Feature photo: School buses lined up in a Boston parking lot. (Mary Deng/NEHSJC)
In the lobby of the Community Academy of Science and Health, student artwork celebrating Black history decorates the walls.
It was formerly the grounds of the Grover Cleveland Middle School, one of the first four schools that became integrated in 1967.
It has been 50 years since Judge W. Arthur Garrity ruled in a landmark case in favor of integrating schools by busing children into historically Black or white neighborhoods.
“There's a lot of ways the school desegregation decision is still in effect,” said Lew Finfer, the director of Massachusetts Action for Justice.
In one of the academy’s empty classrooms, Finfer recalled a 1975 incident at Carson Beach, the site of a violent racial clash that spurred mass protests.
The school now has a 98 percent minority enrollment. During the ‘70s busing crisis, the building served as an asylum for white and Black members of the Dorchester Community Action Council. However, Boston’s violent busing legacy still resonates.
The empty hallways of the Community Academy of Science and Health. (Mary Deng/NEHSJC)
“If someone moves to Boston and is Black, sometimes their friends from the other city go, ‘Why are you moving there? Don't you know its reputation?’” Finfer said.
In recent years, Boston Public Schools’ enrollment decreased from 86,792 in 1960 to 47,171 in 2024, according to Boston Indicators, and widening achievement gaps have plagued the school system.
Despite Boston Public Schools’ large minority demographic, ESL learners have received inadequate support, and declining enrollment has urged consolidation plans. This has driven “white flight,” leading parents scrambling toward the METCO program and Boston’s three exam schools.
According to experts, efforts should be directed to addressing family instability, which is a main contributor to poor educational outcomes — not funding or busing.
The Boston Busing and Desegregation Initiative hopes to urge future policy changes. In June, it held a forum with attorneys from the Tallulah Morgan vs. James Hennigan court case and will host a walking tour examining busing’s legacy through several of Boston’s major landmarks.
“We stand on the shoulders of people who took risks and got things done before us,” Finfer said. “And we're obligated to create changes that will help people now in the future.”