page_title: Hyde Park High School (Massachusetts)
section_title: Challenging times
hierarchical_section_title: Hyde Park High School (Massachusetts) / History / Challenging times
context_page_description: Hyde Park High School is a defunct four-year public high school that served students in ninth through twelfth grades in the Boston neighborhood of Hyde Park, Massachusetts, United States. The school held its first classes in 1869, one year after the founding of the town of Hyde Park. The school was located at 655 Metropolitan Avenue from 1928 until its closure in 2005.
context_section_description: Racial tensions began to haunt the school, starting in 1970. The African–American population at the school in the early 1970s stood at 15%. On January 19, 1970, a dispute between groups of black and white youths at a bus stop resulted in a knifing incident, with two white pupils being slashed, and a black student arrested for assault. Faculty arriving on January 21 to school found that anti–black graffiti had been spray–painted on the front steps of the building. Half of the 1700 student population was absent following the incident.
  Starting in the fall of 1974, court ordered desegregation was implemented, more than doubling the population of black students. On September 19, racial violence cut classes short. Rocks were thrown at departing school buses. On October 15, a 15 year old white student was stabbed during a melee in the school’s main corridor, and at least six other students and one teacher went to the hospital. Students recall being locked in their classrooms. An 18 year old black youth from Dorchester was ultimately arrested in the stabbing.
  On account of the many occurrences of violence in the school and immediate area, the Boston Police Department’s Tactical Police Force were deployed to the neighborhood. Governor Francis Sargent summoned 450 members of the National Guard, over the objection of Mayor Kevin White. Sargent also made a request to President Gerald Ford to send federal troops to Boston to quell racial violence in the city, which was denied. BPS installed a magnetometer, borrowed from United Airlines, to scan all students coming into school.
caption: Partial Boston Police Department plan of Hyde Park High School, created to assist assigned officers. Note the "isolated, dark" description of locker room areas
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