Lest We Forget

Lest We Forget // 21 September 2023

Notwithstanding the plethora of information available electronically, many among us have little if any sense of history. Many younger people do not understand what happened in decades gone by. The recent publicity surrounding the 60th anniversary of the bombing of a black church in Birmingham Alabama which resulted in the death of 4 young children was an important message regarding a very unfortunate and scary chapter in American history.

In the same sense, there are many who do not understand the coffin ships which brought the poorest of the poor from Ireland to Boston and other cities.? Others do not understand the amnesia regarding the Civil War.? Some would reinvent the life and death battle for the soul of our country as a localized skirmish.

More recently, the nation saw virulent bigoted messaging by those in positions of leadership both in public life and in the academic community against immigrants from southern and eastern Europe.? What resulted were blatant discriminatory laws which froze the makeup of our national population so that it would remain more like it was than what it probably would have been.

In the coming months we will see significant publicity surrounding the desegregation order issued by Judge W. Arthur Garrity in June of 1974 and the resulting turmoil in neighborhoods across the City of Boston. Some might suggest that all the students who were sent from one neighborhood to another emerged unscathed, happy and joyful and everyone lived happily ever after.

Having been in the trenches in the 1970s while on the City Council, I know that there is significant scar tissue among people who grew up in Boston in the 1970s and 1980s as a result of the desegregation order which, sadly, has not necessarily resulted in children learning more proficiently.? Rather, transportation now costs as much of the entire school budget did for twice as many students 50 years ago.

Revisionist history might suggest that many chapters in our history never happened.? Some might suggest that those enslaved pursuant to law were actually, as Florida now suggests in their schools, trained with skills they could use going forward.?

I wasn’t there for many of these chapters, many of them sad chapters, in our history, but I know on information and belief that the hatred evidenced towards Black people by white people, mostly in the South when I was a young person, was for real. That messaging was led by Ross Barnett, George Wallace and their ilk.

On a lighter note, many young people in Boston assume there will be victory parades each year.? Sadly, there were few championships until recently.

That is why it is so important that those of us in the latter part of our lives provide oral histories and why young people should study history and civics so that they will know what happened to generations gone by.