that pretty much covers it.
KELLY: Yeah, well good luck on your project.
STEINBERG: Thank you.
KELLY: It was actually exciting.
END OF INTERVIEW
Page 21 of 21
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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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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<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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Steinberg, Joshua
Interviewee
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Kelly, Patricia
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Unknown
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See PDF transcript
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43:56
Time Summary
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Background p. 3 (00:07)
Early teaching experiences p. 3 (01:53)
Impact of the Garrity decision in Charlestown p. 7 (09:58)
Experiences with racism p. 9 (15:48)
Feelings about the decision p. 11 (20:40)
Students’ experiences p. 15 (28:54)
Reflections on her experiences and the impact of the decision p. 18 (35:46)
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Transcript of Oral History Interview of Patricia Kelly
Subject
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Boston (Mass.)
Boston Public Schools
Busing for school integration
Charlestown (Boston, Mass.)
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In this interview, Patricia Kelly, an administrator and former teacher in the Boston Public Schools, discusses her experiences as an African American teacher in the aftermath 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 reflects on her experiences teaching in Charlestown; the racial tension in that neighborhood during the 1970s; the impact of the Garrity decision on education in Boston; and her memories of her students and fellow teachers.
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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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March 15, 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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English
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Oral history interview transcript
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OH-051
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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
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�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
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�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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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�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.
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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.
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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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�OH-022 Transcript
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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�OH-022 Transcript
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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�OH-022 Transcript
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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�OH-022 Transcript
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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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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�OH-022 Transcript
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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�OH-022 Transcript
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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�OH-022 Transcript
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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�OH-022 Transcript
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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34
�OH-022 Transcript
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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�OH-022 Transcript
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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�OH-022 Transcript
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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37
�OH-022 Transcript
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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38
�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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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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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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57:19
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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)
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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.
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Source
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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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July 12, 2004
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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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Oral history interview transcript
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OH-022
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/15912/archive/files/8f1a839afc32490c6c0e2e93afb36660.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=XoEi9Pp-lspFzlZH8r7N%7E4JUCvmT009IjjQdoETD39uMHB3mq%7EN6vYzqsKgdMPMTBiUSG8o%7EPZP-Z2Y1ZpdrYF8xI8MD-qyVlYjq8VGmdGNT6X9RCOiL7kP27l6SQiUAryjSKQYvHYGH6iW6Kg-mb8T2xVgIxx5EqnLDtdwA5ZiqzZYFd9DvNiAUTWAar2ywD7V-np80G4fcgJOalFQoHjNpj6xH19lgQfRfzAvwDStlizlfPjVkmKdzZB0mEaidYP3-IXnsDyuItl7%7EgjX7BjyFp8UnIFIs-zYHWTnN2S3d2lvjGMms%7EVgKn8zHRI9WESBGuYox7nBUf2Kju4Y1aA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
97301f9bd8638e2929caccedd5a4be36
PDF Text
Text
Oral History Interview of Maurice Gillen (OH-057)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Oral History Interview of Maurice “Moe” Gillen
Interview Date: February 14, 2006
Interviewed by: Corinne Petraglia, student from History 364: Oral History
Citation: Gillen, Maurice. Interviewed by Corinne Petraglia. John Joseph Moakley Oral History
Project OH-057. 14 February 2006. Transcript and audio available. John Joseph Moakley
Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Copyright Information: Copyright ©2006, Suffolk University.
Interview Summary
Maurice “Moe” Gillen, a lifelong resident of Charlestown, Massachusetts, discusses his
community activism related to the 1974 Garrity decision, which required some students to be
bused from one Boston neighborhood to another with the goal of creating racial balance in the
Boston Public Schools. The interview covers his work with the Charlestown Committee on
Education and the Citywide Coordinating Council; reactions to the Garrity decision in
Charlestown and other Boston neighborhoods; media coverage of the aftermath of the decision;
and his feelings about the decision and its impact on the Boston Public Schools.
Subject Headings
Busing for school integration
Charlestown (Boston, Mass.)
Citywide Coordinating Council
Garrity, W. Arthur (Wendell Arthur), 1920-1999
Gillen, Maurice “Moe”
Morgan v. Hennigan (379 F. Supp. 410)
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1
�Oral History Interview of Maurice Gillen (OH-057)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Table of Contents
Introduction
p. 3 (00:03)
Mr. Gillen’s community work and reactions to the
Garrity decision in Charlestown
Violence in Charlestown
p. 3 (00:30)
p. 6 (10:02)
Mr. Gillen’s experiences on the Citywide Coordinating
Council
p. 7 (14:55)
Role of the media
p. 11 (28:45)
Impact of the Garrity decision on Boston and Charlestown
p. 12 (35:08)
Interview transcript begins on next page
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2
�OH-057 Transcript
This interview took place on February 14, 2006.
Interview Transcript
CORINNE PETRAGLIA: Okay, what’s your full name?
MAURICE “MOE” GILLEN: Maurice J. “Moe” Gillen, but people call me Moe.
PETRAGLIA: And how old are you?
GILLEN: At present, I am sixty-seven years old.
PETRAGLIA: Alright, and where were you born?
GILLEN: Charlestown.
PETRAGLIA: Did you—have you lived there your whole life?
GILLEN: My whole life.
PETRAGLIA: And you still live there now?
GILLEN: Yes, I do.
PETRAGLIA: What was your involvement in the Garrity decision?1
1
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 for more information)
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GILLEN: At the time it was coming down in 1974, I had been president of the Kennedy MultiService Center Social Agency in Charlestown, and organized the group because we had to
prepare the community because they [students from other neighborhoods] were going to come to
Charlestown in ‘75. So in anticipation of that, we realized that we didn’t have the political clout
that South Boston or East Boston had, that we had to organize and get a voice into the
procedures.
So as such, under the auspices of the Kennedy Center, we organized a Charlestown Committee
on Education. And the Charlestown Committee on Education took in the elected officials,
representatives of the social agencies, and representatives of organizations that were adamantly
opposed to a term we call forced busing, and the few people—individuals that supported it.
PETRAGLIA: So how did you come to be involved in civil service and public—?
GILLEN: Judge [W. Arthur] Garrity had a representative from the Justice Department, the
Community Relations Department. He was more or less the street person for the judge and was
trying to attempt to resolve problems that were coming up. It was a forgone conclusion that
busing was going to come; it was a question of the depth it would be. Eddie McCormack,2 the
former attorney general of Massachusetts, who was appointed as a master by Judge Garrity to
develop a comprehensive plan that would minimize the busing. And it was our belief, it was my
strong belief, that unless we could get input into that plan, that Charlestown would have no say.
So therefore, we organized to prepare our position and presented it to the master plan. From that,
apparently it came under the attention of Judge Garrity.
PETRAGLIA: And that was the [Citywide] Coordinating Council?
GILLEN: The Coordinating Council. The Coordinating Council was forty members of Boston,
the greater community of Boston, that represented specific interest groups. There was a
representative, for instance, from [Boston] Latin School; the Latin School alumni had a
representative. The Home School Association. A lot of the civil rights organizations had
2
Edward J. McCormack, Jr. (1923- ) served as Massachusetts Attorney General from 1959 to 1963.
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representatives on it, and business groups had it. Judge Garrity deemed that what Charlestown
had done to try to prepare for this or prevent violence—asked whether I would serve as an
opponent, so that we could get some input and hopefully prevent excesses.
PETRAGLIA: Okay, so you were an opponent of the Garrity decision?
GILLEN: Absolutely. A father of six kids at the time. I had—one of my daughters was at
Charlestown High, indeed was a freshman at Charlestown High the year before the busing in ’74,
and we saw what was happening in South Boston, to the point that in ‘75, the wife and I decided
to take her out of Charlestown High and put her in a Catholic high school. She substantively
insisted on being with her friends and going to Charlestown High and she did return and indeed
graduated from Charlestown High.
PETRAGLIA: Did you take her out—did it have to do with the Garrity decision or was it
because of your involvement?
GILLEN: Well it was a bit of both, having seen—as a concerned parent and having seen the
violence that had taken place in South Boston the year before. As a parent, I was taking the
option of, basically if they were going to make us put our child on a bus, we were going to
choose what bus they got on, and therefore we chose to send them to parochial school. And I
would say that—some of my children graduated from public high schools and some of my
children graduated from parochial high schools—more of what they wanted to do. But with the
terrible violence that took place in South Boston, parentally, we wanted to protect our daughter
and also we’re this prominent in the issue, [so] I didn’t want to subject any of my kids to the
pressures.
PETRAGLIA: So were any of your younger children bused to different cities?
GILLEN: No, there was—none of our children. Because of the geocode, they would’ve been in
public school within Charlestown. There was none that—
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PETRAGLIA: None that would have been assigned to them.
GILLEN: And the middle school, they were in parochial school, so the only school that our
children went to during busing was the high school.
PETRAGLIA: Was that the general feeling with other parents?
GILLEN: Well the concept of our Committee on Education was we were absolutely, and we
continued to be of the opinion that the parent should have the control of the children—their own
children and the choices of education for their children. So that logic would follow that if that
parent chose to put their child or children on a bus, then they were totally entitled to that
selection and if a parent chose not to put their child on the bus, they too were within their rights,
as we saw, to do what was best for their child.
PETRAGLIA: In the neighborhood in Charlestown, what was the general feeling about the
Garrity decision? Did people—
GILLEN: People were adamantly opposed to it, and we had a core group of—that put the name
Powder Keg as a name of a group. It was mostly a mothers’ group that protested by having
mothers’ marches with saying the rosary; it was a predominantly Irish Catholic community with
a sprinkle of Italian families, but overwhelmingly Irish Catholic. And they would take a weekly
march, and they got to the point that the U.S. marshals would monitor them and they got on a
first name basis with the marshals and most people knew that they were only exercising their
right as they saw it to protest what they felt was an illicit act by the government.
With that, the only violence we really had in Charlestown through this period—there was what I
would attribute to adolescent violence at the high school, and it was severe and physical fights.
The police were located—the state police had been assigned to South Boston and the
metropolitan police and Boston police had been assigned to Charlestown High. Now at the time
the Boston police had established the TPF, the Tactical Police Force, and they were their shock
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troops, and they were not user-friendly. It was more of a scare, Gestapo-type of thing where they
would come in and intimidate the community and harass citizens.
At one point, probably the toughest point that we had, we had a mothers’ march that they insisted
would not pass by the schools and the mothers insisted that they would pass by the schools, and
I, as a moderator, was attempting to assure the officials that the mothers meant no harm and were
not a threat or a danger to anybody. And they were—the government was asserting their right to
dictate where the march would be. The mothers stopped and knelt down on High Street in
Charlestown, a block from the high school, and we tried to work out an agreement that they
could pass by within a block of the high school. The officials—and not the local captain; the
local captain, Captain MacDonald at the time, had established excellent relationships with the
mothers’ group and had clearly identified people that might be of a problem. And we all worked
so that there was no violence, and I can truthfully say there was not a stone thrown at any bus in
Charlestown. There was no violence.
PETRAGLIA: So the violence in Charlestown was more amongst—
GILLEN: In Charlestown High School.
PETRAGLIA: In the high school?
GILLEN: But as far as the buses being able to come and go—there were protests, not unlike a
union. People would maybe make some yells, but absolutely no violence and we worked very
hard to prevent violence. The only violence that took place on the street was when the TPF
assaulted the mothers at the corner of High and Cordis Streets, when the MDC [Metropolitan
District Commission] police had everything under control and the TPF came out, and we had a
couple of young boys arrested when they saw their mothers being mauled, literally, by the
overwhelming and overuse of force by the tactical police, [and] went to their mothers’ aid. And
fortunately we were able to disengage this issue and keep and restore—our local priests were
there and cooler heads than the TPF prevailed. And those boys that were arrested—local
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attorneys, in particular Charles “Buddy” Clifford, represented them at no cost and each and every
one of them were let go with no charges.
That was the turmoil within the community, and then as a proponent of nonviolence and as an
opponent of the design plan, I was able to put position papers forward to the public and to the
court. And some of the things we asked for were granted; most of them were not granted.
PETRAGLIA: What kind of things did you ask for?
GILLEN: Well the original plan was to send—totally destroy control of parents. If you had a
range of students, some in the elementary school, some in the middle school, some in the high
school, then without any rhyme or reason, only by a geocode, only because of the address they
lived at, the student was sent to Roxbury, this student was sent to the South End, this student was
sent to—so they’re breaking up the families as we understood it. And one of the things that I was
able to achieve was that the judge made a concession and if you had one child in a school, then
the younger child would be able to go [to the same school]. And in light of the time, that was a
major accomplishment. There were some other individual case-by-case things that I was able to
bring forward—and they were heard on a case-by-case basis—that wouldn’t have happened had
we have been a part of this thing.
PETRAGLIA: So on the Coordinating Council, you said there were forty members; how were
all of you joined in opposition to busing?
GILLEN: They were all for it—thirty-nine were for, one against.
PETRAGLIA: And that was you?
GILLEN: And that was me. And Judge Garrity had respected my position; did not agree with it,
but he respected it. I think he respected the integrity of the person that was the opponent, that he
had some character, and a man of his word, and so on. So the fact that Judge Garrity appointed
me on to the executive board that would meet with him in his chambers—and Arthur Gartland
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was the chairman of the Coordinating Council and Father Michael Groden of the Archdiocese [of
Boston] was the executive director, and Eddie McCormack was on that executive committee, and
others.
I think the meeting that stands out to me at one time—I repeat this story now because it is to be
archived and it’s not generally a public thing. I had a meeting in which Judge Garrity in his own
chambers, in the privacy, basically, of his own home, said in frustration to different groups
coming with their own agendas as opposed to the agenda of educating the children of Boston.
And in that context he said, “Look, I don't live in Boston, I live in Wellesley, and it would seem
to me, Judge Garrity, that the people of Boston must address this issue to resolve the problem so
their kids are educated.” It was said in executive session, only six, seven members at the most. A
day later, that quote was in the Boston newspapers and Judge Garrity was vilified by all parties,
particularly the opponents, for making what they perceived as a callous comment.
At a subsequent session of the general body, not the executive body, I approached Judge Garrity
and I said, “Your honor, I want you to know I respect a man’s home and I would never publicly
use a comment as you made and give that to the press as a tool.” And he said to me, “Moe, of all
the people in the room, I know you would certainly be the one that would not take advantage.”
So some of the things that happened through it, happened in spite of what Judge Garrity saw as a
noble venture and I saw as an evil happenstance. I think the proof is in the pudding if we look at
it forty years later, the Boston school system, better or worse, and we had a lot of social
problems in that period, and the answer is the system is worse and we have had an outstanding
extent of social problems, much of it people like myself bring back to the forced busing.
PETRAGLIA: Now, on the Coordinating Council, what was it like being the only person that
opposed?
GILLEN: Well, that's easy, I’m the youngest of five, and now I’m probably still the youngest—I
have six kids and a wife, so to be in the minority position is not unusual. I think that I was very
clear and my community was very clear on what we felt were our rights as parents. And we did
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not begrudge any other parent to hold the right that they held. Our adamant position was that we
should not be forced to send our children where we did not feel they would achieve an education.
And now you have a situation where they’re busing kids across the city and the situation is still
wrong. It’s just plain wrong; it does not work.
Given we’ve come to a contemporary time now, that the court, in its wisdom, has ruled that they
can use eminent domain to take a man’s house away. And there’s been an upheaval, and people
are very upset about that, there’s going to be a change in that law. It would be up here—we felt
the same way about our parental choices and we worked towards that end. And there was terrible
violence and Boston was labeled as a racist city, and we weren’t a racist city. We were a city of
neighborhoods, and it’s difficult for people to understand the concept of neighborhoods so strong
in Boston; that doesn’t apply in other cities.
PETRAGLIA: How did your involvement with the councils affect your personal life with your
friends and within the neighborhood of Charlestown?
GILLEN: Well it didn’t make life easy, but I had been active in my union, I had been active in
social issues in the town, I had coached a youth team. So there was a lot of outreach from myself,
my wife allowing me to be shared with others. But the bottom line always was that what I did in
social service stopped, and I had privacy of my family life. So the point that I was interviewed by
hundreds if not thousands of press, it was always done outside the home, with the exception of
Tony Lukas, who wrote the book Common Ground.3 And Tony Lukas approached me one day
and identified himself as another, as I put it, pointy-headed liberal (laughter), that wanted to do a
book on the essence of the dispute. And what was, as he termed it, what was the common ground
that that parents in Boston had. And he asked me to get him a family in Charlestown to be the
Charlestown family. He initially asked if it would be my family, if I would do it. And I imposed
the position I’ve always had, that my family life is my family life and my wife and kids should
not be subjected to any pressures because of what my public life is.
3
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
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So then he asked for a family, then he went out and sought a family. And he asked my views,
and I told him, I said, “Tony, the family you’ve selected, in the end, bottom line, will not sign to
go public.” And he said, “Oh no, of course they will, they’ve said they will.” I said, “Tony,
you’re a Pulitzer Prize winner, and I’m a guy from the town. I’m telling you, that family you’ve
selected will not do it.” About a year and a half later, my phone rang; it’s Tony Lukas, and he
says, “Moe, we have a problem.” I said, “Tony, we don’t have a problem, you have a problem.”
He says, “I need the family you’ve suggested,” which was the McGoff family. And I said, “Are
you crazy? You want me to now, a year and a half later, go down and ask Alice McGoff as to
whether she would subject herself and her family to this?” And he said yes. So I said, “Look, all
I can do is go down and ask Alice whether she’ll do it or not.”
Went down to Alice’s house, and talked with her, and my position was, as it is now, being
willing to speak to these archives, is that if we don’t speak, our position, and the rightness of our
position, will not be kept; there’ll be no record of it. And the victors write history, so even
though we’re not victors, we have to do what we can to have a history. So Alice, after yelling at
me, and cursing me and so on, agreed to do the book, be the family. They did a great part. The
book came out great, and there’s a record now in publication of a simple family in Charlestown
that went through the busing period.
PETRAGLIA: What is your opinion on the press’s role in the whole situation?
GILLEN: The press? The press make things a zoo. You know the ones that chase the celebrities
with all the cameramen? It was the same thing. When I went out to work the first day of
busing—I worked for Boston Edison; I had to go to work, and I was coming back in after work
and there were helicopters hovering over, a dozen or more helicopters. When I got in there were
sharp shooters and snipers on different buildings. The media was a combination of vultures and
piranhas, going to our kids and taking emotional statements that the kids would say in any hectic
place. And we tried to get them to speak to leadership and the more rational thing, but they didn’t
want to do that. But there were others that did; it was interesting, all the interviews that I did, and
there were national TV, etcetera—I got a call one day from a reporter that said he’d like to speak
of three families, two white and one black.
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to me and I said, “Well, certainly.” And he said, “This will be an oral interview.” And I said,
“Fine.” He said, “I’m from the Voice of America.” And I said, “Fine; I don't know what the
Voice of America wants with Moe Gillen, but fine.” For those people later on who don’t know
what the Voice of America is, it was American government’s, basically, propaganda radio that
used to broadcast primarily behind the Iron Curtain, the Voice of America and so on, and by law,
anything that was broadcast could not be broadcast in America. When they did the—after the
assassination of President Kennedy, and they put together a days of light and days of drums, the
thing of Kennedy and the assassination and so on, that was the one exception they made that it
could be shown in America.
So I asked them then, why, first of all, why would they want to speak to me, and then what worth
would it be to the Voice of America? He said because of the violence that was being depicted by
national and international news media, they were getting a lot of inquiries and a lot of counter
propaganda, if you will, behind the iron curtain, as to if the United States of America is such a
democracy, how can they have rioting in the street on an issue, how are they working? And he
said that myself and my group were the best example of how people could legitimately protest
our government and action without breaking the law and asserting our rights as citizens.
So he walked me through a whole series of questions that went back to, at the time, proponents
of busing were saying we had to adhere to the law of the land and the Supreme Court. And I was
able to point out to the proponents of supporting the Supreme Court ruling that there had been a
case by the Supreme Court called the Dred Scott case,4 in which the Supreme Court of the
United States said that a black man was property, and thank God there were millions of
Americans that disagreed with that. We had ultimately a civil war over the issue. And we were
vindicated and the people that would feel like me, that a black man is not a property; he or she is
a citizen just like I am or any other American. So to say that you support it blindly is not so—at
one time federal income tax was unconstitutional; at one time, women could not vote. So there’s
a lot of things that the Supreme Court supported that have subsequently been proven differently.
So we, and our system, can in fact oppose what we feel is an unjust ruling, even if it’s a ruling by
the Supreme Court.
4
The full name of the case is Dred Scott v. Sandford 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857).
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PETRAGLIA: And you told that to the Voice of America?
GILLEN: Yes I did, and I don't know whether that led to the Berlin Wall coming down
(laughter) or led to having the wall up for many more years.
PETRAGLIA: Looking back, do you stand by your opinion? Is there anything you would have
done differently?
GILLEN: We’re spending forty million dollars to bus minorities to go to school with other
minorities. There’s no question that there’s been white flight. There’s no question that the
demographics of the city has totally changed. A lot of it has stemmed from the busing. There has
been a destruction in large parts of the neighborhood. And not too long ago, I attended a seminar
at the Old State House about busing in Boston. And one proponent of busing at the time got up at
that session and said, “Boston is a better place today.” And I got up and said, “Better for who?”
They’ve taken the most Irish Catholic city in America and we are no longer an Irish Catholic
majority. We’re not even a northern European majority. And the prices have gotten outrageous
so that our children cannot afford to live in our communities, whether it be Charlestown, South
Boston, East Boston, wherever it is. And that to me does not make it better. It might make it
better for the new people, certainly not better in the context of the people that were here.
PETRAGLIA: Having lived in Charlestown your whole life, how do you feel the decision
affected where you're from, where you grew up, and the people around there?
GILLEN: Well, what we tried to do—the whole idea of the Charlestown Committee on
Education was to minimize the impact on our community of this edict that we were not going to
be able to stop. So that the idea is that we would not, ourselves, do violence that would cause any
of our community to leave. There was a greater exodus in other sections of the city than there
was in Charlestown because we held strictly to the concept that it was parental choice, and if the
parent chose, as some did, to put their kid on a bus, that was their right and that was to be
respected, and if they chose not to, that would be all right.
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At the time of the busing, just before the busing came, we had three parochial schools in
Charlestown. There are those that suspect that in a preemptive strike one of our parochial
schools, St. Mary’s, was closed a couple years before or a year before busing, eliminating seats
where our kids could take alternatives. We are suspect that that wasn’t a preemptive strike to
force us on to the buses, which they didn’t do, because we didn’t get on the buses, we got on the
buses that we picked. Our kids went to Medford and Somerville and every place they could go to
escape forced busing. Some people call that free transportation; we call it forced busing.
PETRAGLIA: Tell me more about—do you feel that there was white flight and do you think
that busing was better or worse for Charlestown?
GILLEN: It was worse. Understand the context. Now we’re talking in my experiences born and
bred in Charlestown, a parent, married to a high school sweetheart, if you would, my wife born
and bred—she lives today, after forty-six years of marriage, she lives today, one house away
from where she grew up. And I live about eight streets from where I grew up. So that was the
atmosphere, that’s the way it was. Whether people like it or don't like it, that’s the way we lived.
In my public life, we had been subjected to urban renewal. My wife and I were supporters of
urban renewal; we worked very hard to replace a state penitentiary with a college on the same
grounds. It was our belief that we would take advantage of the urban renewal to get a totally new
education system. Now bear this in mind, we worked to get it, made sacrifices on the urban
renewal. We got two new elementary schools, we got a junior college, we were on our way to
getting a high school, and our next objective was to get a new middle school, so that we’d be
totally encased in our little cocoon of Charlestown and our kids could go from kindergarten to
junior college and never leave the town. After we got those built—immediately after we got
those built, and while Charlestown High was questionable whether it would be built or not under
the master plan, put forth by Eddie McCormack and Mayor Kevin White5 and so on, they called
to not build Charlestown High. As those things were built and our kids were told they couldn’t
5
Kevin White (1929- ), a Democrat, served as mayor of Boston from 1968 to 1984.
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go to those schools—how would any parent feel? And they were told to go to the alleged inferior
schools in other sections of the city.
It was always our belief that they could’ve ordered changes that did not involve mass forced
busing; they could’ve ordered distribution of teachers, etcetera, that they wouldn’t have done.
One of the concessions, allegedly—I can’t speak absolutely, but I’m led to believe by people that
can speak absolutely—that Judge Garrity ordered Charlestown High built, and if other leadership
in the city had had their way, it wouldn’t have been built. So I don't know if that's good or bad
but it was clearly a concession by the judge to the concept that the community had spoken to.
PETRAGLIA: Okay, is there any—what are your final thoughts on your experiences on the
Coordinating Council and anything like that in your life?
GILLEN: Well some years later—some years later, I was in town shopping with my wife. I was
aggravating her, so she said why don't you go up to Arch Street to church, and I’ll meet up you
later. So I did, I went up, being the docile parent and husband, I go up to Arch Street, I go to
mass, and I see this tall person going down the center isle, bald spot on the top. And I said,
“That’s Judge Garrity.” This is after he’s retired. So we go to mass, we come out, and I stop to
greet him and I said, “Isn’t this a wonderful country? Isn’t this a wonderful country, Judge, that
two people as diverse as we are can go pray to our same God and clearly pray for different
things?” And it certainly had broadened my experience far beyond what a local guy working for
a utility would have as far as contact with public figures.
Gail Sheehy, there’s one of her books, I’m in. I’m in her Pathfinders book.6 Again, to protect the
family, it’s not as my name, but I’ll sell it now for the archives. I’m in under as Bingo Doyle, a
blue collar general, and it’s about the experiences of a working guy undergoing the trauma of
busing while you're trying to raise and protect your family.
PETRAGLIA: So overall, are you happy that you were so involved with your community?
6
Pathfinders by Gail Sheehy was published in 1982 by Bantam.
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GILLEN: Well, I don't know. (laughs) I think I did the right thing as a citizen that believes in
participating in government. I have a brother that’s a missionary. He’s devoted his life to helping
the poor. He’s in the Philippines now. He’s developed—he built two hospitals in the jungles for
the mentally ill. And another brother gave thirty years of his life and more to the United States
Navy, and his career culminated with him being captain of the U.S.S. Constitution. So I come
from a family of people that believe—brought up by our parents to—we don't necessarily have to
have a lot to share, but the commitment that we should share. And it’s been a terrific experience.
I now work for a dynamic state senator, Senator Jarrett Barrios, who is as different from me as
you could possibly be in his lifestyle, his education level, lots of things. The one thing that we
share and the most important thing for him in hiring me is the commitment to help other people.
So had I not had the experience through the busing crucible, then somebody like Senator Barrios
would probably not have asked me to do the work I do with him. So I think it’s been important
and it’s still important, and we still believe that we can oppose, legally, unjust rulings by the
Supreme Court.
PETRAGLIA: Well, thank you so much for your time, and anything else you’d like to say or—?
GILLEN: No, that should—we did pretty good, right?
END OF INTERVIEW
Page 16 of 16
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO), Inc., Records, <span>1961-2005 (bulk 1966-1995).</span>
Subject
The topic of the resource
African Americans--Segregation <br />Boston (Mass.)--History <br />Boston (Mass.)--Public Schools <br />Boston (Mass.)--Race Relations--History--20th century <br /><span>Busing for school integration--Law and legislation</span><br />School integration--Massachusetts--Boston--History
Creator
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Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO), Inc.
Source
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Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO), Inc., Records, <span>1961-2005 (bulk 1966-1995).</span>
Date
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<span><span>1961-2005 </span></span>
Contributor
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<span>Rachel Chatalbash, </span>Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections.
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This collection is made available for research and educational purposes by Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections. Rights status is not evaluated.
Relation
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Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO), Inc., Records, <span>1961-2005 (bulk 1966-1995)</span>. See also the<strong> <a title="Boston Social Justice Organizations and Activists: African American" href="http://library.northeastern.edu/archives-special-collections/find-collections/finding-aids" target="_blank">Boston Social Justice Organizations and Activists</a></strong> at Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections.
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English
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The Records of the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO), Inc., <span>1961-2005 (bulk 1966-1995)</span><span>, are located at the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections. <br /><br />The Boston History Collections <span>at Northeastern preserve the records of Boston-area social justice organizations that serve under-represented communities. View a comprehnsive <span>list of finding aids for </span></span></span><a title="Northeastern Collections about Boston Social Justice Organizations and Activists" href="http://library.northeastern.edu/archives-special-collections/find-collections/finding-aids" target="_blank">Boston Social Justice Organizations and Activists</a> in Northeastern's Special Collections for related collections. <br /><br /><span>The sample of items from the METCO records, exhbited on this site, are used courtesy of the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections. <br /><br />METCO is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1966 to eliminate racial imbalance by busing children from Boston and Springfield to suburban public schools in 38 suburban communities. The METCO collection consists of Board of Directors records, financial statements, parent handbooks, press material, reports, memoranda, and newspaper clippings. This collection is unrestricted and open for reserach.</span>
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Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections.
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145.5 cubic ft. (144 boxes, 1 flat file drawer)
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Text
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M101
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Petraglia, Corinne
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Gillen, Maurice
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Unknown
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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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48:51
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Introduction p. 3 (00:03)
Mr. Gillen’s community work and reactions to the Garrity decision in Charlestown p. 3 (00:30)
Violence in Charlestown p. 6 (10:02)
Mr. Gillen’s experiences on the Citywide Coordinating Council p. 7 (14:55)
Role of the media p. 11 (28:45)
Impact of the Garrity decision on Boston and Charlestown p. 12 (35:08)
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Title
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Transcript of Oral History Interview of Maurice Gillen
Subject
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Boston (Mass.)
Boston Public Schools
Busing for school integration
Charlestown (Boston, Mass.)
Garrity, W. Arthur (Wendell Arthur), 1920-1999
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Maurice “Moe” Gillen, a lifelong resident of Charlestown neighborhood 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 work with the Charlestown Committee on Education and the Citywide Coordinating Council; reactions to the Garrity decision in Charlestown and other Boston neighborhoods; media coverage of the aftermath of the decision; and his feelings about the decision and its impact on the Boston Public Schools.
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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 14, 2006
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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)
Language
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English
Type
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Oral history interview transcript
Identifier
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OH-057
-
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PDF Text
Text
Oral History Interview of Mary Ellen Smith (OH-044)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Oral History Interview of Mary Ellen Smith
Interview Date: March 3, 2005
Interviewed by: Anna Maria Hidalgo, Suffolk University student from History 364: Oral
History
Citation: Smith, Mary Ellen. Interviewed by Anna Maria Hidalgo. John Joseph Moakley Oral
History Project OH-044. 3 March 2005. Transcript and audio available. John Joseph Moakley
Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Copyright Information: Copyright © 2005, Suffolk University.
Interview Summary:
Mary Ellen Smith, a Boston community activist who founded the Citywide Education Coalition
(CWEC), reflects on her work in education and community organizing in Boston, as well as the
ramifications of the 1974 Garrity decision, which required some students to be bused between
Boston neighborhoods with the intention of creating racial balance in the public schools. She
discusses the various organizations with which she has worked, including CWEC, the Citywide
Coordinating Council, and the Massachusetts Board of Education; her experiences working in
the Boston Public Schools; the effects of the Garrity decision on the school system and Boston in
general; and the ways that her community work has affected her life.
Subject Headings:
Boston (Mass.)
Boston (Mass.) School Committee
Boston Public Schools
Busing for school integration
Citywide Education Coalition
Community organizing
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
1
�Morgan v. Hennigan (379 F. Supp. 410)
Smith, Mary Ellen
Table of Contents:
Ms. Smith’s background and early teaching career
p. 3 (00:04)
Tension in the Boston Public Schools in the late 1960s
p. 5 (04:22)
Alliance for Coordinated Services
p. 16 (26:51)
Background of the Garrity decision
p. 18 (30:20)
1972 search for a Boston Public Schools superintendent
p. 19 (32:50)
Founding of the CWEC
p. 20 (36:25)
Garrity decision and immediate aftermath
p. 22 (40:15)
CWEC’s work in the community
p. 25 (46:10)
Citywide Coordinating Council
p. 30 (57:58)
More on CWEC’s work in the community
p. 31 (1:01:26)
Ms. Smith’s later community work and reflections on her career
p. 32 (1:03:17)
Changes in Boston over the last thirty years
p. 40 (1:22:41)
Interview transcript begins on next page
Page 2 of 42
�OH-044 Transcript
This interview took place on March 3, 2004, at the John Joseph Moakley Law Library
at Suffolk University Law School, 120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA.
Interview Transcript
ANNA MARIA HILDALGO: I believe that we are recording. My name is Anna Maria
Hidalgo, today is March 3, 2004, and I am here with Mary Ellen Smith, the founder and
executive director of the Citywide Education Coalition. Mary Ellen, thank you for agreeing to
this interview.
MARY ELLEN SMITH: Glad to be here.
HILDALGO: So why don’t we start with—where were you born?
SMITH: I was born in Cambridge, brought up in Watertown. Went to Boston College [BC] as
an undergraduate and graduated in 1965 with a degree in education. At that point I decided that I
had spent my whole life in Boston, I was going to try something new, so I went to Chicago for
my first teaching experience.
HIDALGO: And what was that like?
SMITH: It was, I think in hindsight, very formative toward—in the sense that it had a fairly
large impact, I think, on the rest of my career. I went out there with a friend who was going to
graduate school at the University of Chicago, and we shared an apartment. I had applied to the
Chicago system and they had never had a graduate from BC before, believe it or not, in 1965, so
there was some question about whether or not I would get a job because I had to send them
catalogues from BC and all this other stuff. At any rate, late in August just before I was
scheduled to move out there, they notified me that I had a job, told me the name of the school. I
was delighted because it was near the University of Chicago so it was close to where we were
going to be living. I walked into the orientation and they looked at me and said, Who are you?
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
3
�OH-044 Transcript
And I said—I told them my name and I gave them the paperwork I had and they said, Well we
don’t have you on our list. (laughs)
HIDALGO: Great. (laughs)
SMITH: So here I am in this momentary panic that I’ve moved to Chicago, thought I had a job,
have no car, know nothing about the city. Anyway, to make a long story short, they took pity on
me. The principal of this particular school was an easterner from New York, and there’s very
much a second city sense to Chicago, so she was going to take care of me. At any rate, I worked
in the office for a week and finally at the end of the week she threw the data at me and said,
“We’ve got too many kids and not enough teachers. You figure out what grade you can get.” So
I naively sat down with the numbers and ended up seeing an overlap in second and third grade,
so I said okay, and they said, Alright, take the low achieving third graders, high achieving second
graders and we’ll make a class room for you. Alright, where’s the classroom? In the basement.
HIDALGO: Nice. (laughs)
SMITH: So I was in the book storage room in the basement, not a classroom. Pillars, shelves of
books. Anyway, on this Friday afternoon I went and took third graders, who thought they were
being demoted, second graders, who thought they were being promoted, put them in one
classroom—tears, hysterics. Parents came the next week to have it explained to them, of course.
Lots of turmoil. No books, so I literally went to the shelves to try to find complete sets and at
one point, one child says to me, “Miss Smith, this book is wrong.” And I said, “Good, tell me,
what’s wrong about it?” “It says Midway airport is the largest airport in Chicago.” And I looked
at it—and it’s really O’Hare—and I looked at the date, and it was a 1937 copyright.
HIDALGO: Wow.
SMITH: Anyway, that’s how I spent my first year: with very, very bright second graders, third
graders who had a lot of problems, and basically I was like a pioneer, I had to learn how to do it.
Of course the other teachers in the building said to me, “How can give they give you student A,
Page 4 of 42
�OH-044 Transcript
B, C, E, F, G? I couldn’t handle him, this one couldn’t handle him,” whatever. But it was a
formative experience in that I basically had to make a go of it, and I set up an arrangement with a
library; that’s how I got books. And it was a wonderful experience for a number of the second
graders that moved right on to the fourth grade because they were able to progress as the year
went along. We were able to do a lot of group learning activities between the brighter second
graders and third graders, whatever, so I started a newsletter for the kids. Some of them had very
good writing skills, so it was enjoyable.
I came home—for personal reasons I came back to Boston, and as luck would have it I couldn’t
get into the Boston system because they had given the exam earlier. So I took a job in Bedford
[MA], at a suburban system for a year, while I took the Boston teachers exam, and got an
appointment in Boston in 1967 while I was teaching in Bedford. As luck would have it, it was
the school that my mother and several of her sisters went to in Dorchester [the Christopher
Gibson School]. I learned after I got there that it was also the school that Jonathan Kozol had
written about in Death at an Early Age. There were largely a new group of teachers there, and
we went along over the course of a year reading—Kozol’s book came out during the course of
that year [1967] so there was a lot of discussion among people who had been there and were
mentioned in the book, even though pseudonyms were used.
Anyway, there were a lot of problems in the school and in the spring the school was set on fire
by some kids. And so we ended up spending the last six weeks of school in the auditorium of the
Jeremiah Burke High School [in Dorchester] because seniors—as you may or may not know,
seniors in the Boston schools leave around the middle of May so that there’s extra space in the
high school, so that they bused the older kids to vacant spaces in high schools. I had a first grade
and I ended up on the stage of the Burke High School with a blackboard between us with another
second grade and it was just—
HIDALGO: Wow.
SMITH: Everything revolved around when you got the kids to the bathroom and we had very
limited materials—it was a nightmare. A parents’ group came together ad hoc around that
Page 5 of 42
�OH-044 Transcript
because they were concerned with what the school was doing and what was happening to the
kids themselves; it was a small active group of parents. At the same time, Ocean HillBrownsville1 was brewing in New York. There was some community control activities going on
here in Boston around two junior high schools where the school committee and school
department was being pressured by the black community to appoint black principals.
HIDALGO: And around what time period was this?
SMITH: ‘This was sixty—the spring of ‘67.
HIDALGO: Okay.
SMITH: So this parent group formed, and that was about it. It was an opportunity I think for me
personally and some other young teachers to kind of get involved and get to know parents. It
was not encouraged by the system that you did that, the doors were locked, it was not an open
system like it is more so now.
HIDALGO: And how many years had you been teaching up to this point?
SMITH: This was my third year.
HIDALGO: Your third year?
SMITH: Correct. So what I’m going to tell you happened in the fall. If that had not happened I
would have been tendered, had all my experience been in Boston but because I had two years in
other systems, one year in Boston. So over the course of the summer—oh, I’m sorry, as we’re
1
In 1968, New York City attempted to give minority communities more control over their local schools by
decentralizing three school districts, one of which was the Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood in Brooklyn.
When the Ocean Hill-Brownsville district school board fired over a dozen teacher and administrators, members of
the United Federation of Teachers (the New York City teachers’ union affiliate of the American Federation of
Teachers) began a series of strikes to protest what they saw as a violation of the fired teachers and administrators’
rights. Because the president of the United Federation of Teachers was white and Jewish, and the Ocean HillBrownsville neighborhood was predominantly black, the issue took on a decidedly racial tone. The fired teachers
and administrators were ultimately given back their former positions.
Page 6 of 42
�OH-044 Transcript
leaving school, packing everything up at the end of the school year at the Jeremiah Burke High
School, of course we question the principal. You know, What’s going to happen in the fall? Is
the building going to be prepared? Are we being moved? Do we have jobs? What do we do with
these materials? The building was gutted by fire. So she [the principal] just said, “I’m leaving.
There’s going to be a new principal, and yes, they are going to repair the building.”
So we returned the materials to the building, spoke to the district superintendent, a couple of us
young teachers who had been talking to parents, and said, You know, we really think it’s
important—since also a number of the teachers were leaving because the circumstances were just
so bad anybody who had any seniority in the system was trying to get out. So those of us who
were not trying to get out, and who were committed to staying there and trying to improve
things, asked the district superintendent whether or not there would be an opportunity over the
course of the summer for the teachers who were coming back to meet with the new principal, to
kind of acquaint her or him with the problems that had existed and our thoughts about how
things needed to change and so forth.
HIDALGO: At this point, did you guys know who the new principal was going to be?
SMITH: No, we did not know.
HIDALGO: You guys just wanted to set something up?
SMITH: Yes.
HIDALGO: Okay.
SMITH: And we wanted to kind of alleviate, if we could, some of the parents’ fears, because
the building hadn’t been touched between the middle of May, when the fire happened, and the
end of June when we were getting out of school, the building was still sitting there, you know,
boarded up and whatever so there were a lot of concerns in the community. And as I said, there
was a lot of activity around community control in Boston and in New York so that these parents
Page 7 of 42
�OH-044 Transcript
were affiliated with some of these community groups and were angry and wanted a response and
we felt that we as teachers could be—a few of us, three of us.
So at any rate, over the course of the summer I stayed in touch, one of the other girls stayed in
touch, with the district superintendent and he finally set up a meeting for four or five of us. We
showed up and of course there was no principal and so we said to him, Where is the principal? I
thought that’s why we were here. And he said, “She doesn’t want to meet with you until school
opens. She feels she doesn’t want to assume there are any problems, she wants to start fresh.”
So then we said, Well, we think that’s a mistake and you should make her meet, and we also
think that we probably should include some parents. Anyway, we never heard anything else.
School opens—first day of school.
HIDALGO: So now it’s the fall of—
SMITH: Now it’s the fall, September fifth I think it was, or fourth maybe—fourth.
HIDALGO: Of what year?
SMITH: Sixty-eight.
HIDALGO: Okay.
SMITH: And we go into school the day before school starts, okay, and we are handed passes—
teachers—and we’re told in the teachers’ meeting that they expect trouble—they couldn’t be
clear what is was—and that we as teachers should just go about our business, etcetera. That was
about it. Okay, so we come back for the first day of school and get in, with the pass card, get
into the building and no kids come in. I’m in the first grade classroom on the first floor. So I
could see a crowd building outside, and I only knew, at that point, two other teachers in the
building who had been there with me the previous year; the others had either left or I hadn’t
known them, and there were a number of good teachers. Anyway, the kids never come in, so I
go back to the door to try to go out because I figured I’d been there a year, I at least knew some
Page 8 of 42
�OH-044 Transcript
of the kids. I could help try to quiet them down because they were just running all over the place
because the teachers were in the building, kids were outside, there were all these adults; some
were parents, who knows who the others were, I didn’t know.
I should also state that the school committee decided to appoint black principals at the two
middle schools the night before this opened—the night before school opened. So that issue had
been settled, so consequently the community groups who had been organizing over that issue
came over to support the Gibson parents [parents of students at the Christopher Gibson School],
who were upset about the condition of the building because it hadn’t been completely repaired.
There was a big hole on the first floor with a wooden fence around it.
There was something else that had occurred too, I’m trying to remember, what was it? I don’t
know it, it slipped my mind. But at any rate, I’m inside the building. I try to get out the front
door, and they’re boarded up with steel bars. These are the same doors we came in—they’ve
now boarded. And I said to the janitor, “Can’t I get out?” And he said, “No, no, we’re not
letting anybody out.” And I said, “What are you talking about? There’s kids out there!”
HIDALGO: What was the rationale behind the administration letting the teachers in, obviously
with a pass, but then not letting them out? Do you know?
SMITH: I just think that it was a situation in which they were not prepared to deal with it. They
were frightened. It was a brand new principal, so she had had no experience in this; in being a
principal, let alone anything else. And some of it was just racism; there was a whole bunch of
black folks running around outside. What are they going to do?
The other thing I should point out, which was a mobilizing thing for us as teachers, and I
remember I was angry—when we met with this district superintendent and the principal didn’t
show up and the parents were not allowed to meet with him, he wouldn’t schedule another
meeting, I said to him we’ve been—he said, “Go ahead in the building and set up your classroom
if you want,”—because we had also said this building shouldn’t be open, workmen will be in
there over Labor Day weekend—“it’ll be all ready.” Well, it wasn’t.
Page 9 of 42
�OH-044 Transcript
So I went into the building and of course the classrooms hadn’t been painted, some of them.
And they were covered with soot, because there had been a fire; it hadn’t been cleaned. So I
called him up and said, “Look, my classroom is a mess; I don’t want the kids coming into this.”
I said, “I’ll paint it myself if you can get me some paint.” So a couple of the other teachers that
were also at the meeting said, We’ll do the same thing. So we went over, talked to the janitors,
they gave us paint. But basically I spent Labor Day weekend with a couple of other young
teachers painting our classrooms, ourselves.
So at any rate, I go down my fire escape, which is off my classroom, and I go down into the back
yard. So of course, remember, we’ve seen these kids one day. They were there the day before.
They’ve come in one day, and—I’m getting—I’m sorry, let me back up.
HIDALGO: No, that’s okay
SMITH: We went in for the preparation meeting with the teachers, then the first day of school
we had to get in with the passes. Everybody did come in that day; the parents and the
community groups came in as well and took over the school. That’s what happened. So it was
the second day of school where everybody was locked out because they wanted to prevent that
from happening again.
HIDALGO: Okay, so they let the children in or no?
SMITH: No, they let the children and parents and community groups in on the first day of
school.
HIDALGO: But not the second day.
SMITH: Not the second day. Nobody got in but teachers. The doors were locked. The first
day, the community groups and parents, whatever Gibson parents were there—it kind of took on
a life of its own and it really wasn’t the parents as much as it was the community groups, but the
Page 10 of 42
�OH-044 Transcript
parents were part of it, but more parents started to show up. They appointed their own symbolic
principal. So at some point during—
HIDALGO: How did the administration take that?
SMITH: Not very well, not very well.
HIDALGO: I can imagine.
SMITH: We were summoned to the auditorium the first day of school, we as teachers, and
someone came into my room and said, “I will watch your kids. I will watch your class while you
go to a meeting with the principal.” So of course I get there and it’s a stranger who announces
that he’s the principal, he’s been appointed by the community groups and so forth, and we’re just
to stay and teach, and of course we’re like, Where is the other principal? “Well, she’s here but
we’re in charge,” or something, so, “Just finish the day out; do your job.” So that’s what set the
tone.
So the next day nobody gets in but teachers. So I go outside, I see the woman who took over my
classroom the previous day and I say to her, “What is going on here?” She says, “Well, they
won’t let us in,” so she said, “I don’t know what we’re doing. There’s people talking about it.
Let’s just line the kids up, because at some point in time they’re going to go into the building.”
So that’s what we did, we began lining—all the teachers began lining up the kids as we could
remember them, hoping the kids remembered us, of course, after one day. So we’re all lined up;
we’re standing there with the kids in the back yard, which is the school yard, around the front of
the building there’s some activity going on.
The next thing I know this group of men and women come around the building and announce in
a loud voice, “We’re taking the kids to Shawn House.” Shaw House was a community center
that was about eight blocks away. So the kids line up, follow in line. I’m standing there—
there’s nobody from the school department out there. I’m looking around, thinking to myself,
Well, what do I do now? So I decided alright, I’ll just go with the kids around to the front of the
Page 11 of 42
�OH-044 Transcript
building. So we get around to the front of the building and all I can see is a crowd of people at
the front door. I don’t see any school people—there’s police there. The line of kids with these
adults goes walking off down the street, so I went with them. We ended up getting at Shaw
House—I mean, these kids are six-year-olds; they’re first graders and I thought, There really is
no choice. The building is locked; nobody is telling us what they expect of us.
I knew some of the parents, because one of the parents said to me, “What are you doing?” as
we’re walking down the street, and I said, “I don’t know. I’m going with the kids I guess.” And
he says to me, “Well, you’re nuts, you know. They may fire you. I said, “Oh, really? Do you
think so?” He says, “Yeah, probably. This is hot, you know. Who knows what’s going to
happen with this.” So I said to him, “Well I guess I’ve got to take my chances. I don’t want to
go back in there—it’s locked.” I said, “You know, these kids are too young. I know some of the
kids, I know some of the families.” I said, “I’ve been teaching for a couple years; I’ll deal with
that later.”
So anyway, we get to Shaw House and I discover that two of the other teachers that I had known
from the year before also made the same decision on their own. They had been inside and they
saw this happen and went out; and three other young teachers who were brand new to the
building—so there were six of us all together at Shaw House wondering, What are we doing?
Next thing you know lawyers are appearing, telling us they’ll be our lawyers and all of this and
press is everywhere. Here I am, this twenty-four-, twenty-five-year-old teacher who all of a
sudden, I’m a media celebrity, and somebody says to me, “Just say no comment.” So of course
we’d say no comment and giggle. (laughter) It was nuts, the whole thing was nuts.
Anyway, the community groups decided to run a liberation school. We did go back to the
school, I think the next day, and try to get into the building because as I’m sure you can imagine,
I think I had taken my pocket book with me, but I had a jacket, I had brought my lunch, you
know, a lot of the materials in the classroom was stuff that I had bought myself because I mean
there were not a lot of—so I mean they were personal belongings that we wanted to go in and
get; we were not allowed in. These lawyers went to the school committee and basically said,
What are you doing with these people? So they gave us an official notice that we had been
Page 12 of 42
�OH-044 Transcript
suspended for seven days for unauthorized absence from school, was the charge. And when we
had to go into 15 Beacon Street, which was then the headquarters of the school department, to
get our official notices, they had one made out to some poor woman who was still in the school.
They didn’t even know all our names, okay, that was how pathetic and disorganized it was.
HIDALGO: Wow.
SMITH: So anyway, to make a long story short, we were suspended for seven days for
unauthorized absence from school. We sent lawyers to the school committee at the end of the
seven days to ask for a hearing so we could have our say about why we did what we did, because
those of us that had been there had very good evaluations, so there was never any performance
question about it; it was totally political. When they went before the school committee they were
basically told that we were being terminated for conduct unbecoming teachers. We were
allowed back into the building to get our personal belongings, escorted by police, about a week
later.
HIDALGO: Wow.
SMITH: The parents’ groups ran a liberation school for two months, until November fifth, with
donations from community agencies and there were some fundraisers and whatever. We became
media celebrities; it was all over the newspapers.
HIDALGO: What was that like for you?
SMITH: Actually, it was kind of enjoyable because we had to create a school so that my
experiences in Chicago and Bedford kind of—
HIDALGO: Prepared you.
SMITH: Prepared me, yeah, exactly, so that it was kind of enjoyable. The classes were not as
large as at the Gibson. They were more like in rooms like this rather than in classrooms.
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Because we didn’t have a school building. We moved it around to different community
locations. And the parents were involved in the classroom. We had a lot of help from adults, so
it was enjoyable; I think the kids enjoyed it. But the school department and the establishment, so
to speak, the powers that be, began to put pressure on the parents, withholding welfare checks
and threatening them and so forth. So that the population and liberation school began to
dwindle, and it was a terribly sad moment when on November fifth, we along with the parents
and what was left of the community group, escorted the kids back to the school because we knew
we couldn’t run the liberation school forever.
HIDALGO: And what was that day like?
SMITH: Very sad, very sad. It was kind of a cold, grey day. The kids were crying because they
didn’t want to go back; we didn’t want them to go back, but there was nothing we could do. We
prepared reports on the kids, and what progress they had made and what were we using for
materials, I mean we handled it professionally. Never heard a word. We were persona non
grata, because in the mean time, we had gone to court. Unfortunately, in hindsight, we probably
should have gone to a federal court, claiming denial of due process, but we went to a state court.
And after a trial of probably two months, the decision I think came out right after Christmas, in
January of ‘69, in which the decision was basically that we had no rights once we left the school.
One of the quotes from the decision was. “Those who play with the matches of anarchy deserve
to get burned.” So that we were out of jobs, all of us, and we maintained contact with the
families and we had a legal defense fund. We had to raise money to pay these lawyers, although
many of them were pro bono. It was tough. It was very controversial. We lost friends over it.
We were heroes to some and lunatics to others.
HIDALGO: And who was the suit against?
SMITH: Against the school committee. Interestingly enough, had any one of us been in the
Boston system for three years, that first day would have counted and he or she would have
automatically gotten tenure. And so with tenure, would have come a different set of rights. But
because none of us had been in the system for that three years and a day, none of us had tenure
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so that technically and legally, they were allowed to do anything they wanted with us because we
were not tenured. The state law—as a result of what happened to us, the state law was changed.
I think the Mass. Teachers Association took it on, so that now non-tenured teachers do get
hearings if they’re being dismissed or considered being dismissed.
The other thing, of course, is that we went to our union, but as I think I said earlier, the Ocean
Hill Brownsville was going on in New York in which the community councils of parents and
community groups were running the schools. And the teachers were being fired and teachers
were, I think, demonstrating against the community control setup. So that this was the opposite
of that, so that there was great fear among the people in the Boston Teachers Union, that this was
what was going to happen to Boston and that we were going to be the vehicle of that happening
so that for the leadership of the union we were definitely persona non grata. We’d been paying
union dues, I think I had been paying union dues because I was union member in Chicago and
also in Bedford. I don’t know that the others—I think they automatically are covering everybody
but not everybody paid dues at that time.
So of course I was technically the one that appealed and we went to the executive committee—
I’m sorry, the grievance committee. We went up the steps, and at every step, we’re basically
told, No, we’re not going to take your case. So of course we went to the full membership. And
it was an epiphany, I think, for many people in the union, some of whom are still around
teaching, some of whom are good friends of mine because what happened is that I was the only
one allowed to speak because I was the only one who had been paying dues. So I went in and
spoke with this—you know, screaming and throwing things, and it was chaotic. And I basically
said, “We’ve been teaching. Nobody argued against our performance. Nobody has heard our
side of the story. This is what a union should do, is to support this.” And a number of people
agreed; people who may not have agreed with our position or our politics at this point, agreed
procedurally that a union should protect its members and said things like, You mean to say if this
happened to me, you wouldn’t support me? What am I paying my dues for?
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So it was quite a battle, and we lost, so therefore we really had no choice but to go to court. And
I don’t think that any of us really expected that we were going to get our jobs back in that school,
but I think we felt that the only alternative we had, the only recourse we had, was to go to court.
Anyway, we did, we lost, that was it, we moved on. None of us went into teaching after that for
a long, long time. We were clearly blacklisted. People said to us, Well, Jonathan Kozol got a
job in Newton after he wrote his book, and you people have been in the press and gotten lots of
publicity, so a lot of places will want to hire you. That was not true for two reasons: one is, at
that time, there were not a lot of teaching jobs, the market was full; and secondly, for the few
jobs they had, they weren’t going to take anybody with any kind of controversy. Even if they
may have agreed with the politics of it, they weren’t going to touch anybody.
HIDALGO: Do you think that that decision was more of a political decision?
SMITH: Which?
HIDALGO: The decision to deny your appeal?
SMITH: Oh sure, oh sure, it was all politics. It had nothing to do with competence or anything
else. And it was racism, no question. It was a significant event in the racial politics of this city,
which I think in some respects then colored, no pun intended, other things later.
So anyway, what happened after is that I picked up a job I think for six months in a parochial
school with a third grade class that had not had a teacher. I just filled in. Then I went to work at
Shaw House, which was the community center in the neighborhood, so I had a lot of the same
kids and did after school tutoring and adult ed. and day care.
While I was there a group called the Task Force on Children Out of School issued a report on the
exclusion of kids from school in Boston: special needs kids, non-English speaking kids. Now
this is late—this is probably ’70—1970, ’71. And in conducting the study they had assembled
all of the major child service institutions in the city, from Children’s Hospital to the mental
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health centers to small community agencies, you name it. They had done a very good job. So
they issued this report. It was a big—whatever. And one of the people who was involved in the
effort, Hubie Jones, who was also involved in the Gibson Schools effort, was head of Roxbury
Multi-Service Center at the time, so he was familiar—he came to me and he said—I was at Shaw
House at the time—he said, “You know, we would like to follow this report up so it just doesn’t
sit on a shelf. We would like to organize these agencies to work directly with schools to try to
resolve some of the problems, so would you come on board and help us do that?” So I said,
“Sure.”
So I went to work for them and I organized something called the Alliance for Coordinated
Services, which was mental health and social service agencies paired with schools. It was brutal.
It was extremely difficult because I ended up having to deal with many people in the school
system who thought I was some kind of a monster, hated me, refused to come to meetings if I
was part of them. So I did this all behind the scenes. And the day that it was announced, with, I
don’t know, twelve or fifteen community councils—the schools were participating, and we did
have some people in the system that would be on it—I couldn’t even be there because had my
face or name been associated with it, the school system would never have agreed to it. So this
was three or four years later and it was still that intense.
HIDALGO: And what was like for you knowing that you had done all this work and not being
able to be there on that day?
SMITH: It was pretty disappointing and painful. But as you learn when you’re learning
organizing that the benefits and the fulfillment of an organizing effort comes not from what
you’ve done but from what the people that you’ve organized are then able to do. So I think I was
able to see that on an intellectual level. Emotionally, it was extremely difficult. These are
people I have worked with and some of them had to take some abuse at their own schools to
agree to participate—had participated with me in these haranguing meetings where I had gotten
screamed at and had defended me.
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So it was painful on a personal level, but on an intellectual level I just felt good about what we
were able to accomplish. So that was up and running, council’s working; it was kind of fun to do
it once it was going, I was doing it, you know, at some distance.
And the Boston School Committee announced in 1972—now this is after the court case has been
filed in federal court with Garrity, the racial desegregation case2—and in the meantime, there
was a whole effort at the state level—and this is often misunderstood when people look at
Boston’s desegregation history, this is unique to this city. Before the plaintiffs file the case in
federal court, claiming violation of the fourteenth amendment, the rights of black children, the
Massachusetts legislature had, for several years, and the governor, liberal governors and a liberal
legislature at the time, had passed a law called the Racial Imbalance Law. And with that law, the
state Department of Education proceeded to quote-unquote racially balance schools. Legally, the
racially balancing formula was different than the equal protection formula that Garrity had to
deal with in his case. Plus the fact that the state legislature acted as a legislative body, which
makes laws, set up a whole different set of issues that a federal court, which is the judicial branch
of government, which operates under a different set of rules. Many people never understood that
here.
So the state had this racial imbalance law. It was argued ever year. It was largely supported by
suburban representatives who weren’t affected personally, individually, by the consequences of
it, so that it was a battle ground every single year. There were efforts to repeal it, and large
efforts. There was significant mobilization in white groups—people —in Boston, Springfield,
Worcester, other cities, but mainly Boston. Boston was the big place. And the state house is up
the street; they could get there for the lobbying, so that lobbying efforts went on every single
year. In the meantime, while these lobbying efforts went on and failed, the state developed a
plan, a racial balance plan for Boston and Springfield and other places, so people mobilized to
oppose it and so forth. The Boston School Committee said, We’re not having anything to do
2
In 1970, a group of black parents in Boston filed suit against the Boston School Committee, alleging that their
children’s 14th Amendment Rights were violated by what they saw as the committee’s deliberate policy of racial
segregation in the Boston Public Schools. In 1974, Judge W. Arthur Garrity ruled in Tallulah Morgan et al. v.
James Hennigan et al. (379 F. Supp. 410) that the school committee had been deliberately segregating the schools.
The ruling resulted in what is called the Garrity decision, 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.
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with this. This is the state’s plan. You tell people what it is. We’re fighting it, we’re going to
beat it, we’re never going to do it.
Okay, so that’s going on, on the one hand. The plaintiffs, the black parents and the NAACP
[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] and the Center for Law and
Education file their federal case, so all this is percolating in ’72. Hubie [Jones], again, who was
chairman of the Task Force on Children Out of School, says to me, “You know, we’ve got all
these agencies and community groups across the city who have been working on the alliance
with you, who you’ve mobilized to help with schools. The school committee’s conducting a
national search. Let’s see if we can get people together because we don’t want another hack in
here. The guy who’s leaving—we know that desegregation or racial balance of these schools is
going to occur over the next couple of years somehow, whether it’s federal court or state. We
know that’s going to happen. We want a superintendent who can handle this and has a
commitment to make it happen peacefully. We can’t let this racist school committee—which is
fighting racial imbalance—we can’t let them control it.”
So at any rate, we started calling people. We got people together, including the conservative
homing school(??), the teachers’ union—a pretty good group. And basically came together and
got real help from the media, and that’s because the media at the time were just fed up with the
Boston School Committee and the games that went on, and so that they were helpful to us. For
example, they would—oh, so we organized the group and went to the school committee and said,
We want some community participation in this search. We want a national search, not a
backroom deal. And they basically said, Get lost. So that we felt the only way we could have
impacted was with public pressure, so that’s where we kind of married a couple of reporters, of
the Globe, mainly. They used to tell us when the candidates were coming to town, so that we
would contact the candidates ourselves and we would say to them, We’re representing a
community group. You don’t have to come talk to us, but if you get appointed you’re going to
have to deal with us; we’re not going anywhere. So of course all of them came to the
interview—we’d either meet them at the airport and shepherd them away before their interview
with the school committee or whatever.
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So it was an interesting process. We had committees and we met and we decided that we would
not select a candidate. Our agenda was, to be very clear, it’s the school committee’s decision.
However, these are the things we want them to look at in candidates, and these are what we
believe are the priorities that these candidates should be asked about.
HIDALGO: Because you guys naturally are the ones working with the community.
SMITH: Right, and because at that point in time we had come up with what we felt were some
key areas that needed to change in the system. There needed to be reforms in a variety of ways.
Bilingual programs needed to be created; a whole long—parents needed to be welcomed into the
buildings, there needed to be—whatever. But a list of reforms. So we sat down with each of
them, we came up with—which we issued publicly because the school committee had, you
know—through the newspaper, that was the only way we had—and said basically that these are
the candidates, we’ve interviewed them, this is the rank order that we put them in. It’s your
choice. Any of the outside candidates are preferable, but if you insist on going with an in-house
candidate, this is the best of the in-house candidates.
That’s who they appointed. We have no idea whether we had any impact; he always felt that we
did. His name was William Leary.3 He felt that we helped get him the job—the community
pressure. Therefore, he committed himself to working with us, over his term, on the specific
reforms that we had laid out. We came up with a reform document—that was the birth of
CWEC [Citywide Educational Coalition]. It disbanded, as often happens with community
groups after that particular target issue was dealt with and he was hired, but he wanted to
continue to meet with us. So the small group of volunteers stayed together, refined this agenda
through community meetings, and then had a big meeting with him six months into his first term.
And that was really the beginning of the foundation of CWEC.
Now at the same time, things are moving along; it’s ’72, it becomes ’73. The state racial balance
plan is still going on. Boston won’t tell people where their kids are going to school. They’re
reading in the paper, hearing on the radio that there’s going to be busing coming to Boston.
3
William J. Leary served as superintendent of the Boston Public Schools from 1972 to 1975.
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Nobody knows where their kids are going to go. So this group of CWEC was the only multiracial, broad-based, citywide group of people. So that we came together and said, We’ve got to
raise some money and get some information out to people. So we literally went begging around.
I actually worked organizing it and I can recall distinctly sitting in the city council chambers—I
don’t know what issue we were fighting on but something related to this—in which literally
someone’s hat went around the gallery and collected money, and that was what I got paid for,
because I wasn’t working at the time. I was collecting unemployment for a while so I was
covered but once the unemployment ran out, I literally had no money, so people were trying to
keep me doing it, while we were also trying to raise money.
So we were able to raise a little bit of money, [and] opened up a store front down on Arlington
Street. One of the members of the groups had a church and he had some room in this building,
let us set up a bank of phones. We went to the state—we said, Explain to us how you’ve
assigned kids in Boston. They did. We plotted it all on maps. We got a bunch of volunteers. I
was the only one being paid a small amount, the rest were all volunteers. And we went on
television one snowy Sunday afternoon and said, We can tell you where your kids are going to
school; we got the state plans. We got ten thousand phone calls in a month. I mean, we
couldn’t—you’d hang them up and they’d ring again. And what we would do is—all people had
to do was give us an address; once we had the address we could go locate the address on a map,
see what GIA(??) code it was in, go to the state plan, and say, If your kid is in fourth grade this is
the elementary school or junior high, or whatever. And we were the only ones telling anybody
anything.
So anyway, we continued to do that. This is now into ‘74 I think; yeah, we are now into ’74.
We continued to do this public information, we printed stuff, we got a small amount of money, a
couple of grants. It was beginning to become clear the Garrity decision was coming down, so
that we began fundraising to be prepared for that. The mobilization of anti-busers continued to
grow and they went to the legislature in the spring of ’74 which is literally a month or two before
Garrity ruled and they overturned the law. So the state racial imbalance law was no longer in the
books, which meant all that information that we had given out, the state plan, all of that, is moot
because it can’t be enacted now. So there’s chaos again, people saying, So what happens? You
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told us what the state was going to do with our kids, now what happens? [We said,] Well, we
don’t know, sorry, call the school department. Of course the school department is saying,
Nothing is going to happen because we overturned it. We were successful! We won! Ignoring
that there was going to be a court case and I think believing, naively, that because this political
pressure had overturned a state law, that somehow that was going to impact the federal court.
And so we continued to raise money and were able to hire a few more staff people to kind of
organize in communities to be ready for whatever came down. In the meantime, the school
department is not preparing anything because they’re denying it’s going to happen. June 24,
1974, word comes out that Garrity has ruled. I will never forget it. I go over the court house to
pick up the ruling along with—
HIDALGO: And this was on that day?
SMITH: I think it was actually the last day of school. I think it was. And I’m riding up in the
elevator with the deputy superintendent and other people from the school department that I
knew, because I had been working on the outside but certainly there were people inside the
school system that were very grateful for what CWEC was doing because they knew the
information should be given to people. They were working on the plans, they knew where kids
were going, but they weren’t allowed to tell. Therefore they saw us as helping them, basically,
and helping the community.
Anyway, I remember riding up in the elevator and the school department people saying,
Nothing’s going to happen. Don’t worry about it. We’re off for the summer. Let’s go home,
have vacation. And then coming down everybody’s thumbing through it [the decision] and
people are going, Wow, whoa, look at this! Of course it’s like this thick [indicates thickness
with hands], so you’re trying to thumb through it. And the school department people [were] just
devastated. “I can’t believe this! I can’t believe this.”
HIDALGO: So going up in the elevator you didn’t know what the decision was? (41:41)
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SMITH: No, no, nobody did.
HIDALGO: You knew or the group that was in the elevator at that moment just knew that a
decision had been done.
SMITH: Correct, and they were going to pick it up to see what it was because it was literally
being released. The word was, Garrity’s decision will be released at 4:30, so that everybody was
on their way for this 4:30 mad rush—press, officials, community groups, anybody. It was
available to everybody and they were just giving it out. No, nobody knew beforehand.
HIDALGO: Before you actually got the decision, what did you think the decision was going to
be?
SMITH: There was never any question in my mind that he was going to rule them [the Boston
School Committee] guilty because I had lived through it. It was very clear—you could see it if
you were in the schools. And right down the street from me, from the Gibson, I mean the Gibson
had a few white kids in it, not many, it basically was a black school. The other school in its
mini-district also was mostly black. But the next district over had four schools in it, two of
which were basically all white and two of which were all black. Well we’re all in the same
neighborhood; no busing would have been required.
And I also had been to meetings in the community because the state had built, at Boston’s
request, had built two brand new schools, the Hennigan [Elementary School], and the Lee
[Elementary School], the previous year. The only agreement the state insisted on is, We will put
up a certain percentage—a significant percent of the money to build those schools, but you have
to balance them racially. And of course Boston took the money, built the schools, then sat down
and voted to not balance them afterwards. So I had been at that too, so it was pretty obvious to
me at least that they had to be found guilty. They were violating the rights of black kids and they
were consciously districting in such a way as to separate black and white kids.
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HIDALGO: So you get out of the elevator, you get the decision, you get the paperwork, you’re
thumbing through it, and at what point do you realize as you’re reading it, that this has actually
happened?
SMITH: I think right away. I think that the first question in our minds of course was, What
does this mean? It is now the end of June. Everybody’s going home for the summer, you know,
people go away. What does this mean for September, and what does this mean has to be done
between now and September? I don’t think I was naïve enough to think that because there had
been a federal court ruling that all of a sudden the school committee was going to change its
posture. So I think—I took it back to the CWEC office and people came in, members and
whatever, and everybody wanted to look at it. And I’m sure we sat around and met and tried to
figure out what to do. The school committee of course is saying, We won’t accept this, and
we’re going to appeal. There was all this crap—excuse my language.
But it was pretty obvious and the mayor I think at that point, who was Kevin White, actually said
something to the effect of, “Even though I may not agree with the decision, we are going to
uphold the law.” And therefore he basically said, “I am the leader of this city,” not in these
words, but, “regardless of what the school committee posture is, I am going to do it.” And
[William] Leary, the superintendent, was essentially saying the same thing. So it was clear that
there were some people in leadership who accepted the ruling and said, We’ve got to move on
and begin to organize, to keep kids safe, to follow the law and so forth.
And then there were others, the school committee, [who said,] We’re going to appeal, we’re not
going to do it, the buses will never roll, don’t worry about it, etcetera. What we didn’t know was
what would happen, and it didn’t take long because as I recall it was just a short period of time
before Garrity, rumor has it, without ever looking at it, just took the state plan, that the
information had already gone out on, that kids had been assigned under. And obviously for
different purposes, it did not cover all the schools because racial balance is different than
integration, so that not the entire city was covered. East Boston, Charlestown, Allston/Brighton I
don’t think was included, but there were parts of the city that were not included in full. So that,
he just ordered that for the first phase, and in hindsight a lot of people have questioned whether
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or not it might have been better to have had his own plan, to have delayed it and had his own
plan. But be that as it may, that’s what he did.
So then CWEC basically were able to raise some money in the crisis. I can remember going to
fundraisers—I’m sorry, to funding institutions in the city that summer with members of the
CWEC board of directors as a mixed racial group and saying, “There’s going to be violence here.
It’s classic. This table is being set.” And people saying, You’re nuts, there’s not going to be any
violence. It’s probably not even going to happen. If it does happen, it’ll just go right through.
You don’t need money; we don’t believe it’s needed number one, and number two, even if we
thought it was needed, we don’t think you people can do it, this ex-fired school teacher as a staff
person and the rest of you, etcetera.
So it was tough to raise money. We were able to get some money because the mayor basically
pulled some slight of hand with some people in city hall who were supportive of having some
fools on the streets. There was nobody real anxious to be out there putting themselves on the
line so that they were able to get some quote-unquote safe streets money through the Law
Enforcement Assistance Administration. But they couldn’t give it directly to us because the city
council would have never let it get through. So that—I forget—it was smoke and mirrors how
they gave it to some small city agency that then subcontracted it to us.
Anyway, so we hired five parents. Two of them had been anti-busers. They organized what we
called community councils in the neighborhoods, got people involved and were helpful with the
police and the school officials because they were able to say, If you made that street one way,
you can get the buses this way, make the other street—but don’t do that street because there’s a
day care center or whatever. So they helped mobilized these communities.
We set up a rumor control center linked to city hall, to the rumor control center in city hall,
which worked very well because we were able to say, We’re hearing this, and they said, We
heard this, can you confirm it? So that helped, and we had about five hundred volunteers on the
streets when school opened.
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Money was always an issue; I think I was making nine thousand dollars full-time, no benefits, so
it was tough. It was largely a volunteer effort. And I will never forget it, the night before school
opened in ’74—day, late afternoon, I must have gotten twenty phone calls from some of these
same foundation people we’d been to for money that said no, from large business owners in the
city saying, What’s going to happen tomorrow? Do we need to board up our windows? Do you
really think it’s going to be as bad as—etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And which I wanted to say to
them, “You know, you didn’t want to hear it before, you didn’t want to help us out by raising
money, why should I help you now?” But I didn’t; I was being responsible and said, “We hope
not. We certainly don’t think there will be anything downtown. If there’s trouble, it’ll probably
be violence against poor little kids on buses in neighborhoods, and we can tell you which
neighborhoods seem to be the most vulnerable and explosive right now,” but I said, “Don’t
worry, nobody’s going to come to the top of the John Hancock [Building] and blow it up.
HIDALGO: So what was the first day like?
SMITH: First day, surprisingly, was relatively calm because a lot of people kept their kids
home initially. Then of course once the buses arrived, then all hell broke loose in Southie, then
there was trouble in Hyde Park. And I can’t even remember—I think two of my staff quit after
one day; I had to coax them back. Because you have to remember that not only were these
people organizing, and doing a very good job, [but] the one [staff member] in Southie and the
one in Hyde Park had also been anti-busers, [and] had their own children who were going to
school, so they were considered to be leaders, so if their kids went, other people’s kids went.
And I don’t remember whether it was the first day, or the second day, or the third day, because it
all kind of blurred together because it was pretty much the same for the first week or so as I
recall.
We were inundated with phone calls from people wanting to know where this bus was and that
bus and what happened, because there would be buses that would get stoned, rocks be thrown at
them. Let’s say in Southie, a bus would go—the high schools get out early, bus would go to the
high school, pick up kids, it would get stoned, those kids would get off the bus wherever—high
school kids—and if some were injured, the rumors would fly. The buses all had broken windows
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and glass on the seats; those buses would then go and pick up elementary kids who got out at
three or 2:30. I can remember one of my staff people saying she rode the bus deliberately and
when she got to Columbia Point she kept saying, “The windows weren’t broken with these kids
in it,”—they swept the bus up, those volunteers—“this didn’t happen with your kids, it happened
earlier. They shouldn’t have sent this bus, but they did. We cleaned it out; your kids are okay.”
And then there would be the copy cat. Something would happen in one neighborhood so
therefore there’d be a retaliation and another one. And I can recall days that when I, who did not
have children, was the only one in the office because the staff would hear—and the field staff
were on beepers, so I could always get in touch with them. I’d beep them—no cell phones at the
time—and then they would call in, so we could stay in touch. Obviously for rumor control you
needed that too. And we had volunteers, like I said, that would go into the schools to keep the
peace, volunteers at bus stops. We’d keep kids safe, because there were people coming and
telling kids, Get home, don’t you go to school. There were kids in Southie who were going to
school, and couldn’t tell anybody they were going. They’d have to tell their father, for example,
after he went to work, they didn’t go to school that day, so they’d have to sneak off somewhere
to try to do homework. We called it the War Years because that’s really what it was like.
Then eventually the abuse started with the motorcades to peoples’ houses, death threats on the
phone. We all had to change our phone numbers. And it was like being at war without any
weapons. It was chaotic because as much as Kevin White, the mayor, was trying to exercise
some leadership, he was still very much a political figure, and he wasn’t going to tip too much to
one side because if you weren’t against it, you were for it.
HIDALGO: There was no middle ground?
SMITH: There was no middle ground.
HIDALGO: Do you think that maybe was one of the biggest misunderstandings, one of the
biggest problems, that there was no middle ground?
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SMITH: Yeah, we were it, the middle ground. But who were we? We were able to mobilize
the little folks in the neighborhoods and it certainly helped, there’s no question about that. We
were able to do rumor control and we had credibility for that. Because there were still people
calling up years after we stopped doing that service—they were still calling up and reporting
how many kids went to the school today (laughs) because that’s what they were doing for years,
for two years, so they just kept it up.
I also think though, as I said earlier, that what happened was the opponents of busing really
believed that they had won when they overturned the racial imbalance law, and so therefore if
they just kept at it, they could change this federal judge’s mind. And nobody told them they
couldn’t. Or if anyone told them—we certainly said that—it’s a law, it has to be up until it’s
overturned on appeal. But they really believed they could change it, so that they would go into
his court room and disrupt and they would stand in line and threaten people and they would
intimidate people to keep them from going to school, because if nobody showed up to school
then he couldn’t continue to do what he was doing.
HIDALGO: And what was the media coverage like at this point?
SMITH: Some have argued that the media coverage was too much one way. I thought that it
was pretty fair and pretty accurate, but the anti-busers certainly felt that it was much too much
pro—pro-busing. But that I think was a function of the climate in the city, which was there
wasn’t much middle ground, so that when the media tried to take a middle ground they were
perceived as being pro-busing. The Globe [the Boston Globe] particularly—the Globe had its
windows broken on Morrissey Boulevard as a result of demonstrations and who knows what.
There were kids killed. It was a scary time and there was nowhere to go for guidance. We were
out there on our own, just operating on our own basic human instincts.
It certainly was not easy for CWEC to stick together, as a mixed racial group, because when
things became really tense—I remember a meeting one night in which a group of black board
members wanted the National Guard called out. I don’t remember what the circumstances were
but it was particularly violent. And the board talked about it, and the majority of the board did
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not agree for that to happen and I had to call the mayor’s office, which was waiting because we
were one of the few mixed racial groups that they could go to for what’s the community across
the city. And I remember calling up the deputy mayor at the time, Bob Kiley4, and [he said],
“What did people say?” And I said, “Well, a significant minority of this groups wants the
National Guard called out, but that was not the vote.” And he said, “I understand that, and if I
were in their position I would agree to it, but we don’t feel it’s a wise move.” So I went back
and reported to the group and they seemed satisfied
But the reason I tell you that is that, what it finally came down to with those kinds of
discussions—and there were many, many more, about who was at fault in this community or
another community and what the police were doing and the mayor. What was interesting about
it is that what it finally came down to in a lot of ways, was the individual relationships that had
built up over the previous couple of years. So therefore if people—as politically charged as the
discussion might be, when it finally came down to accepting disagreements and accepting
differences, there was that past experience and friendship that got us through. And that was one
of the unique features of it I think, because it was tense and there were times that I wondered
whether CWEC was going to survive the tensions between the staff members as things
proceeded and also between the board members. Never between the board and staff; I mean, that
was all healthy. But among board members with one another and among staff with one another,
so that if it was going to be a representative group—which it was, and which it had to be to do
the kind of work it did because if it only represented certain segments of the city it would not
have been effective as a broad, citywide base—then it had to have those differences of opinion
and be a place where you could process.
So that’s one of the things I think we did. We also put out a newsletter and so forth, and that
went on through the second phase. We wrote tomes to Garrity, thirty-, forty-page letters in
which we just took staff reports of what they were doing and what was going on in the
neighborhoods and advised him because there were often times when the plaintiffs were saying
one thing and the school department were saying something else, and sometimes the school
4
Robert Kiley (1935- ) served as deputy mayor of Boston from 1972 to 1975. He then served as chairman of the
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority until 1979.
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department was either lying or inaccurate. So he came to really respect, I think, what we were
doing, because it was the one independent voice he could get that didn’t have a particular axe to
grind, that was just trying to obey the law and get people to keep things relatively quiet. So for
two or three years we communicated with Garrity regularly in letters.
I got appointed to the first Citywide Coordinating Council5, which was what he put together as
kind of a community monitoring body, representing CWEC. And so we got engaged in all those
debates about the second year plan and monitoring and what was working and what wasn’t and
what was causing violence and all of that kind of stuff. Every fall for three or four years we,
CWEC, who had some success and history and know-how in public information would—after
the first year—the first year we did it on our own and maybe even the second year, but for three
or four years after that, we would go in and my staff would take over the school department’s
switchboard for the opening couple of weeks of school, just because our people were more
pleasant (laughs), knew the information better, would answer the phone instead of putting it on
hold. I mean, basically, we did their public information each fall for a number of years.
There were times that, as the experts got involved, school assignments were questioned; we
would be getting calls from hundreds of parents if their kids haven’t gotten an assignment yet, or
they had gotten an assignment but they hadn’t gotten a transportation assignment, [so] they
couldn’t go to school. It was causing havoc in families because they couldn’t go to work. We
would literally go and sit outside the door, sometimes Saturday nights, Sundays, weekends,
while the experts, Marvin Scott, and Robert Dentler, 6 would sit in there with the school
department people and go over each assignment and make sure it was whatever, racially
balanced or contributing to integration. And they would come out of the room, somebody from
the school department, [and say,] “Give ‘em to us!” We would run down the hall, have all these
envelopes, match up the envelopes with the assignments and get them out on a Saturday night or
a Sunday just so we could get these kids into school.
5
The Citywide Coordinating Council was created by Judge Garrity in 1975 to monitor implementation of the
desegregation plan. Its operations ceased in 1978. The Council’s records are held at Boston College. (Information
taken from http://library.bc.edu)
6
Marvin Scott (1944- ) and Robert Dentler are both sociologists who served as consultants during Boston’s
desegregation years. Both have focused their studies on educational and racial issues, and both held administrative
positions at Boston University during the 1970s.
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Who knows what the school department was doing. They weren’t prepared. They deliberately
weren’t prepared. They didn’t want it to happen. When it happened and they couldn’t stop it,
the best you can say is that the people who were in there and being paid to do a job tried, but
they didn’t have the training, they didn’t have any kind of orientation, and in many cases the
system was no better than it had been before [desegregation], which meant there were lack of
materials, there were classrooms uncovered by teachers, there were—all the same problems that
existed before the court order still existed.
Through this we met with Leary, the superintendent, on a number of reforms, tried to negotiate.
You’ve got to start improving the system while you’re also—it doesn’t do any good to mix kids
up. It’s like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic; if you don’t change the way things are
being done, then nobody’s going to benefit. There were particular issues that we raised about
performance evaluation of teachers. We just struggled with that all along for the three years he
was in. And then they hired Marion Fahey.7 No search, nothing, just put her in there. Grossly,
in my view, incompetent. Nice lady, pleasant, but didn’t have a clue what she was doing. Never
should have been put in there. There were some who believed at the time that she was
deliberately put in there, which was a cruel move because she didn’t know what she was doing,
and that she therefore would have been hard-pressed to try to move the system forward with any
kind of reform agenda or plan or whatever.
So that was it. CWEC went back to its reforms, kept the public information up, began to
produce publications, research studies. I remember doing a—it’s kind of a humorous thing—I
remember doing a study, hiring some staff and doing a study, on the budget, the school
department budget, which nobody could ever figure out, let alone comment on. But we did, we
finally got some people together and we did get the budgets and did some analysis and went to a
budget hearing of the school committee. And I can’t remember what year it was, but Marion
Fahey was superintendent, and she had her glasses down on her nose, and she’s looking at the—
with microphones around, she’s looking down at the thing [CWEC’s report on the school
department budget]. Then one of my staff people got up, one who had done some of the
7
Marion Fahey served as superintendent of the Boston Public Schools from 1975 to 1978.
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research, and said, “Miss Fahey, I’d like to point out on page,” whatever, “of our report,” which
we had issued, “you will see a list of,” I don’t know how many, let’s say twenty, could’ve been a
hundred, I don’t know, but—“you will see a list of people whose names and social security
numbers are provided to you; these are people who we have discovered have been receiving pay
checks for the past five years. All of them have been dead all that time.” And Miss Fahey’s
looking at the thing [saying], “Uh-huh, that’s right, okay,” because she’s obviously not listening
and just ignoring it. And so my staff person says again, “Miss Fahey, I’d like to repeat,” —of
course the cameras and lights are flashing—“I’m sorry Miss Fahey, I would like to repeat—I
don’t think you understood me. These people are dead and they are still getting paychecks.”
And finally she looks up and she says, “Dead?” (laughs) It was a wonderful moment. So that
became CWEC’s research projects, public information, whatever. I left there in 1979 for a
couple of reasons; one is that I was tired.
HIDALGO: I can imagine.
SMITH: Yeah. Just worn out. And I also felt that it was probably time—I had gotten through
the war years, and that it was really time for somebody else to come in with a fresh view and
structure it for the next phase, whatever that might be, and that I just didn’t feel like doing it. So
Robert Wood had been appointed as superintendent.8 He came in as a big reformer and he was
going to change public information in the school department. He asked me to come work for the
school department. I didn’t really want to because, I don’t know, I was tired of it, but he sold me
this bill of goods that public information was key and that we knew how to do it and he was
going to give me carte blanche to do it, and that he also wanted me to do research on how to
stabilize the system in terms of enrollments, get people to look at it again and so forth and so on,
deal with the parents groups that had been created by the court and were all over the place and do
some organizing, you know, those kinds of things. So I figured, maybe I’ll go do it for a year or
two.
And also it was attractive in another sense. It meant that eleven years after I had been fired as a
teacher, that the system had changed enough so that the blacklisting and the kinds of things that
8
Robert Wood served as superintendent of the Boston Public Schools from 1978 to 1980.
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had gone on with us were no longer relevant if I could be hired back to the superintendent’s
office. So I went back to work there for about a year and a half and then just decided I had had
it. There were things that we could do, there were things that we couldn’t do. The bureaucratic
inertia was very difficult to deal with, and ultimately I think what he did was hire a parallel
structure instead of removing the deadwood and changing fundamentally some of the problems
in the system structurally, he just hired new people, spent more money.
So anyway, I left in—I guess it was ’79. No ’80; I left in ’80. Went back to school because my
degree had been in education, elementary education, that’s what I knew how to do. And in the
intervening eleven or twelve years, I had gone from being a classroom teacher to a community
organizer, a social worker, a researcher, and ultimately a manager, okay? And I learned it by the
seat of my pants. And thank god for them, at the hand or at the knee of some people who did
know some of this stuff and taught me. But I felt the need to kind of bring together what I had
learned by the seat of my pants. So I went to the Kennedy School at Harvard, and got a masters
in public administration, which was good. It gave me the theory to go with the practice—the
practice I had had which was pretty unique compared to most of my classmates. (laughs)
HIDALGO: I would say.
SMITH: Yeah, so it was an adjustment. But anyways, I got that, came out and said, “I’m not
going to have anything to do with education anymore.”
HIDALGO: After you got your degree?
SMITH: After I got a masters in public administration, I said, “I’m going to try to do something
else.” So I came out and this job became available at Boston Public Housing.9 The Housing
Authority had been put in receivership; there had been a receiver appointed. They wanted—they
had set up a group called the Committee for [Boston] Public Housing and they were looking for
a staff director. Some of the people on it knew me, I knew some of them from previous work.
9
The Committee for Boston Public Housing, Inc. (CBPH) was founded in 1981, during the period when the Boston
Housing Authority (BHA) was in receivership, to increase the involvement of public housing tenants in decisions
affecting their housing. (Information taken from http://www.cbphi.org)
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And what they wanted me to do was basically organize tenant organizations in the housing
projects and link them up with community agencies, including schools, so it was kind of a good
match. I went to work there, started that up. That’s still around; it’s now called the Family
Community Resource Center.10
CWEC is not [still around], by the way. CWEC—we finally closed in 2001. It survived for
thirty years. Basically, the funding climate in the city was as such that it just couldn’t, and it
needed a new agenda or whatever, and people were tired. The last couple of directors just kind
of let it go without any kind of long term planning or thinking of future things. So CWEC is
closed, the Committee for Public Housing became, as I said, the Family Community Resource
Center. It’s still going.
While I was doing that—and I loved it, it was organizing again, and it was a new arena, and it
was kind of fun—Dukakis11 was in as governor and came to me and said, “We want to get the
federal court out of the Boston schools. We think the Boston school department is ready to take
over its own activities. There’s a more responsible school committee now.” This was before
they appointed—but it was a more representative group, had become nine members from five.
So there had been a management study, and there had been some reorganization. So he says to
me, “So would you accept an appointment to the Board of Education, because we need a couple
of Boston people on there to basically help the state get out.” So I accepted an appointment for
five years to the Board of Ed. along with Loretta Roach who was then the director of CWEC. I
was running the Committee for Public Housing. So we served on the board for five years, the
two of us, and got the state to take over more of Boston, fought the Boston battle from a distance.
I was elected chair in ’85-’86. That was the year we hired a new commissioner, and did a
management study of the Department of Ed.
The problem was at that point in time, I left the Committee for Public Housing because I
discovered I couldn’t do both the Board of Ed.—it was too demanding, and they hired a new
10
The Family Community Resource Center was created by the Committee for Boston Public Housing in 1984.
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.
11 11
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director, who was wonderful, and is a terrific person, did a great job with it: Mary Lassen, who’s
now at the Women’s Industrial Union, running that.
And that’s one thing, let me just say parenthetically about the whole CWEC experience, and just
to a great extent also public housing, is that one of the things that happened through that whole
experience is because we took people who basically came to it with a political agenda but we
weren’t really looking for a whole lot of skills because we were so green at this that we didn’t
know what we were looking for. But that we took parents, we took young people just out of
college who had some research skills—that people really grew, their lives changed dramatically.
There were marriages that ended because the demands and the pressures were so great,
particularly on the women, that the families just disintegrated and they had to kind of rebuild
themselves afterwards. But you’re taking people who all of a sudden are on TV, they’re key
leaders in their communities, and it moved very quickly under very stressful circumstances and
in a fishbowl. And so that it did have an impact on peoples’ lives, some positive, some negative.
The bonds that were created then were everlasting. I mean, you bump into people who were part
of that, and you went through an experience that was unique and that nobody can ever take away
from you, and there’s just a warmth and a caring that just never goes away. But you know some
of the people who came to work through CWEC in those years went on to make wonderful
careers for themselves because they grew and then went to school and developed—like the
former head of cable television in the city of Boston was once a newsletter editor for us at
CWEC. And there are people all around that started out, learned the ropes, and then were able to
go beyond that.
HIDALGO: What was the impact on your life?
SMITH: On my life—well, it certainly was difficult in that I lost childhood friends, college
friends, had difficulties within my family at various junctures because people didn’t agree with
what I was doing. I think that I ended up sacrificing a lot of my personal life because it was so
intense. It was a twenty four hour job. I don’t think I realized at the time because I was young
and dedicated and I was going to save the world. You just kind of get caught up in that stuff. I
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think it impacted both my personal life in terms of relationships but also financially, which I am
now feeling because as my father recently said to me—my father’s ninety-three—“You know, if
you had applied your organizing skills and your drive and your brain and whatever to the
business world, you’d be a millionaire. You’d probably be a millionaire today.” Well yeah,
that’s a father talking, but when I think about it, and I think about the kind of hours I put in, what
I learned, and how I applied it, I realize that it’s probably true. But now as I approach retirement
age, I realize that I wasn’t thinking about that kind of stuff and now I’m in a situation where I’m
never going to be rich and I’m hoping that I can basically retire because physically I’ve got some
problems now, and I couldn’t work full time now if my life depended on it. So I think I took a
beating physically as well, you know with long hours and fast foods and just kind of—and yet I
would do it all again.
HIDALGO: Would you?
SMITH: Yeah, I would, I would. Not only because of what it gave—what it gave to the city,
because of what benefited the city even though it hasn’t gotten the publicity that other efforts
did. The history books will be written someday and there’s no denying what happened. But also
because of what I gained personally from it. I learned a great deal, I’ve made wonderful friends,
and nobody can take that away from you. I mean I can die and feel as if my life meant
something and I had accomplished something. And I might change a few things but I don’t think
I would do it much differently. I did, as I told you earlier, leave—as I got off the state Board of
Ed., I had to leave the Committee for Public Housing, so I had no way to make any money; I
couldn’t support myself. So I had to do consulting. And I would run into the state ethics
commission all the time because I had to be very careful that my state Board of Ed.
responsibilities didn’t interfere with or that they weren’t impacted by my consulting, so it was
tough.
So when I got off the state Board of Ed. I went looking and there really wasn’t a whole lot in
Boston available at the time. And so I left again and moved up to the north as I told you earlier
and ran a consortium of colleges, which I loved. It was more community organizing. Lawrence
[Massachusetts] reminded me of Boston in the sixties; it was so provincial. And not just
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provincial, but racist and almost—the politics were Neanderthal when I was there, which was the
eighties. To think that some of the stuff that was going on in the political world up there was just
nuts.
But anyway, I enjoyed it, loved the work with the colleges and the school systems, pairing up
colleges with the schools. Stayed up there for five years and then came back to Boston and went
to work for ABCD12, where I ran an alternative high school, adult ed. programs, daycare,
summer jobs programs, etcetera. Did that for a couple years, four or five years, and hated it. It
was hard for me to go back into a big, major institution and fit, because I had used to being able
to sort of structure a plan and report to a board, and that’s a particular agency that’s sort of run
on a kind of cult of personality. And you only get to do what you’re blessed from on high to do
and the purse strings are controlled. And I certainly loved the people I worked with, loved the
kids and the young adults and so forth, but I felt constrained. I felt like I couldn’t really manage
the staff the way I wanted to, I couldn’t get the funds that I really needed and so forth.
So anyway, I left, and my old friend Hubie [Jones] who had been—who basically is an old
friend, said to me, “We got one last shot here kid; the school committee is going to conduct a
national search for a superintendent again”—this is the one that resulted in [Thomas]
Payzant13—”so let’s see if we can get a group of folks together. Let’s sit down with CWEC.”
Which we did. Loretta Roach at the time felt that CWEC didn’t want to take on anything like
this, but the theory was, let’s get the folks together again, let’s make sure it is a national search,
let’s get some community involvement in it, let’s basically do what CWEC did way back when
in ’72. But let’s also do something else: let’s mobilize people to help whoever the
superintendent is, because the stars are in alignment, people are supportive of schools again, they
really want a top flight superintendent, they want to try to mobilize resources and help this
person out.
12
Incorporated in 1962, Action for Boston Community Development [ABCD] is an anti-poverty agency that
supports low-income residents of Boston through a network of neighborhood-based organizations. (Information
taken from http://www.bostonabcd.org)
13
Thomas Payzant served as superintendent of the Boston Public Schools from 1995 to 2006. He is currently a
professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
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So that’s what we did. We were not asked for, nor did we venture, an opinion on the
superintendent candidates. It was very clear to us as we interviewed them—this time they
allowed us to interview them—that many had chosen Payzant and that this was all just a sham.
And it turns out that I think that that was true. And we tried. Payzant’s a very nice man. We
tired to be helpful. His style then, and probably still now, is not to ask for help. The help we
offered usually fell on deaf ears. We found we had to again go the route of doing studies,
exposing problems, getting him to focus on it. Worked out some pretty good relationships with
him; he was always professional, never took any of it personally. Some of his underlings were
deputy superintendents, and others were very cooperative and very helpful.
And of course, who were we? There were some younger people involved, and the group became
called Critical Friends, for the Boston Public Schools. I ran that, as the director. I was the only
staff person. We housed it out of Northeastern; they provided us space and were the fiscal agent
for money we could raise. And that’s what we did, and many of the people of the group were old
timers, who had been trying to reform the school system for years, several of them many more
years than I. So they were an influential group of people, and then there were some young
people from newer efforts. We offered our help; it really wasn’t really welcomed, but there are
people in the system today who are old friends of those people who were part of Critical Friends.
We were able to influence, and some of those people in the system, deputies and associate
superintendents and stuff, would give call on individual members of Critical Friends quietly. So
I think we had some influence.
We certainly had the big issue we took on in which we made enemies of the final moments or
couple of years of Critical Friends was on the contract, teachers’ contract. We basically went to
the man and said, You’ve got to make some changes—to the mayor and Payzant—you have to
get some changes on the seniority stuff because you’re saddling principles with deadwood. And
they can’t handle it. You can’t ask them on the one hand to become more accountable for what
happens in their schools, and then via seniority have them have to take on teachers that can’t
function; they just get passed through the system all the time. So they came to the brink.
Probably, in my view, could’ve gotten more, but at least got something in the last contract.
Some of my old friends at the teachers union—because some of the reformers now—when I was
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fired—have now become the powers that be in the union, and some of them, that was it, I was a
turncoat. Critical Friends lasted about four years maybe, and then there just wasn’t funding for
it. It was never designed to be long term. It was seen as a short term measure to help Payzant—
or help whoever became superintendent, you know, Payzant. So after that I worked at
Northeastern teaching a couple of courses, training student teachers, which I loved.
HIDALGO: Is that what you taught at Northeastern?
SMITH: Yeah—no, I taught management at Northeastern. I also did some curriculum
development work with teachers, and I supervised student teachers, which I loved. It got me
back into the schools, got me to see some old friends who are now principals, some folks that are
still teaching, and I love just being able to get back into a classroom and help these young people
think about what they were doing and change some of their perceptions about, you know, the
kids are the problem or whatever. But it was fun, I enjoyed it. But Northeastern did not have a
full time position available to me. My mother got sick and ultimately died, but I took a major
role in caring for her the last couple of years, which just took a lot out of me as well.
HIDALGO: I’m sorry to hear that.
SMITH: Thanks. I pretty much have been semi-retired, picking up a little consulting here and
there, and moved out of the city two years ago, and live out in Walpole in a condo. Took up golf
two years ago. And still find myself tempted because I still have good friends, one of whom is a
principal of a school and I see her very often. And I have several other friends that I bump into
at various events; I stay in touch with Hubie. Actually he called yesterday, had a nice chat with
him. So I mean I’m still on the fringes of it, but when you’re not in the city, it’s not the same.
And I miss it, I miss the city, I miss the political activism sometimes, but there’s political
activism everywhere. And as I said I took up golf, because there’s a lot of golf—of courses, I
had never golfed in my life and it was kind of fun. And ended up getting myself elected chair of
the condo association out here. So my political roots have just had to blossom somewhere else.
HIDALGO: It seems that your organizational skills are just in your blood.
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SMITH: Yeah, I think they are too. You learn that after a while. And on a condo development
where a lot of the people are older, many of them—most of them older than I, they didn’t have
very many people who had chaired large meetings before and had had the kind of experiences
that I had, so I was willing to offer it. But it’s a whole different arena. (sighs) Give me Boston
any time, at least I know that.
Can we take a quick break?
HIDALGO: Oh, sure. I just—real quickly—
SMITH: Yeah, go ahead. I don’t mean right this second.
HIDALGO: Looking back thirty years since all of this has happened, what looks different to
you now?
SMITH: I think the city is very different. I think it is much more cosmopolitan. While there
are still, and perhaps always will be in Boston, distinct neighborhood orientations, those
neighborhoods are nowhere near as isolated and parochial as they once were, either racially or
ethnically, so I think it’s a healthier city in that regard. I think the school system has changed. I
think there’s much more—and that’s, I think, a factor, of a variety of things. I give Payzant
some credit, but I think pressure from the state and the federal government and just cultural
changes in the city and pressure from the community—the court order certainly had an impact on
that. I think the system is focusing more on education outcomes, certainly than it did thirty years
ago. I think that there is, while not enough, more attention paid to accountability on the part of
teachers and principals. Nowhere near enough, but it’s progress; it’s moved forward. I think that
they still have a long way to go in terms of hiring supervision and evaluation of personnel, which
is a key element.
I think that the school committee, while I support an appointed committee because the elected
committee was chaos, I’m not sure that that’s better because I think we’ve gone from one end of
Page 40 of 42
�OH-044 Transcript
the spectrum, which was a chaotic, nine-member, individual, parochial, in fighting games.
While we went from that on one end, we now have basically a rubber stamp of the mayor and a
strong superintendent, and I worry about that because I think that the community has effectively
been pushed out of the schools. So whereas thirty years ago they were pushed out of the schools
by very different leadership and for very different reasons and under different circumstances,
we’ve now come full circle and I think the community is largely irrelevant in the school system
today as well, but for very different reasons and under very different circumstances. And I have
to blame the lack of an elected school committee, because I don’t think if we were to elect them
today, we would necessarily have the same kind of games that we had before. But I think it’s the
danger you have when you have all of the power in the city or in any institution, vested in one
person, the mayor, who then hires one other person who really is only accountable to him, and so
I just think that’s dangerous and I think that we’re not seeing the kind of progress in schools that
we need to in large measure because of that.
I think the media pays far less attention to the schools today than they did before, and I think
that’s a function of the lack of community involvement. I mean, who do they ask about it? They
still call me sometimes and I’m out in Walpole, I’ve been away from it for two years. So I think
that there’s a lack of community pressure on the system, there’s a lack of accountability to the
community, and I think that’s a problem for the future.
Other than that, what’s changed in thirty years? I’ve changed. I think you’ve got another
generation of kids who are now parents of children in the school system. And some of these
parents went through the busing years themselves. I think there’s a healthier climate around
racial issues and diversity here, certainly than there ever was thirty years ago. You would never
see a school consciously lock out parents now. They may lock them out figuratively, but they
will not lock them out literally. And yet you’ve got kids who are dealing with enormous
problems in these schools and yet there really isn’t a whole lot of connection between the
communities they live in and the schools, and so there’s no safety nets for families in crisis. I
mean, kids don’t come to school just for education needs, they have a lot of needs and schools
can’t meet all those needs, and therefore they need to have a community around them to support
it, and that just doesn’t exist.
Page 41 of 42
�OH-044 Transcript
That’s the kind of stuff we did in the Alliance for Coordinated Services, the stuff in Lawrence
and Lowell I did, and that’s just kind of been lost, just disappeared. I worry when that happens
because the schools can’t do it alone and they need help and they’re under more pressure now for
accountability. They need all the more to mobilize resources to help them, and yet they’re both
closed to that because they’re kind of focusing in a very narrow way on scores and skills and
whatever. Well, the skills aren’t devoid from experience and problems and poverty, language
differences. So while on the one hand, there’s a more healthy environment for kids accepting
differences, there’s also, I think, an unhealthy isolation that exists throughout schools today that
doesn’t bode well for the future.
HIDALGO: Okay, is there anything else you would like to add or—
SMITH: I can’t imagine, unless you have specific questions about anything
HIDALGO: No, I think we’ve covered everything pretty much. Mary Ellen, it truly was a
pleasure. Thank you very much for taking time out of your schedule to come into the city and
speak with me.
SMITH: You’re very welcome. As you can tell I love to talk about it.
END OF INTERVIEW
Page 42 of 42
�
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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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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>
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<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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300.7 cubic feet (521 boxes)
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MS 100
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Boston, Mass.
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Hidalgo, AnaMaria
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Smith, Mary Ellen
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Suffolk University Law School, Boston, Mass.
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1:28:54
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Ms. Smith’s background and early teaching career p. 3 (00:04)
Tension in the Boston Public Schools in the late 1960s p. 5 (04:22)
Alliance for Coordinated Services p. 16 (26:51)
Background of the Garrity decision p. 18 (30:20)
1972 search for a Boston Public Schools superintendent p. 19 (32:50)
Founding of the CWEC p. 20 (36:25)
Garrity decision and immediate aftermath p. 22 (40:15)
CWEC’s work in the community p. 25 (46:10)
Citywide Coordinating Council p. 30 (57:58)
More on CWEC’s work in the community p. 31 (1:01:26)
Ms. Smith’s later community work and reflections on her career p. 32 (1:03:17)
Changes in Boston over the last thirty years p. 40 (1:22:41)
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Transcript of Oral History Interview of Mary Ellen Smith
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Boston (Mass.)
Boston (Mass.). School Committee
Boston Public Schools
Busing for school integration
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In this interview, community activist Mary Ellen Smith, the founder of Boston's Citywide Education Coalition (CWEC), reflects on her work 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 various community organizations with which she has worked; her experiences working in the Boston Public Schools, and the lasting impact of Garrity's decision on Boston 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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March 3, 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-044
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/15912/archive/files/dac684d65e165b485c1c272ee21bac62.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=cwj9Vs537ufmwm5%7E8D9rpOCTeSEzw5EISsNg%7EV9a6qyqwAoJqe4XuQS-B2LLenvsNsId3Ffczv6s%7Ee2MXvl7m7xke-jxlGvMA45uVOhE3UqUcCgiViQOe2RXgdpjoqXE5h7Z1ey9ccPU%7EwXbBxpEzyilUTb4CKqQrpdSCjIn-0UVf-i2RjohiJbnIZGaj0J7NiT2mO-fVtno1UodRegTAUvXNps9f9sPi6WNciRNhXIZ9lPyFZByMV5jAJrwM9WqOcAhpyQGyd-kqic-bewxO%7EPZla68OZAWckpbIMo8DTO4Pnk4ChZI9B752IjkdPGbH%7E44UXsm3m42vG3eRE6I-Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
6e09eaa72842d81cb51152194c6114b8
PDF Text
Text
Oral History Interview of Mark Harvey (OH-045)
Moakley Archive and Institute
www.suffolk.edu/moakley
archives@suffolk.edu
Oral History Interview of Dr. Mark Harvey
Interview Date: March 3, 2005
Interviewed by: AnaMaria Hidalgo, Suffolk University student enrolled in History 364: Oral
History
Citation: Harvey, Dr. Mark. Interviewed by Ana Maria Hidalgo. John Joseph Moakley Oral
History Project OH-045. 3 March 2005. Transcript and audio available. John Joseph Moakley
Archive and Institute, Suffolk University, Boston, MA.
Copyright Information: Copyright ©2005 by, Suffolk University
Interview Summary
Dr. Mark Harvey, co-founder of the Jazz Coalition Magnet Arts Desegregation Program, reflects
on his experiences working with Boston-area children before and after the 1974 Garrity decision,
which required some students to be bused between Boston neighborhoods with the intention of
creating racial balance in the public schools. He discusses the social climate in Boston during
that time period; the importance of integration in both schools and communities; and the role of
jazz music in bringing together people of different racial backgrounds.
Subject Headings
Boston (Mass.)
Busing for school integration
Harvey, Mark
Jazz Coalition
Morgan v. Hennigan (379 F. Supp. 410)
Table of Contents
Mr. Harvey’s background
p. 3 (00:06)
Background information on Jazz Coalition
p. 4 (03:30)
Before Garrity decision
p. 7 (07:28)
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
1
�Jazz Coalition proposals and programs
p. 10 (13:51)
Media presence and community violence/tension
p. 14 (22:41)
Parents’ involvement
p. 16 (27:13)
More on Mr. Harvey’s experiences with the Jazz Coalition
p. 17 (29:36)
Reflections on desegregation
p. 23 (40:43)
Interview transcript begins on next page
Page 2 of 25
�OH-045 Transcript
This interview took place on March 3, 2005, in the John Joseph Moakley Law Library
at Suffolk University Law School.
Interview Transcript
ANAMARIA HIDALGO: Okay, today is March 3, 2005. My name is AnaMaria Hidalgo and
I have the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Mark Harvey from the Jazz Coalition Magnet Arts
Desegregation Program. Dr. Harvey, thank you for coming here and letting me interview you.
DR. MARK HARVEY: Thank you for the invitation.
HIDALGO: So, why don’t we start a little bit—telling me about your background.
HARVEY: Okay, I was born in upstate New York in a town called Binghamton, New York.
HIDALGO: Okay.
HARVEY: I grew up there, went to Syracuse University for my undergrad. Came here to
Boston for graduate school. I’m also a minister, so I went to the Boston University School of
Theology where I got my divinity degree, and then I stayed on for a PhD in Social Ethics. And,
let’s see, I’m also a musician, a professional jazz musician. I’m a composer and a band leader. I
have a group called the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra. And I also teach at MIT [words redacted by
narrator].
HIDALGO: Yup.
HARVEY: I teach jazz over there which always seems odd, but we have a music program with
jazz. So I like to think that what I do is all related, all integrated. That’s a little bit about my
personal background. Is that enough? Would you like me to say more?
HIDALGO: Whatever you feel comfortable with.
120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108 | Tel: 617.305.6277 | Fax: 617.305.6275
3
�OH-045 Transcript
HARVEY: I want to say a little bit about the Jazz Coalition and why that came about.
HIDALGO: Sure.
HARVEY: In the time period of the late sixties, early seventies, it was a very [fluid time]; a lot
of things in the air. A lot of movement towards social change. Trying to make progressive
politics, progressive cultural ideas a reality. So I was studying that in my program in social
ethics, which is a program all about how you interrelate religious impulses for social change with
action—social action in the wider community.
HIDALGO: Okay.
HARVEY: Being a musician, I happened to decide that the best way to do that was something
that involved the arts in the larger sense. So the Jazz Coalition was formed loosely in 1970. It
was incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1971. It sort of had its heyday up until 1983.
Or at least my heyday. I—we had all gotten burned out as often happened with people in the
activist world in those days. It continued for a little bit but I ended my association. I had some
other things going on. In any case we did things like try to make conditions better for musicians
in town. We provided performance options, tried to increase funding for payment of that. We
quickly found that doing big ticket events would gain attraction. So we used to do an all-night
jazz concert.
HIDALGO: Nice.
HARVEY: [This] probably would have been impossible these days, but back then we didn’t
know any better, so we did it. We did about ten years of those. Then we decided we would put a
big citywide festival on called Boston Jazz Week. The first year on a shoestring we had one
hundred different events in a week’s time; we repeated that the next year. [The] first year was
’73, the second year was ‘74. In the second year one of our leading members, Arni Cheatham,
who I hope you’ll be able to interview at some point if you get the chance, had been interested in
education. So we did a lot of community outreach as part of that. We would have big ticket
Page 4 of 25
�OH-045 Transcript
concerts in the Back Bay and downtown, and then we would try to go out to some of the
neighborhoods. Quick side note—I and a number of people in our group had worked for
Summerthing. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this.
HIDALGO: No.
HARVEY: This was a program in the late 1960s early seventies in Boston. The mayor was
Kevin White and very much on the model of what Mayor Lindsay had done in New York City,
using the arts to try to help with a lot of problems that were going on in the social scene. So
Summerthing was a summertime arts program where people would perform, do crafts all over
the city of Boston. I and a couple of people in our group had already been exposed to literally
the entire city of Boston. So here I am, I’m coming from upstate New York, I don’t know much
about it and within about two summers I got a real dose of reality about what was going on, what
the differences in the neighborhoods were, differences of reception from different places, as well
as driving the expressway.
HIDALGO: That’s always fun, even now. (laughs)
HARVEY: Exactly. So that was sort of the background behind a lot of stuff we did in the
Coalition. We just thought, Well this is a way—this is how you operate. You operate in the
whole city; you don’t do it just downtown, you do it all over the place. So Arni Cheatham began
to think of these educational things and do little workshops.
When the desegregation decision came down there was established this program called the
Magnet Desegregation Arts Program. There were magnet desegregation programs and then there
was a sub-class of arts, and what this meant was, the magnet was, how do you bring people
together, can you do it in a way that is interesting, engaging, that’s non-threatening? So
particularly around the arts that’s something a lot of people can get together with. It doesn’t
matter if you’re black, white, whatever, you can come together with this.
HIDALGO: Right.
Page 5 of 25
�OH-045 Transcript
HARVEY: So building on Arni’s earlier plans—he was really the architect of all this and I was
a key collaborator because I was the president of the Coalition. Our group was the big support
structure behind him and you have to understand we were basically a bunch of rag-tag rebels,
sort of like when you read about the Revolutionary War. These guys were not sitting down in a
board room. They’re meeting in a tavern, they’re meeting—we were meeting in people’s
houses, in a church where I had my office, whatever it was.
HIDALGO: And how many of you are—
HARVEY: Probably about fifteen on the board and on the working steering committee, and we
had a membership of maybe a hundred at any one point, from which we drew a lot—it was all
volunteer help; we drew a lot of volunteers. So when the deseg decision1 came down they put
out calls for proposals to do things. So we put ours in and we received funding and we were one
of about a dozen—I’ve got some [things] here that actually I’ll give to you if you’d like to have
this as back up. (hands over paperwork) [attachment A]
HIDALGO: Yup, that’ll be great, thank you.
HARVEY: One of the—what we felt, and I think other people realized once we got into it, one
of the nice things—it’s more than nice, it’s one of the solemn things about jazz is that jazz is
obviously an African-American music, but it’s a music within which many people have come
together: White, Portuguese, Spanish, whatever it is, Japanese these days. Go around the world.
It’s a world music and has been for a long time. So we thought this would be a perfect program,
not to mention the fact that Arni’s black, I’m white and were great friends. We play together.
We were associated with the Coalition so it was a perfect vehicle. We team taught a lot of the
1
This 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). This opinion is commonly referred to as the Garrity decision. 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 6 of 25
�OH-045 Transcript
early courses. And so this is sort of how it all came about and what the context is. Now would
you like me to go on a little bit more about this?
HIDALGO: Yes, please.
HARVEY: Okay.
HIDALGO: Take me to before the Garrity decision. What was the atmosphere like, what
problems if any did you guys encounter before the decision actually came down?
HARVEY: Vis-à-vis the schools?
HIDALGO: Yup.
HARVEY: We had not really established this, what we called JazzEd. We had not really
established that as a formal program. We really didn’t have a big problem, however during the
Summerthing experience, I had done some—had become the assistant coordinator—music
coordinator of that program, and it was very tough just to get to talk to the public school music
people. They just seem to have their own way of doing things, their own worldview. I’m not
sure it even was anything about jazz. Sometimes people have attitudes about jazz being maybe
not quite as good as classical music or something. I don’t think it was even that. It was just the
way the bureaucracy was set up at that point. So basically in the Summerthing experience we
would go a certain amount and then we’d just say, Hey, I’m not going to knock my head against
the wall; we’ll just do our own thing. That was in terms of the formal way we knew things; that
was what was happening.
I have to say that because of the Summerthing experience, because of the Mayor’s Office of
Cultural Affairs which sponsored that, we had a very good perception of how at least the arts
were welcomed in the city. And another part of Summerthing [was that] each of the fifteen
neighborhoods had their own neighborhood coordinator. So when we would go to perform there
Page 7 of 25
�OH-045 Transcript
you got to know the coordinator. There were always community people from wherever it was on
hand to help smooth things over or what ever it was, what you might encounter.
Maybe I was naïve but I had this notion that, Oh, well, this is a nice city. There are some
problems and I have to say the places we encountered the most problems were where they
encountered problems with the whole deseg and busing: South Boston, Charlestown, and East
Boston. The band that I had at that point was an eight-piece band. We had one black guy, one
Filipino guy, the rest of us were hippies. We were made to feel very unwelcome in those three
communities. And in fact, in South Boston the only place they could put us for our own safety
was in nursing homes.
HIDALGO: Wow.
HARVEY: Every place else we would play on a street corner. Any of the black neighborhoods,
Roxbury, Dorchester, it didn’t matter, we were welcomed warmly. People got into what we
were doing. Not a problem. When we went to these other places sometimes rocks and bottles
would come across the stage. And as I say, when you’re put into a nursing home you know that
you’re hitting a nerve someplace.
HIDALGO: Why do you think you guys weren’t welcomed?
HARVEY: Because we had a mixed band for one thing—mixed racially. Those of us who
were—had long hair, that was not something that those neighborhoods went for in a big way
typically. I’m not saying the whole neighborhood was against that but in a larger general sense.
And jazz is an often misunderstood music. And so it just wasn’t what a lot of these people
probably wanted, so it was probably both on [the] musical and on social and cultural factors.
HIDALGO: The resistance you found from the music department, let’s say at the schools, do
you think it was more of a political background or was it that the teachers just didn’t want to get
too involved?
Page 8 of 25
�OH-045 Transcript
HARVEY: We never got to the teachers. We were only dealing with the superintendent’s
office.
HIDALGO: Oh, okay.
HARVEY: That’s why I say I think it was totally a bureaucratic situation. And the reason I say
that is because a few years later a friend of mine happened to be teaching in the schools and he
was able to make some inroads and then gradually a couple of other instructors, AfricanAmerican instructors as it happens, got hired and they were able to make some inroads. Same
superintendent. So I have to feel that it was a gradual wearing him down or something. The
time that we did it—it just wasn’t the [right time]. I put that down to just the bureaucratic
situation.
HIDALGO: So before the Garrity decision where was the Jazz Coalition? What was it that you
guys were doing within that year, let’s say?
HARVEY: We were doing—as I mentioned, we had done an all-night jazz concert. We had
done two Boston Jazz Weeks that year and the year before. We were increasingly trying to
network with community places, just on our own impulses, just to bring jazz to a wider audience
and to provide employment for musicians and because we all had this understanding that the
more you do that, you’re not just creating audiences for jazz, you’re bringing people together
around it.
HIDALGO: Okay.
HARVEY: So we already had that sort of consciousness going before the Garrity decision.
HIDALGO: So now the Garrity decision happens. When did you first find out about it?
Page 9 of 25
�OH-045 Transcript
HARVEY: Well, I personally found out about it just in general flow of the news cycle and
watching things. I was very tuned into this and wanted to be—I was reading the papers daily and
keeping on top [of things]. So I heard of it in that particular forum.
And the other thing I want to interject here was that there was a very famous early case to try to
go for integration. This was the famous Roberts case back in 1849.2 It happens that Charles
Sumner, who was one of the litigants along with Robert Morris3—Charles Sumner later became
the United States senator for Massachusetts—is an ancestor of mine. And so—in fact, it’s my
middle name. So it wasn’t as if that was a big part of my activism but I knew that that was part
of my family history and so knowing that he had been a part of the first legal team to challenge
the whole racist structure, segregated structure just helped me give a little more impetus to what I
was doing. So I was very pleased when these calls for proposals came around, to think that our
organization these many years later could maybe do something and that I personally could
maybe do something to sort of follow in those footsteps.
HIDALGO: So you guys get invited to do the proposals. You send out the proposal. When do
you get notified that your coalition is going to be a coalition that they’re going to accept?
HARVEY: It was a very fast turn around. I have the documentation; let me just take a quick
look at this—because everything—right—they sent out our approval letter on March fifth of
1975, and we began our program in April. [appendix B]
HIDALGO: That’s fast.
HARVEY: So it’s one of those things that everything was hurried up. The same way Garrity
himself had to hurry up his first stage of his plan to make it work. Fortunately we had been
thinking about this and we had a plan and we knew what we were doing and basically we were
2
The “Roberts Case” refers to Sarah C. Roberts v. The City of Boston (59 Mass. 198 [5 Cush.]), an 1848 case in the
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in which Benjamin Roberts, an African American, brought suit against the
City of Boston on behalf of his five-year daughter Sarah, who was required to enroll in an all-black public
elementary school.
3
Robert Morris (1823-1882), an African American, was a prominent attorney in Boston who represented Sarah
Roberts
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improvisers. So we were going to be able to pull this off no matter what. But it was a very quick
turnaround, and I’ve reviewed some of our internal documents in preparation for this and it was
very interesting. One of the evaluators, I don’t know if it was a parent or teacher or somebody
evaluating, mentioned something about, “Well, it’s the end of the school year.” But what we had
found out was that normally you think the kids might not be receptive to something new, but in
fact they seem to be particularly receptive. Maybe just because it was at the end of the year and
they were tired of reading, writing, arithmetic and they really wanted to do something with
music. I don’t know. But we had a very good initial run of this.
HIDALGO: Okay, and what was it that you proposal consisted of?
HARVEY: Our proposal was what we called, “The Story and Sound of Jazz,” and we proposed
eight weeks, one meeting a week. And part of the notion of these magnet ideas was also to be
literally a magnet, to attract people, to draw them together at a neutral site. Not to go to a school
and then try to bring other students into a school that they may not have known, because there
were so many boundary and other issues. And the ideal thing here was—what they wanted to do
was to take—pair schools, typically one that was majority white and one that was majority black
and bring them together in a neutral site to try something through the arts that would enable the
different groups to start understanding each other. Just a very first step at breaking down some
of the problems and the barriers.
Our neutral site was the Church of the Covenant, which is in the Back Bay on the corner of
Berkeley and Newbury Street. I was working with them at the time. I was also working parttime at a suburban school which was almost entirely white out in Acton, Massachusetts, called
the McCarthy Towne School. So they made some provision where you could use some
suburban/urban pairings as well within the city of Boston per se, so we used the Acton school as
the majority white school and we went to the Martin Luther King Middle School in Roxbury as
the predominantly black school.
And what we did was—of course busing was the name of the game, so each group took their
own buses into this neutral site and then were able to have their encounters through a learning
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experience for eight weeks in a row, where they could, you know, begin, as I say, begin to get to
know each other. And the program consisted of things like making music in a very sort of low
key way, clapping together, that kind of thing, gradually progressing to actually making up little
compositions. Arni had a great idea of taking your name and putting a note to each letter of your
name. Even if it got into z you could figure out a note, and then the kids could right away with
their name make a composition. He could play it and we could do other things. We had other
musicians—
HIDALGO: Nice.
HARVEY: —where they did all this kind of thing. So it really got to them right away. And it
was designed to be hands-on, participatory, none of this, “I’m going to lecture you and you’re
going to figure it out.” No, it was—make it a nice interrelation. Then we would show—we
showed a movie on Louis Armstrong. We would show slides of and talk about people like
Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington. So here right away you have black and white kids, many of
whom have never heard of jazz, and they’re getting black role models being presented. They’re
getting a whole slice of their American history told from a different perspective. The whole
effect was to break down barriers on a lot of different levels as well as make this positive
experience based around music. Arni also had the really wonderful idea to say, “You don’t
necessarily have to play music to be in the music world.” So we took them to a recording studio
to show them that might be a career possibility.
HIDALGO: Okay.
HARVEY: You know, you plant the seeds for a fifth and sixth grader. But you never know.
[We] took them to a radio station, WBUR, which at the time was a big jazz station. We had a lot
of friends up there. We had a lot of contacts over there, so we just called in a lot of our cards.
And so the kids got to see what a radio thing was all about. And, you know, say two words over
the air. At the recording studio they got to test out a microphone or whatever it was.
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And then there were a couple times that we actually were able to take them to performances
because we had some outdoor performances being programmed in the springtime. And then the
final thing was that we were going to do another Boston Jazz Week in the spring in 1975, but for
various reasons that didn’t work out. So at that time I had an eighteen piece band, a jazz big
band. And Arni was [words redacted by narrator] in it and a whole host of other people. We had
an international host of characters. We had people from Brazil, many Latin American countries,
South American countries, we had a guy from Israel, we had a guy from Japan. We had—
HIDALGO: That’s quite the group.
HARVEY: Sort of the international group.
HIDALGO: Yup.
HARVEY: And so what we did was we got part of the funding and we said, Okay, this is what
we want to do for our final thing. We’re going to take our band and we’re going to put our band
on a bus, which is traditional with bands. But with everybody else taking a bus, why shouldn’t
we take a bus? We put a concert on at the King School; about three hundred kids came to that.
So this is now expanding. We had about sixty kids in the initial program, thirty from each school
roughly.
HIDALGO: Mm-hmm.
HARVEY: So now we take our band, and we get those kids plus more of their classmates, then
later in the afternoon we drove out to Acton, [and] played the same show for Acton. And so it
was a very nice way to sort of tie everything together and give them a performance. They could
see all of the people who had been their teachers now playing and really in a professional setup.
And it was great, I mean, it was well-received. One of the interesting things was the band, who
were basically all living in the Back Bay of Boston or Jamaica Plain or someplace, all, you
know—we were black, white, Brazilian, whatever it was—
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HIDALGO: Mm-hmm.
HARVEY: —we were a true United Nations mix. I could not believe the King School. I mean,
it was like a fortress back in those days. One of the things you can’t imagine is these were like—
you thought it was a prison. The doors were all on a buzzer lock, there were guards at every
single door and when you walked down the hallway. I mean guards guards, not school kid
guards. And it was a very heavy atmosphere. A decrepit building. I hope it’s been improved by
now. But it was un—paint peeling off, just the worst kind of situation.
When we went on to Acton, of course, it just happened to be that we got to use the high school
auditorium. Beautiful, almost brand new, and the people in the band were literally shellshocked. All off a sudden they realized, even if they hadn’t thought about this before, what was
going on in the wider society around them. It was unbelievable.
HIDALGO: And how were the students the first day that they got bused in? What was that first
day like?
HARVEY: I wish I could remember more clearly. I’m sure there was a lot of, you know, just
antsy stuff, moving around. I think there was a little—probably a quite a bit of wariness at the
beginning. I think, as I recall, they tended to stay in their own groups. Very typical human
behavior; you tend to stay with your little clan or tribe or whatever it is. Gradually we were able
to—by just coming up with exercises where one kid had to go with a kid from the other school to
do something. We began to break that down.
One of the things I found in our internal notes was when we would take these tours to the music
business places, the radios station or the studio—I hadn’t remembered this—that we had to do it
with each separate group just because of the logistics of getting their bus schedules together, so
that we had to take the King School kids in one group and then another day go with [the others]
just because of the nature of transportation and bureaucracy and whatever it was. So there were
these interesting sort of ironies along the way.
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HIDALGO: And at this point I’m sure that you’re aware of the media.
HARVEY: Right.
HIDALGO: Do you think that their depiction of the whole situation was accurate or do you
think that it was somewhat blown out of proportion?
HARVEY: You know it’s really hard to know. Our little end of the world, we never got
covered by anybody. I mean I don’t think any of these arts programs got [attention]; maybe
there was a mention in a news story or something. Maybe there was—I can’t remember. Maybe
there was even a news story about them, I don’t know. There should have been. But I think the
media have a tendency to overplay the dramatic and to overplay the confrontation stuff.
So what I remember seeing on the nightly news was all the clashes with the police. It became
ritualized; the police would go out with the tactical squad, the people—the poor kids, they were
the real victims in all this. They would have to get into buses in a gauntlet of yells and stones or
whatever it was, and the parents didn’t equip themselves very well, particularly in some
neighborhoods. And you had people riding the buses: clergymen, teachers, other people from
the community who were also at great risk doing that. We were not so much at risk personally,
particularly in that setting, although we did a subsequent program—we did subsequent programs
in the neighborhoods, and I’ll never forget we did one at Columbia Point, a school called the
Dever School. And so when we would get to—I don’t know if you know that part of the world
but Columbia Road comes in and there’s a traffic circle down there—
HIDALGO: Mm-hmm.
HARVEY: You go south and essentially you’re sort of in South Boston, but then you go out to
Columbia Point which at the time was at the time was basically an African American ghetto, not
to put too fine a point on it.
HIDALGO: Yup.
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HARVEY: It was a bad situation. So when we would go through the part that was in South
Boston, Arni and I would drive—he had a little sports car—he would just gun it. Once we got to
Columbia Point we were fine, because for whatever reason a black and white duo was usually
fine in a black area but in the Southie area it was very dicey. And so he would—we’d be going
like eighty miles per hour and hoping the cops weren’t on our tail, but we didn’t care because we
want to get there safely. But that was about the extent of where we had any real sense of that.
But to get back to your question about the media, I would say that the confrontational stuff was a
part of it. And so I think as far as they could portray it—it was a piece that needed to be
portrayed, that needed to be shown. Now, was it over-blown? It’s entirely possible that it might
have been. On the other hand the hostility was very high; it was very intense. It was a very
intense period to be in the city of Boston. If you were downtown you didn’t sense it quite so
much. But if you went to a school committee meeting, which we went to some to see our
proposals with the larger packaging proposals, it was unbelievable. I mean real outright racist
statements being made, attitudes being so thick you could cut them with a knife. It was very
scary.
HIDALGO: And what was that like for you? Because you seem to have this passion for jazz
and your core seems to be that this is what will bring these children together. What was that like
going into a situation like that where you’re hearing and you’re feeling this tension?
HARVEY: It was pretty discouraging because you realize that many of these people probably
wouldn’t have known a jazz tune if they heard it. Probably if you had told them about Charlie
Parker or Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong, they probably would not have known who that
was, or they would have put that person in a certain safe place within the entertainment world
and not understood the ramifications of then teaching your kids about such a person as a role
model for what they could have shown. So it was discouraging; it was pathetic in a lot of ways.
HIDALGO: How did you stay so positive? How did you go back—
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HARVEY: I guess part of me is just that optimist, I think largely because we didn’t have to
brush up against that all that much. That we could really sort of focus on doing the work.
Again, I’m sure there are things that I’m just not remembering, but I’m sure there were probably
some things with parental feelings or maybe teachers’ feelings that maybe weren’t quite as
positive as we would have liked. Although most of the time, I have to say, there was a lot of
good will on the part of the—the kids were usually self-selected for these programs, which meant
of course the parents were involved, so the parents usually had a more progressive outlet. They
wouldn’t have sent their kid into this without thinking this was a good idea. The teachers by and
large tended to be very much with the program.
HIDALGO: That was going to be my next question. These were all children that were
voluntarily sent by their parents to—
HARVEY: Yeah, the school—each school would figure out a different way. They called it a
self-selection process or something like that, where the kids could—you were told about a
[program]—evidently it was something like this: you were told about a program that you could
say, “Yes, I’d like to go to that,” and of course they’d have to get parental sign off. The parents
would want to know more about it. And very often what would happen is that—I was involved
with Arni in the initial two or three programs then he took over and he had other musicians. But
as I understand it, what they would do is they would go out to the school and talk with people
and there would be like a community meeting type thing. And he’s a great guy. And they would
say, Okay, this looks like a person that I would trust my kids with. Plus, as I say, there’s all
these chaperones, there’s always teachers, there’s always school personnel on hand, and parents.
So it was never the case where you’re just turning your kids over to a jazz musician. God
forbid—that doesn’t sound like a very good thing. (laughter) They might actually play some
notes at you or something. But the overall reception we had through many many—there’s a
list—there’s just a partial list on the front of that—very positive, very positive. [attachments B,
C and D]
HIDALGO: And how involved were the parents? Were they constantly going to the school,
were they—how involved where they?
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HARVEY: I don’t know if they were constantly at the school. In fact I’m thinking of a couple
programs, once we—it’s like the initial phase is one thing and I know we had parents on hand for
that. I think after we got into it a year or two it wasn’t so much—people didn’t feel the need for
it. The schools began to adjust to some extent to what was happening. They were very
welcoming of us coming in because by and large, at least in that period, there were not a lot of
formal music and arts classes in the Boston Public Schools. There were some, but [there were]
the usual budget constraints and all of that kind of thing. Things have gotten better over the
years, although you always tend to hear it going up and down. So I think they were appreciative
that we were coming in to bring this particular approach.
HIDALGO: Do you wish that the media would have covered you guys more?
HARVEY: Well—
HIDALGO: Because it sounds like it was such a good program and it sounds like that the
parents were so into it and the children seem to receive it so well that it almost seems too bad
that the media didn’t pick up on that instead and try to focus on that.
HARVEY: Yeah, that probably would’ve been something—I do think—now you’re jogging my
memory, thank you. I think that as we went along maybe the next two or three years there was a
bit more coverage. And I should also give credit to a group called the Metropolitan Cultural
Alliance, which later became known as the Massachusetts Cultural Alliance, which was an
umbrella group for a lot of the arts organizations. A lot of the arts organizations in these magnet
programs were members of the Metropolitan Cultural Alliance and I believe, now that I’m
remembering this, that the Cultural Alliance later on would stage some events where people
could come together and see the various programs.
I know we had almost like a trade show type of thing. I know we had a couple of exhibitions
there, [and] people came. And I’m sure those were covered. I just—I tended not to be as aware
of all of that at the time because we had so many projects going, and we were sort of more
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concerned just to get the next thing underway and do the next funding proposal, plus the
evaluation for that one. I’m sure there was some press coverage, but I think it happened a little
bit later.
HIDALGO: Where were the concerts held? Were they right in the middle of downtown Boston
or at like the Boston Common? Where was it that they were?
HARVEY: We used in this period primarily the Church of the Covenant and Emmanuel
Church, which was where my office was, which was where the Jazz Coalition office was. That’s
right next to the Ritz, but we were as far away from the Ritz in terms of tone, attitude and
monetary success [as possible].
HIDALGO: (laughs) I was going to say, that’s a nice location.
HARVEY: It was a nice location, but it was because the church had a very progressive outlook.
The senior minister, Al Kershaw, was a great guy. He’d been involved in civil rights things and
was a great jazz enthusiast himself. So he was very supportive, and the church was a wonderful
place to be able to support us and give us a home. So a lot of the concerts were there.
We also would do them on the Boston Common, more so at City Hall Plaza or Copley Square
Plaza. We used to do outdoor concerts, and we would take, again, concerts into the
neighborhoods. We would find neighborhood houses; we would go to sometimes the jails,
prisons, mental health centers, community centers. Places where—what we were trying to do
with that was to bring the music to the people without a lot of formality. And usually we did
this—try to get them funded by some other source, then no one had to pay. So you could come
and enjoy the music and have it be part of your community.
HIDALGO: Where does your passion for jazz come from?
HARVEY: That’s a good question. My upbringing was—I had—a lot of the family members
were classically trained musicians. And a number of them were in the ministry. I’m a United
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Methodist. And I don’t think they ever expected someone would turn out to be a United
Methodist minister and was doing jazz. That just didn’t quite fit the bill.
HIDALGO: You took the best of both worlds.
HARVEY: [Words redacted by narrator.] I took the best of both worlds. I think probably
because when I was a kid, maybe thirteen, fourteen years old, there happened to be a local
cultural center in Binghamton, and a guy came down every Sunday from Ithaca, New York,
Ithaca College, to teach a little jazz band, and I got involved in that. I don’t know how I even got
involved. The first record I ever had was Dizzy Gillespie. How a kid growing up in upstate
New York finds out about Dizzy Gillespie I can’t even remember. (laughter) I was thirteen.
That’s my first record; I still have it. I was just gone from there. And so I would go along, and I
would play classical music too, but jazz was just—it just grabbed me. For what ever reason it
just grabbed me, and it’s still holding me up.
HIDALGO: What was that like at thirteen to have your record?
HARVEY: It was great. It was great. Of course, you know, if you’re a kid in the early teenage
[years], it’s something different. So right away you can think, Oh, I’m different, I’m cool. Of
course I didn’t realize how weird I was because, you know, liking jazz, when everyone was
liking rock and roll, I sort of had to come over to rock and roll because I was already into jazz.
HIDALGO: So where is the Jazz Coalition now?
HARVEY: As far as I know—I haven’t really stayed in touch with some of the people that
continued, that took it over. As far as I know it—it’s basically defunct. It was, as I say, a nonprofit corporation, so when I essentially retired in 1983 because I was burned out and I needed to
do some other things, some people took it over and kept it together and, as I say, as far as I know
it is just not going—which is too bad, but on the other hand it’s one of those things I think had a
very useful purpose during its heyday. And it was very much part and parcel part of that era.
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I’m not sure—you could probably do something similarly fashioned today but it would have to
be different. In fact a number of us in the jazz community are always talking about, Well, what
could you do? I went to a big forum about a month ago and people were talking about this, and
it’s so interesting because a part of me wants to say, “I’ve been there and I‘ve done that,” but
[another] part of me wants to say, “This is great, let me know if you need some [advice], or I’ll
just sit back and give you the benefit of my [word redacted by narrator] wisdom.” Now I’m not
going to get out there and run an all-night concert. But there are always needs—all the arts in
our society, particularly jazz I think, it’s very hard to get institutional support on an institutional
basis.
The one difference is Lincoln Center. Everybody knows about Wynton Marsalis and Lincoln
Center. God bless ‘em—that’s the one place that’s a great place. But everybody else, every
other place, you’re constantly having to do your own thing, make your own support structure, as
well as then put on the program, and that was exactly what we were doing in the Jazz Coalition
days. It was just that we were all young and foolish and had a lot of energy; we didn’t need to
sleep much evidently and we didn’t have a lot of common sense. (laughter) We just kept doing
them. We seemed to make it work.
HIDALGO: And what did all of that teach you?
HARVEY: Well, it taught me that you can make a real difference both with individual passion
and with a collective activity. That you don’t need a lot of money if you really set your mind to
it. It also taught me that you really do need to collaborate widely. So if we had just stayed with
a bunch of other jazz musicians, we would’ve gotten nowhere. But we reached out to people in
the churches, in the schools and the community centers. All kinds of places. We had different
personal associations here and there, [with] different structures of government or private sectors.
So then you pull on all those threads and you knit together a kind of a tapestry that can help to
make a real difference.
HIDALGO: So you would definitely do it all over again?
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HARVEY: Oh yeah, not a question.
HIDALGO: Would you change anything or—
HARVEY: No, I wish—you wish you would have been maybe a little smarter about some
things. One of the big problems with our group and one of the big problems with the JazzEd
thing was the financial structure, because we were not a major institution. And the way that the
state did business in those days—I don’t know what it is now—was that if you were a non-profit
corporation you had to—you could only get your money [on a] reimbursement basis. You had to
spend the money, and then they would reimburse you for what you had spent. It’s a nice way to
[have a] safeguard and make sure there’s no malfeasance. But it’s a heck of a way if you’re
operating on a shoestring, and these proposals were maybe five thousand, seven thousand
dollars, maybe even a little more.
We generated—I think I counted up one time the proposals that I wrote and/or that we got
funded, and it was like—about 100,000 dollars worth of usually government money, federal or
state or some private. That’s a lot. But we didn’t have the structure to back it up so that when
Arni would be doing a proposal he would be laying money out of his pocket and then waiting six
to eight months for the reimbursement cycle to come around and give it back to him. And of
course what would happen is then you get the same way with your personal finances, you get
strung out, you can’t do it. The time he should of been giving to developing other programs he
had to worry about where his next meal [was] coming from and that kind of thing. What’s
remarkable is that we did as much as we did. That’s what’s really remarkable. Because by the
law of sane business practices we shouldn’t have been able to have done any of this.
HIDALGO: Why do you think you guys managed to do so much with so little money?
HARVEY: Sheer willpower. We figured out ways to get around it. We figured out ways to get
loans to cover this kind of thing until the reimbursement came in. You just figure it out; you get
into this kind of thing and you do it. But you have to be committed to it. If you’re just doing it
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as a hobby, or, “I’m just going to put my little two hours a week into social consciousness,”
that’s not going to happen.
HIDALGO: And you did this full time—this is all you did?
HARVEY: Pretty much. I was ostensibly in graduate school but I wasn’t showing up a lot.
(laughs) I shouldn’t say that in an educational situation, although I did get my degree. But I was
ostensibly doing that, and then, yeah, this was pretty much a full time commitment. [And it was
part of my ministerial work, as well.]
HIDALGO: How did you make a living on the side?
HARVEY: That’s a good question too. I don’t really remember. I had some scholarship
money, so that helped. And I would play performances and I would do some guest stints in
churches, either giving a sermon or bringing a group in or that kind of thing. Just by hook or by
crook, really, you—again, you look back at it and you say, “My God, how did this happen?”
Plus that was a time period—this must sound completely weird, but I don’t think you could do
that in this current situation. The way Boston or any big city is, the economic climate, the cost of
living increases. I’m just not sure you could do it. I’m not sure you could put a group together
like our group, the Jazz Coalition, and make it happen in the current scene. They’re just—
everything has changed so much, and back in those days—not to say there isn’t good will, but
we did an awful lot with good will, and in-kind contributions, and I’m sure that exists still to this
day but I think the whole tenor has changed to some extent.
HIDALGO: Do you think it has to do more now with the economics, or the politics, or just the
social climate?
HARVEY: I’m not as entwined with the politics of city government or state government as I
was in the old days, so I really don’t know. Certainly I think Mayor [Thomas M.] Menino is a
very good force for the City of Boston, generally. I know he’s got an office of arts, and I think
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it’s now tourism and development or something. I’m sure they’re doing good things. I would
say it has to do more with the general economic and social climate.
HIDALGO: Looking back on everything that’s happened thirty years since the Garrity
decision, what do you see now in retrospect that you didn’t see then?
HARVEY: Boy, that’s a good question. I guess—I guess how hard it is to really affect social
change. I would say that would be the bottom line. I mean, a lot of us in that time period who
were on the side of moving for desegregation were progressive in our politics, in our cultural
outlook; we were idealist to a certain extent. You had to be to think that anything could happen.
A lot of that got shaken in the violent stuff, in the confrontational stuff that came along.
But I think looking back you realize, Was it a Pyrrhic victory? Because now we’re back to
essentially almost the same situation, except you had a lot of white flight in between. So the real
ideal of really balancing racial things is sort of gone. And you just hope that the schools are at
least upgrading the quality. Because that was one of the main things anyway, from even way
back to the Roberts case, was the inferior conditions. So now it’s almost like everybody gets to
have inferior conditions, but we hope that that’s not true. We hope that things will keep
progressing and building.
HIDALGO: Do you feel that it was worth the fight?
HARVEY: I do. I do. Because I don’t see how you could not have done that. And it was part
of —I think the thing that people sometimes lose sight of is, it gets all broken down to the code
word busing and then it’s the whole thing about, Well, you were destroying communities, you
were destroying community schools. Well, you had to look at the larger picture. This was
segregation. Segregation is a social evil. Some people would call it a sin. You go back to the
things that happened, the Roberts decision I mention again, but also things throughout the
nineteenth century, the legal decisions, what happened in the twentieth century, the whole history
of that. You have to keep working for integration, you have to keep working for a positive social
climate, I feel.
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�OH-045 Transcript
And see, if you get into jazz—the more you get into jazz, the more I’ve gotten into jazz—I teach
it now in a variety of ways. It’s a part of the whole history of the music. You’ll find that Louis
Armstrong made political statements, not so much well-known in the press but behind the scene.
Charles Mingus was very strong supporter of civil rights, wrote pieces about this. You begin to
find the more you get into this that the world of jazz—because it’s all about black music and then
black music as it welcomes other people into it. That’s what we’re talking about.
HIDALGO: So their stories are basically told through their music.
HARVEY: Through their music, but also what they did, the stances they took. Sometimes the
public statements they made.
HIDALGO: And that’s what you teach now at MIT?
HARVEY: It weaves itself into what I talk about, sure.
HIDALGO: Excellent. That pretty much brings me to the end of our interview. Do you have
anything else that you’d like to add or that you’d like to go over that we didn’t cover?
HARVEY: No, I don’t think so. I think we covered a lot. Thank you.
HIDALGO: Well, Dr. Harvey, thank you. It’s been a pleasure.
END OF INTERVIEW
Page 25 of 25
�OH-045 Attachments
Attachment A
Attachment B
Attachment C
Attachment D
March 5, 1975, list of approved magnet project proposals with cover letter
from William J. Leary, superintendent of the Boston Public Schools, to
Gregory R. Anrig, commissioner of the Massachusetts State Department
of Education
Photocopy of a JazzEd informational brochure
May 1975, JazzEd lesson plans
Excerpt from a funding proposal for JazzEd by the Jazz Coalition
�
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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>
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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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Hidalgo, AnaMaria
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Harvey, Mark
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Suffolk University Law School, Boston, Mass.
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44:13
Time Summary
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Mr. Harvey’s background p. 3 (00:06)
Background information on Jazz Coalition p. 4 (03:30)
Before Garrity decision p. 7 (07:28)
Jazz Coalition proposals and programs p. 10 (13:51)
Media presence and community violence/tension p. 14 (22:41)
Parents’ involvement p. 16 (27:13)
More on Mr. Harvey’s experiences with the Jazz Coalition p. 17 (29:36)
Reflections on desegregation p. 23 (40:43)
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Transcript of Oral History Interview of Mark Harvey
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Boston (Mass.)
Boston Public Schools
Busing for school integration
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In this interview, Dr. Mark Harvey, who founded the Jazz Coalition Magnet Arts Desegregation in Boston in 1970, reflects on his work with Boston's youth 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. He discusses the formation of the Jazz Coalition and its impact; the social and racial climate of the 1970s in Boston; and the importance of integration.
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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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March 3, 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-045
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/15912/archive/files/bdb8abd49ac40af31ebecab5404a989e.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=XX-dbX6%7EHdh9a-RDv1WSHyXFjaD8gfkR0nsEiyCN3irkrBjRPNqGGiTwHBO3qh4PfptjHJ4nmsHFMFeLP4Yn2RoYdFUYOGZrb3uxaedOncE1JHZKov0MgwDUvKRekHZu7lWywdQCorA1Jmh5wHPogi5IfyEmiH7cWdS19T7bn61jFu%7ECnPhXRimj0-csHvF1Pe8frnYQn98-2EiNGyhCMDHO-ib0JKh2R294zpgB23Pk%7EpKkRb2VZULIJD35k5DfCqigS20rwTX7FfZbsiEy2twUuAmOSex-OAoAcccY8RcA4J-BTvpyP-HWQ%7EH6XxLzKjQR6N6LrfvkFFnanLNwMw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
6d903385fad57ec7960425b681e39e67
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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Title
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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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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>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
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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.
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Interviewer
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Muller, Laura
Interviewee
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Alexander, Kirsten
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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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39:51
Time Summary
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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
Subject
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Boston (Mass.)
Boston Public Schools
Boston Latin School (Mass.)
Busing for school integration
Magnet schools
Description
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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.
Creator
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Source
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Moakley Oral History Project
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John Joseph Moakley Archive & Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass.
Date
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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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Moakley Oral History Project: http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/collections/show/1
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OH-040
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/15912/archive/files/675d9f66d55246e07de38c0ca72aa815.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=FcytBMj1HCCQUlxOROUeK1S6EMeokNs15fvlWEk-6gUWpHyeLtHJ1p5T5j5FxAZF9sJnBDYlIXt1l3l2WpcpMd3i-DW3gh1%7EFGHwO9LfcjOnP5k7XmJTtac3XFO-mzhPNUk8ZJJ5VHFeOZMzoEexpoJagrwc1WDg%7EBcdticj6hTjHaAl8IWOEtgNQBS6QliRzcty20BQcsoZv15XmSwMLpJbVvZX2ergaldtz05AXlf%7EPd3o-IgZC-PDps7%7ENUaiNKc6xLQPi9Z5tpBhNBWcKp61OmASLbbxajoA3nHODMpM5v0ofmZshEH-opzuejlWEcm9rMy9KcWQel5cEsIwrA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
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PDF Text
Text
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
Page 3 of 23
�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.
Page 4 of 23
�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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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
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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
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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.
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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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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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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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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.
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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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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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(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?
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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)
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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
�
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
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
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
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1926-2001
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
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
Caruso, Paul
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Lynch, John
Location
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Suffolk University Law School, 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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59:45
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)
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 John Lynch
Subject
The topic of the resource
Boston (Mass.)
Busing for school integration
Moakley, John Joseph, 1927-2001
Political campaigns
Description
An account of the resource
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.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
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
May 24, 2003
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
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
A related resource
Moakley Oral History Project: http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/collections/show/1
Format
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PDF (Computer file format)
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral history interview transcript
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
OH-011