Title: Why busing failed : race, media, and the national resistance to school desegregation /
Authors: Delmont, Matthew F.
Year: 2016
Subjects: School integration Massive resistance movement History; Busing for school integration United States History; Busing for school integration; School integration Massive resistance movement; United States
Abstract: "Busing, in which students were transported by school buses to achieve court ordered or voluntary school desegregation, became one of the nation's most controversial civil rights issues in the decades after Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Examining battles over school desegregation in cities like Boston, Chicago, New York, and Pontiac, Why Busing Failed shows how school officials, politicians, courts, and the news media valued the desires of white parents more than the rights of black students, and how antibusing parents and politicians borrowed media strategies from the civil rights movement to thwart busing for school desegregation. This national history of busing brings together well-known political figures such as Richard Nixon and Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, with less well known figures like Boston civil rights activist Ruth Batson, Florida Governor Claude Kirk, Pontiac housewife and antibusing activist Irene McCabe, and Clay Smothers (the self-proclaimed "most conservative black man in America"). This book shows that shows that "busing" failed to more fully desegregate public schools because school officials, politicians, courts, and the news media valued the desires of white parents more than the rights of black students"--Provided by publisher.
Contents: The origins of "anti-busing" politics : from New York protests to the Civil Rights Act -- Surrender in Chicago : cities' rights and the limits of federal enforcement of school desegregation -- Boston before the "busing crisis" : black education activism and official resistance in the cradle liberty -- Standing against "busing" : bipartisan and national political opposition to school desegregation -- Richard Nixon's "antibusing" presidency -- "Miserable women on television" : Irene McCabe, television news, and grassroots "anti-busing" politics -- "It's not the bus, it's us" : the complexity of black opinions on "busing" -- Television news and the making of the Boston "busing crisis."