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At the Other End of the Bus Ride: How Majority-White Suburbanites Understood Voluntary Busing in Massachusetts
Harakat, Sarah
Harakat, Sarah
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Conference paper
Date
2025-03-15
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DOI
https://doi.org/10.34944/5z4k-da86
Abstract
By defining racial imbalance in terms of « non-white population », the first legislation in the United States to address the issue sealed its fate as a minority problem, letting suburban majority-white schools off the hook. According to the 1965 Massachusetts Racial Imbalance Act, whites attending all-white schools constituted cases of « racial isolation », which were non-ideal situations for preparing students for a multicultural world, but not as harmful as cases of Black and Brown segregation. However, the creation of the Council for Metropolitan Educational Opportunity (METCO), today’s main by-product of the law, still tried in 1966 to kill two birds with one stone through the use of voluntary busing. By organizing the daily transportation of Black students from Boston to vacant seats in the surrounding majority-white suburban schools, the avowed goals of the program have always been twofold: to provide a quality education for the urban students and to spur a more diverse learning experience for suburban children. While the success of the program has often been judged by the numerous positive evaluations of the former, the latter has yet to be properly evaluated. This paper constitutes a first step in this direction by analyzing perceptions of voluntary busing drawn from 20 semi-directed oral interviews conducted with former suburban students in a school system that participated in the METCO program. From the unanimous voiced belief in the mutual benefits of racial integration to the subtler but still very common understanding of voluntary busing as a charity case, the interviews highlight both the racial ambivalences of suburban liberalism and the fundamental importance of interracial friendships.
Description
A paper presented at the 30th James A. Barnes Graduate History Conference, which took place March 14-15, 2025 in Philadelphia, PA.
Citation
Harakat, Sarah. "At the Other End of the Bus Ride: How Majority-White Suburbanites Understood Voluntary Busing in Massachusetts." Paper presented at 30th James A. Barnes Graduate History Conference, Philadelphia, PA, March 2025.
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