Suffolk University's Ford Hall Forum and Moakley Archive & Institute, The Boston Desegregation and Busing Initiative, and GBH Forum Network, continue a series of programs examining the lasting impacts of the l974 landmark decision to desegregate Boston’s Public Schools. This panel discusses upward mobility in Boston, exploring the city’s historic institutional roadblocks that have hindered progress for people of color fifty years after busing. It explores solutions to address these persistent issues such as enhancing educational opportunities, closing the wealth gap, increasing home ownership, and broadening access to job opportunities.
The panelists are Ron Bell, longtime community activist and founder of Dunk the Vote, and alumnus of Boston Latin School; Karilyn Crockett, Ph.D., assistant professor, Urban History, Public Policy & Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Tatiana M. F. Cruz, Ph.D., assistant professor and interdisciplinary program director of Africana Studies, Department of Critical Race, Gender and Cultural Studies, Simmons University. The program’s moderator is Kris Hooks, editor-in-chief of The Boston Globe’s newsroom team, Money, Power, Inequality: Closing the Racial Wealth Gap, which focuses on addressing the racial wealth gap in Greater Boston.
Background
In our first program, Driving for Desegregation: Boston 50 Years After Busing, Adrian Walker, columnist for The Boston Globe, led a panel that explored the long-term impacts of busing on the city of Boston, including the current state of Boston’s public schools and racial equity in a myriad of arenas. In our second program held last week, our panel, moderated by Stephanie Leydon, GBH News, the panel explored race, housing, and education equity 50 years after busing. This discussion explored the impact of race-based discriminatory housing policies and education funding formulas while addressing the more recent problems of gentrification and housing affordability and how Boston positions itself to compete with its suburban neighbors when it comes to educational outcomes.
