Steven P. BarrettTHE END FOR THE SOUTH? TIME TO TELL NEWSWEEK, HELL NO! (Pt. 2) (LINK)
August 5th 2008 03:33
By Steven Barrett
It happened one day in a crowded sidestreet just outside of City Hall. A young Black attorney was on his way to work and it was his bad luck to come into contact with a loud anti-busing rally that was starting to become overly whipped up thanks to the demagogues who were experts in the art of race-baiting.
The busing battle had been going on for several years. Many of the (poorere) whites in the city were incensed at the Federal District Court Judge who, while living out in the suburbs, didn't have to deal with the "other" problems -- the social collateral damage resulting from his decision and what they considered more "oppressive" dictates handed down to make sure his original decision and orders were carried out.
This lawyer didn't have a chance. He was stuck between an unruly and angry crowd and two nearby high-rise office buildings. One white punk carrying Old Glory on a flagpole topped with a brass decoration found the attorney and made a run for him, and in a matter of seconds, smashed the lawyer's face and nose. Of course the punk wasn't using his head in the first place to be attacking this Black businessman (whom he was dumb enough to assume he was just "another nigger in a business suit" doing better than he was back in the white projects.) That's how low things had sunk after two years of forced busing in this city.
Fortunately, for the Civil Rights Movement, there were photographers nearby. Unfortunately, fo the punk, his picture would forever link his life in with all the Bull Connors and other lesser lights on the opposite side.
Those were rough times if you lived in or near that city, especially if you were Black and found yourself riding public transportation with signs saying "Jigaboo Go Back To Africa" and "Niggers Get Out," or worse, "Niggers and Nigger lovers die."
Lest anybody fret for the South's losing part of her old distinctiveness that she'd worked damn hard to shed after the Civil Rights Struggle was won, I'm sure folks living in Dixie, especially the whites, were glad to point to another city that was putting up an ugly and unnecessary fight to support segregation: especially this city -- Boston, MA in the Mid-Seventies.
I saw Landsmark in the Federal Court I worked in a few days later. And what I saw angered me to no end. Because I also remembered all the snide comments made about the South and "rednecks," etc. A few hours after seeing Landsmark, I caught a few moments in a hearing held by Judge Joseph Tauro to straighten out what started out to be a simple anti-busing rally protesting the decision by his fellow Judge, W. Arthur Garrity: instead it devolved into a heated hearing wherein a pouting bunch of apologizers for this punk who attacked Landsmark with Old Glory couldn't come with enough excuses to evade any responsibility of their own for whipping up the crowd in the first place.
A few years later, while at a beach party with several fellow Black friends and fellow Florida probabion/parole officers, one of them asked me about Boston. I had a simple reply:
"Stay the hell away from that place."
It happened one day in a crowded sidestreet just outside of City Hall. A young Black attorney was on his way to work and it was his bad luck to come into contact with a loud anti-busing rally that was starting to become overly whipped up thanks to the demagogues who were experts in the art of race-baiting.
The busing battle had been going on for several years. Many of the (poorere) whites in the city were incensed at the Federal District Court Judge who, while living out in the suburbs, didn't have to deal with the "other" problems -- the social collateral damage resulting from his decision and what they considered more "oppressive" dictates handed down to make sure his original decision and orders were carried out.
This lawyer didn't have a chance. He was stuck between an unruly and angry crowd and two nearby high-rise office buildings. One white punk carrying Old Glory on a flagpole topped with a brass decoration found the attorney and made a run for him, and in a matter of seconds, smashed the lawyer's face and nose. Of course the punk wasn't using his head in the first place to be attacking this Black businessman (whom he was dumb enough to assume he was just "another nigger in a business suit" doing better than he was back in the white projects.) That's how low things had sunk after two years of forced busing in this city.
Fortunately, for the Civil Rights Movement, there were photographers nearby. Unfortunately, fo the punk, his picture would forever link his life in with all the Bull Connors and other lesser lights on the opposite side.
Those were rough times if you lived in or near that city, especially if you were Black and found yourself riding public transportation with signs saying "Jigaboo Go Back To Africa" and "Niggers Get Out," or worse, "Niggers and Nigger lovers die."
Lest anybody fret for the South's losing part of her old distinctiveness that she'd worked damn hard to shed after the Civil Rights Struggle was won, I'm sure folks living in Dixie, especially the whites, were glad to point to another city that was putting up an ugly and unnecessary fight to support segregation: especially this city -- Boston, MA in the Mid-Seventies.
Attack in Boston
I saw Landsmark in the Federal Court I worked in a few days later. And what I saw angered me to no end. Because I also remembered all the snide comments made about the South and "rednecks," etc. A few hours after seeing Landsmark, I caught a few moments in a hearing held by Judge Joseph Tauro to straighten out what started out to be a simple anti-busing rally protesting the decision by his fellow Judge, W. Arthur Garrity: instead it devolved into a heated hearing wherein a pouting bunch of apologizers for this punk who attacked Landsmark with Old Glory couldn't come with enough excuses to evade any responsibility of their own for whipping up the crowd in the first place.
A few years later, while at a beach party with several fellow Black friends and fellow Florida probabion/parole officers, one of them asked me about Boston. I had a simple reply:
"Stay the hell away from that place."
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Comment by Anonymous
The race card is cleverly manipulated, played and worked over by so many pros that we many not realize it till the damage so far done and .. well we know where this leads to: TROUBLE and VIOLENCE. then more of the same.
Thanks for your comments S.L.