Read Online Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas - Free Book Online
Authors: J. Anthony Lukas
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his chief aide, Barney Frank,was scribbling a statement: “The assassination of Martin Luther King is a tragedy which diminishes us all. This brutal and senseless act has deprived America of one of our foremost leaders at a critical time. I hope the people will recognize anew the necessity of working together for the principle for which Dr. King lived and died: the equality of all men.”
From his outer office, the Mayor and Frank could hear the staccato bursts of a police radio tracking splatters of violence across Roxbury and the South End. Every few seconds a phone rang in the mayoral suite, bringing fresh alarms and cautions.
Just after 9:00 p.m., Police Superintendent Bill Bradley called to say that a bus carrying a dozen whites was trapped by blacks on Blue Hill Avenue. The crowd had done nothing violent yet. They were standing back, chanting and jeering at the terrified faces behind the glass, but at any moment they might rush the vehicle. “What should we do?” Bradley wanted to know. “Should we send our men in?”
The Mayor’s first instinct was to summon the police. But Barney, mindful of similar incidents during a riot the year before, warned that an armed response might only set off worse violence. At his urging, the Mayor agreed to let black ministers and community workers try persuasion first. Within an hour, Dan Richardson, Chuck Turner, and the Reverend Virgil Wood had quieted the crowd and rescued the white passengers.
That set the pattern for the rest of the night. Wherever possible, the Mayor held the police back, letting black leaders calm their own people. Meanwhile, two black plainclothesmen cruised the community in an unmarked car, relaying intelligence to police headquarters. When they reported that the worst incidents were caused by white curiosity seekers blundering into black crowds, the police sealed off Roxbury and the South End, diverting white pedestrians and motorists. By 2:00 a.m., the racket from the police radio began to ebb. The Mayor and Barney slumped on the office couch, trying to make sense of what was happening out there.
Kevin White had been Mayor of Boston for barely ninety-five days. With scarcely time to fill out his cabinet and learn his secretaries’ first names, he didn’t know whether his untried machinery could handle a crisis of this dimension. The only previous test had been an arctic cold snap in mid-January when below-zero temperatures burst water pipes, ruptured gas mains, and left hundreds of families throughout the city shivering and hungry. White had stayed in his office all one night, and for the next ninety hours city officials manned a round-the-clock operation at City Hall, which took 1,500 emergency calls and found temporary housing for seventy-four families. Partly as a result of that crisis, the Mayor decreed that City Hall would henceforth remain open twenty-four hours a day, with two staffers on duty at all times to handle emergencies—reflecting the Mayor’s broader effort to open up “new lines of communication” with an electorate widely believed to be alienated from government.
White’s creative response to the winter crisis had piqued Colin Diver’s interest in him. Here was an energetic young mayor who was eager to confront challenges, not run away from them. White seemed to be cut in the John Lindsay mold: bold, imaginative, innovative, and decisive, he talked about refocusing national attention on the cities, bringing new resources to bear on pressing human needs. He had good ideas and the ability to attract first-rate people. After the cold snap, Colin watched the Mayor with new curiosity, eager to see what he would do next.
In fact, nothing in Kevin White’s experience had remotely prepared him for the racial explosion he faced in April. True, he had won election the previous November over Louise Day Hicks in a contest heavily shadowed by racial confrontation. A member of Boston’s School Committee, Mrs. Hicks was regarded as
From his outer office, the Mayor and Frank could hear the staccato bursts of a police radio tracking splatters of violence across Roxbury and the South End. Every few seconds a phone rang in the mayoral suite, bringing fresh alarms and cautions.
Just after 9:00 p.m., Police Superintendent Bill Bradley called to say that a bus carrying a dozen whites was trapped by blacks on Blue Hill Avenue. The crowd had done nothing violent yet. They were standing back, chanting and jeering at the terrified faces behind the glass, but at any moment they might rush the vehicle. “What should we do?” Bradley wanted to know. “Should we send our men in?”
The Mayor’s first instinct was to summon the police. But Barney, mindful of similar incidents during a riot the year before, warned that an armed response might only set off worse violence. At his urging, the Mayor agreed to let black ministers and community workers try persuasion first. Within an hour, Dan Richardson, Chuck Turner, and the Reverend Virgil Wood had quieted the crowd and rescued the white passengers.
That set the pattern for the rest of the night. Wherever possible, the Mayor held the police back, letting black leaders calm their own people. Meanwhile, two black plainclothesmen cruised the community in an unmarked car, relaying intelligence to police headquarters. When they reported that the worst incidents were caused by white curiosity seekers blundering into black crowds, the police sealed off Roxbury and the South End, diverting white pedestrians and motorists. By 2:00 a.m., the racket from the police radio began to ebb. The Mayor and Barney slumped on the office couch, trying to make sense of what was happening out there.
Kevin White had been Mayor of Boston for barely ninety-five days. With scarcely time to fill out his cabinet and learn his secretaries’ first names, he didn’t know whether his untried machinery could handle a crisis of this dimension. The only previous test had been an arctic cold snap in mid-January when below-zero temperatures burst water pipes, ruptured gas mains, and left hundreds of families throughout the city shivering and hungry. White had stayed in his office all one night, and for the next ninety hours city officials manned a round-the-clock operation at City Hall, which took 1,500 emergency calls and found temporary housing for seventy-four families. Partly as a result of that crisis, the Mayor decreed that City Hall would henceforth remain open twenty-four hours a day, with two staffers on duty at all times to handle emergencies—reflecting the Mayor’s broader effort to open up “new lines of communication” with an electorate widely believed to be alienated from government.
White’s creative response to the winter crisis had piqued Colin Diver’s interest in him. Here was an energetic young mayor who was eager to confront challenges, not run away from them. White seemed to be cut in the John Lindsay mold: bold, imaginative, innovative, and decisive, he talked about refocusing national attention on the cities, bringing new resources to bear on pressing human needs. He had good ideas and the ability to attract first-rate people. After the cold snap, Colin watched the Mayor with new curiosity, eager to see what he would do next.
In fact, nothing in Kevin White’s experience had remotely prepared him for the racial explosion he faced in April. True, he had won election the previous November over Louise Day Hicks in a contest heavily shadowed by racial confrontation. A member of Boston’s School Committee, Mrs. Hicks was regarded as
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