the case.
oston massachusetts was the Cily which became a symbol of the struggle against colonial oppression with the famous Tea-Party in 1773. Two hundred years later, however, things have changed as neodore Landsmark, a lawyer, knows only too well. This year a mob of white youth beat him and then speared him with an American flag on the steps of the citv hall. His crime - he was black.
When school segregation was outlawed in 1954 by the US Supreme Court, this was taken as a sign that capitalism was reforming itself. But it was soon clear that this was far from Open defiance of court orders to desegregate continued. In Little nock. Governor raubus used state troopers to bar black chuaren trom the schools, while his aides openly encouraged white mobs against the nine courageous schoolchildren who defied white supremacy. Under pressure, President Eisenhower was finally compelled •To sena in tederal troops to enorce tne Ine enrorced desecrecation. altnouor a token one, was important in laying the basis for further fights against segregated public facilities and the right to vote. The 'non-violent tactics of the Freedom Riders (black and white students who rode the segregated buses) became world famous, while other actions, such as those of the self-defence squads, laid the basis for the struggles that were later to rock Newark, Detroit and Watts.
But now Jim Crow (the tag for the seorecationist svstem, nas rouno anotne perch. While the crisis of the US economy nas been partially resoived througn an up turn in industrial production, this has only been achieved at the cost of plung ing living standards, continued permanent mass unemployment, and cut-backs in social welfare provision - attacks which have been defended and policed by the trade union leaders of the AFL-CIO In Enis situation biacks are once again an easy scapegoat for many poor whites.
The fundamental issue in Boston is the question of access by black children to previously all-white schools - a situation perpetuated and planned by the all-white school committee of the city council Boston is a living example of the inade quacy of the 1954 Supreme Court decision which only outlawed legalised segregation while leaving untouched the nidden segre gation which is both built into the structures of American social life and is actively promoted by the Government.
Election districts, for instance, are manipulated to deny blacks voting rights. Housing plans on a national basis segrecate backs into certain sars or te city These are the districts with the worst nousing and une worse schools - all black schools. Busing is necessary to end this de facto segregation.
But the racists in Boston have organised to prevent black children attending the desegregated schools. Their leaders are not stupid, and throw up a smoke screen