Boston, West Indian immigrants found themselves pushed into many of the same

unskilled, low-paying jobs as African American counterparts, despite their hopes that

they could secure employment in skilled trades and management.49

Since its formation as the first chartered branch of the NAACP in 1912, the

Boston NAACP has played a pivotal, if sometimes fraught, role in Boston’s racial justice

movement.50 During the 1910s and 1920s the Boston Branch NAACP established itself

as one of the largest and most integrated chapters in the nation. The political philosophy

and agenda of the branch in this early period closely mirrored the political work of the

abolitionist era in that liberal white elites played a significant role in the leadership and it

was largely focused on national, rather than local, issues.

But by the late1920s, the branch faced a period of substantial challenges and

transitions characterized by declining membership, increased internal tensions, and an

increasingly vocal opposition movement from a new cadre of black activists. The branch

struggled as a result of growing conflict with William Monroe Trotter’s National Equal

Rights League and its inability to tackle racial discrimination in employment.51 The

49
Jennings, “Race, Class, and Politics in the Black Community of Boston,” in From Access to Power, 5,
26. Between 1910 and 1950 forty percent of West Indians in Boston worked as skilled workers. The
majority of women worked as domestics for white families in the neighborhoods of Roxbury, Mattapan,
and Dorchester, and the nearby suburb of Newton. Black women were excluded from all retail work, and
the garment, confectionary, textile, and shoe industries. They found it was nearly impossible to move up
from entry level work into the managerial and professional positions.
50
Bergenson-Lockwood, “Not as Supplicants, but as Citizens,” 355-361. Even before the formation of the
Boston branch, the city played a key role in the formation of the NAACP nationally thanks to the close
relationship that formed between William Monroe Trotter and W.E.B. Du Bois through their shared
opposition to Booker T. Washington. Du Bois credits the so-called “Boston riots” in which Trotter and
Granville Moore staged a physical protest against Washington’s political stance at a Boston meeting of the
National Negro Business League in 1903 as critical in sparking the formation for the Niagara Movement,
which in turn helped lay the foundation for the NAACP.
51
Schneider, “The Boston NAACP.”

28
declining support for the branch can be seen in the fact that membership in the Boston

branch fell from 3,602 in 1946 to 1,409 members in 1950.52

The challenges faced by the NAACP during the interwar period provides insight

into the class dynamics of racial politics in Boston and the ways in which their evolution

shaped black protest in the postwar period. The influx of a host of new Bostonians from

the South and West Indies began to challenge the political control of the small group of

black and white elites who had dominated the NAACP and black politics more broadly

for a generation. The political dominance of black elites had been aided by the small size

of the black population and its relative homogeneity through much of the early twentieth

century. The influx of a large number of poorer migrants from the South and immigrants

from the West Indies who were not so willing to cede control of their political lives to

this same group and who were unhappy with the body’s lack of attention to the issues

faced by the majority of working-class black Bostonians, particularly in employment,

weakened the power of the NAACP beginning in the late 1920s. In the mid-1940s the

NAACP came under fire from the weekly Black newspapers such as the Chronicle and

William Monroe Trotter’s Guardian for adopting an accomodationist stance and making

only sluggish progress in the fight for racial justice. These critiques of the political stance

of the NAACP also reflect changes in the national black freedom movement in the

Interwar and World War Two era when African Americans embraced a more direct

rights-focused style of racial politics.53

52
Boston branch NAACP membership declined steadily in the immediate postwar period: 1946: 3,602;
1947: 3,429; 1948: 2,453;1949; 1950: 1,409, NAACP Papers, Boston Public Library, Part 25: Series A,
Reel 3.
53
Gerald Gill, “‘No Time for Banqueting’: African-American Protests in Boston, 1945-1955,” unpublished
paper, 9; Cromwell, The Other Brahmins.

29
 The Boston Branch NAACP also faced a substantial challenge in the anti-

communist movement which put considerable restriction and pressure on NAACP

branches across the country to purge members with Communist associations and distance

itself from radical and left-leaning critiques more generally. The Boston Youth

Conference was one of the first victims of the anti-communist crusade in 1946 when the

national NAACP office suspended its charter after the Youth Conference refused to

rescind its endorsement of William Harrison, Communist Party and NAACP Executive

Board member, for State Representative. Although the Boston adult leadership supported

the Youth Conference’s support of Harrison, political calculations prompted the national

NAACP to take a hard stance against the Boston youth. Prior to its suspension the Youth

Conference had led the way in pushing for a more confrontational political agenda. In the

spring of 1946 youth led a sit-down demonstration at several insurance firms in

downtown protesting their refusal to hire black employees.54

These developments in the local and national political landscape drove major

changes in the leadership and agenda of the Boston Branch NAACP in the immediate

postwar period. During the mid-to late 1940s the branch began to shift its programmatic

focus from national issues to the problems of racial discrimination locally and adopted a

more assertive political stance. These shifts were driven in large part by pressure from

youth activists. Just prior to the suspension of the Youth Conference, a cadre of black

youth activist began to place greater pressure on current branch president Julian Steele to

more launch a more direct challenge against segregation in Boston. In the face of these

pressures, Steele declined to run for re-election and Reverend Kenneth P. Hughes was

elected branch president in 1946, promising a full-frontal assault on racial discrimination

30
and segregation. Hughes’ decision not to run for re-election in 1947 in the wake of the

Youth Conference suspension set the stage for the election of Florence Lesueur in 1948.

Lesueur, who was the first woman to lead the Boston Branch NAACP in the

organization’s history, was committed to creating a branch that was more responsive to

working-class black Bostonians and initiated a campaign tackling the issues of

employment, police brutality, access to public facilities, and housing. Despite these

efforts, continued repression from the anti-communist movement put a damper on the

branch’s efforts to address issues of racial discrimination in employment and housing,

and led to a further decline in membership among youth and working-class black

Bostonians.55 Although the NAACP established itself as a leader in the fight for racial

justice in Boston very early on, it was through a very gradual process that the branch

became the strong advocate for racial justice and empowerment for black Bostonians that

it became by the late 1950s and early 1960s.

In addition to the NAACP, black Bostonians established a number of other

important settlement houses and neighborhood centers which supported the social,

economic, and political needs of their growing communities. These organizations also

played central roles in the development of a black political community during the

postwar period, particularly related to youth and education.

Among these was the Robert Gould Shaw House, which was established in 1908

in the South End to provide services and support to the city’s growing black population in

the face of increasing racial discrimination. Shaw House provided a range of much-

needed services to the black community—the strongest of which were also related to
55
Ibid., 18.

31
youth welfare. Concerns over the scarcity of programming available to black youths

involved in the juvenile justice system sparked the formation of the Shaw House and

drove the creation of a Saturday morning kindergarten and job training initiative for

youths. Foreshadowing the organizing tradition of the black education movement in

decades to come, the Shaw House actively sought the involvement of the black

community. The staff included large numbers of black volunteers and black Bostonians

played a prominent role in its leadership.56 Other key community sites established prior to

World War II included the Norfolk House and St. Mark’s Social Center—both of which

played central roles in the postwar black education movement.

Boston Public School System

The activism of black Bostonians must be understood within the context of the

city’s educational and bureaucratic structures and the actions of the city’s political and

educational officials. Created in 1647, the Boston Public Schools were the first public

school system in the country earning the city a reputation as a center of educational

excellence and opportunity.

City school officials, with rare exceptions, put up tremendous resistance to the

postwar black education movement. Leading the way on this front was the Boston School

Committee—a body made up of five members who were elected at large by city residents

to serve a two-year term. The school system was also managed by a board of

superintendents which included the Superintendent, chief administrative official for the

BPS, Deputy Superintendent, and several Associate Superintendents, responsible for

specific aspects of school operation such as curriculum.

56
Geoff K. Ward, The Black Child-Savers: Racial Democracy and Juvenile Justice (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2012), 111-2.

32
 Although state educational authorities historically exercised little direct control

over the daily operation of individual school districts, it was within their official capacity

to assert expansive authority over local schools. The State Board of Education and its

parent agency the State Department of Education was responsible for offering general

support for school districts and ensuring compliance with educational standards. The bulk

of the state’s power over individual school systems like the BPS lay in its responsibility

for the allocation of state and federal funds—a role which proved key in the growing

conflicts over desegregation in the [Link] State Department of Education possessed

the authority to assume complete control of local school districts in the case of continued

non-compliance with state standards. The system of funding for the BPS played a

particularly key role in shaping the black education movement, particularly in the 1960s

and 1970s. The Boston School Committee held the independent authority to allocate a

majority of the system’s funds but required permission from the Boston City Council and

the Mayor to disperse the remaining funds.

Black activists seeking to affect racial change in the Boston Public Schools faced

a significant obstacle in the maze-like organization of the system. The BPS was officially

as a district-based system in which students either progressed from elementary to high-

school within a single geographic district or attended one of two types of citywide

schools—examination or vocational schools. However the actions taken by city school

officials (particularly the Boston School Committee) to create and maintain segregated

education resulted in the creation of an incredibly complicated and confusing

administrative structure which followed little pattern. This system was made even more

complex and opaque by the fact that the BPS employed an irregular grade progression

33
system which included K-8 elementary programs, 7-9 and 6-8 middle schools, and 9-12

and 10-12 high schools. The option to transfer, a right afforded unequally to black and

white parents throughout the 1950s and 60s, made the BPS incredibly difficult to

navigate for even the most informed and proactive parents.57

Mapping the City

The geography of the city played a key role in the development of the Boston

Public Schools and black educational activism. The mid-nineteenth century bore witness

to the physical expansion of the city thanks to the incorporation of a number of adjacent

towns including Roxbury and Dorchester and an influx of European immigrants such as

the Irish.58

57
Morgan v. Hennigan.
58
The city of Boston annexed Roxbury in 1868 after which it was temporarily renamed as the Boston
Highlands. Lily D. Geismer, “Don’t Blame Us: Grassroots Liberalism in Massachusetts, 1960-1990,”
(Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 2010), 35-7.

34
 Figure 3. Map of Boston Neighborhoods, 201459

Beginning in the 1910s and 1920 Boston’s various ethnic and racial groups began

to lay claim to various neighborhoods as their “turf”—setting the stage for the starkly
59
Boston Neighborhoods, The Boston Indicators Project, the Boston Foundation,
[Link] accessed April
13, 2014.

35
segregated city which developed by the mid-twentieth century. For instance, during the

first two decades of the twentieth century the city’s Italian population became

concentrated in the North End, the Irish began to settle in larger numbers in Charlestown

and South Boston, and African Americans began their steady movement towards the

South End and Roxbury. Increasingly in the twentieth century, the city was defined by

profound ethnic divides rooted in spatial location. This sense of ethnic pride and privilege

rooted in the ability to defend one’s place against “outsiders” created a deeply segregated

city by the postwar period, in which many black Bostonians rarely ventured outside of

their own neighborhood to so-called white sections of the city. To enter South Boston or

Charlestown for example, as a black person in Boston in the 1950 or 1960s was

incredibly dangerous.60 This racial landscape and sentiment of “ownership” figured

centrally in the education movement as many school leaders and some white Bostonians

fought tooth and nail to defend “their” schools against black access.61

Although this dissertation is centered geographically on the city of Boston

generally, it is specifically focused on a handful of neighborhoods that were

predominantly African American after 1950. These neighborhoods, which were all

located to the South of downtown, include Roxbury, Dorchester, and the South End.

Specific neighborhoods within Roxbury and Dorchester which were home to large

segments of the black community and political activity include: Grove Hall, Sugar Hill,

Blue Hill Avenue, “the Hill” and the area of upper Roxbury and North Dorchester. With

60
A number of individuals who I interviewed echoed this dynamic of a racially segregated and closed city
reflecting that they never set foot into whole sections of the city until they were adults or entered
desegregated schools after 1974. See author’s interviews with Cheryl Borden and Barbara Burke. See
James W. Loewen, Sundown Town: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism (New York: New Press,
2005).
61
Jeanne Francis Theoharis, “‘We have to learn to define ourselves, name ourselves, and speak for
ourselves’: Black Teenagers, Urban Schools, Writing and the Politics of Representation,” (Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Michigan, 1996), 105.

36
the start of court ordered desegregation in the fall of 1974, African American students

attended schools throughout the city. After 1974 then, my study expands its focus

geographically to include the schools (and surrounding neighborhoods) to which the

desegregation plans assigned significant numbers of African American students. These

include the predominantly white neighborhoods of South Boston, Charlestown, and Hyde

Park, in which African American students and families faced significant resistance from

white Bostonians.

Chapter Descriptions

This study takes a long view of the African American education movement,

beginning twenty-five years before and ten years after Morgan captured national

headlines. This periodization brings light to the strategic and ideological evolution of the

movement as well as its consistencies over the course of more than three decades.

Chapter One examines the period from 1949 to 1959 when activists’ laid the

institutional, philosophical, and strategic foundations of their movement. This chapter

explores the origins of the movement’s organizing tradition and activists’ articulation of a

vision of black self-determination in the schools. The movement took shape thanks to the

formation of vital organizations such as Freedom House in 1949 and the NAACP

Education Committee in 1953—which mobilized community engagement in the issue of

educational racial politics and provided a space through which black Bostonians could

craft their agenda. In large part through these organizations a new generation of activists

like Ruth Batson and Muriel and Otto Snowden, cut their teeth in politics, began their

careers in racial justice activism, and began the work of building a closely connected

movement culture. This period also bore witness to the expansion and diversification of

37
the city’s black population with the influx of new immigrant and migrant populations

from West Indies and the southern states. The 1950s were also marked by the

development of more formal and widespread racial segregation in housing, employment,

and the schools as many city leaders regarded the flood of new migrants and immigrants

as a threat and consciously worked to contain this perceived danger. The emergence of a

formal edifice of segregation in housing and education especially drove the formation of

a movement in this period.

Chapter Two focuses on the period from 1959 to 1965 in which a mass movement

for racial justice and self-determination emerged marked by the entry of tens of

thousands of black Bostonians into the movement and strong linkages between its

institutional bases. During this period, activists’ vision of educational self-determination

was closely related to the goal of desegregation—that is they believed it was possible to

secure a meaningful role in educational governance within integrated Boston Public

Schools. Activists articulated this vision, and attracted the support of a growing number

of black Bostonians, through several major and closely related campaigns. During the late

1950s and early 1960s the NAACP Education Committee pressured the Boston School

Committed to formally recognize and address racial segregation in the schools. Likewise,

in 1963 a group of mothers in Roxbury protested the blatant racial discrepancies in the

schools and their right to shape their schools through the creation of the Concerned

Higginson Parents Association. Despite these efforts, the School Committee refused to

take action—prompting activists to stage Freedom Stayouts and Schools in 1963 and

1964. The Stayouts attracted more than ten thousand students and broad community

support, as well as the attention of state leaders. In the wake of the second boycott, the

38
State Commissioner of Education called for an investigation into the state’s public school

system which laid the groundwork for the passage of the Racial Imbalance Act (RIA)—

the first state-initiated voluntary desegregation act in the nation. Despite its limitations

the RIA was an illustration of the growing power of grassroots protest to shape state

action and created the legal framework for Morgan.

Chapter Three looks at the period from 1966 to 1971 in which a significant shift

in the political application of the vision of educational self-determination took place—

from a focus on securing power within integrated Boston Public Schools to pursuing

independent community-controlled programs outside the school system. In light of the

continued resistance of school officials, increased federal support for community-

controlled social programs, and the influence of Black Power, activists in Boston looked

outside the schools for educational equity and empowerment. Manifestations of this

include the formation of a spate of independent community-controlled schools,

community organizations like Operation Exodus, and a vibrant black student movement.

Chapter Four focuses on the efforts of community people to secure a larger role in

shaping the court decision and its implementation and the elements of the courts’ orders

which granted this authority to community people during the period of court-ordered

desegregation. In March 1972, the NAACP and Harvard Center for Law and Justice filed

the class action suit of Morgan v Hennigan against the Boston School Committee

charging city and state school officials with violation of the Fourteenth Amendment for

its purposeful segregation of the BPS. In June, 1974, Judge Arthur Garrity released his

landmark decision mandating the desegregation of the BPS. But activists did not sit back

and wait for the courts to determine the future of the BPS or their children—rather they

39
built a massive network of racial justice organizations and activists through which they

protected their children and asserted their right to direct involvement in school

governance. At the heart of this effort was the newly formed Freedom House Institute for

Schools and Education which coordinated dozens of educational and social service

programs for the black community. Activists’ efforts to achieve a leadership role in the

schools during implementation and in the future bore considerable fruit. In 1974 the court

created a multi-leveled citizen advisory structure created by the court which granted

substantial power to community people to oversee the implementation of desegregation

orders and shape school practice. Thanks to black activism, the courts also ordered a

major reorganization of the BPS into nine-community school districts which granted

much greater school governing power to local people.

The conclusion explores the period from 1977 to 1985 when black Bostonians

fought to make real and permanent the foothold they had secured in educational

governance in the future of the BPS. Although stark racial segregation had largely been

eliminated during the first three years of court-ordered desegregation, the movement was

far from over because desegregation was never the sole goal of black educational

activism. Rather activists continued to seek greater educational self-educational self-

determination through the new citizen advisory structures created by the courts.

Moreover, after thirty years in the movement, activists’ understood that a court ruling

alone would not change the lives of people, and so they continued their grassroots

organizing to secure educational power for black Bostonians in Boston Public Schools.

40
 Chapter One: “Education for Democracy”: Making the
Movement for Educational Justice, 1949-1959

”The main thing is not to set out with grand projects. Everything starts
at your doorstep. Just get deeply involved in something…You throw a
stone in one place and the ripples spread.”

Bob Moses62

On the wintry night of February 9, 1949, seventeen neighbors gathered in the

Roxbury, living room of Muriel and Otto Snowden to discuss the future of their

community. These friends came together to discuss their concerns with the physical

decline and increasing segregation of Roxbury and to craft a plan to revitalize their

community and bolster civic engagement. By the meeting’s end, the group had concluded

“that we needed in our community some kind of nonsectarian, interracial center where all

of us might come together to work on our common problems.”63

This was the genesis of Freedom House—an organization which came to lead the

movement for racial justice and community empowerment in postwar Boston. The early

history of Freedom House unearths a narrative of black educational activism that

challenges traditional understandings of civil rights protest in Boston—bringing to light

the intellectual origins of educational community control in black protest, the role of

personal bonds and experiences in grassroots racial politics, and the importance of

community institutions in movement building. Under the Snowdens’ determined

leadership, backed by substantial community involvement, Freedom House led the charge

62
Bob Moses, quoted in Pete Seger and Bob Reiser, Everybody Says Freedom: A History of the Civil
Rights Movement in Songs and Pictures (New York: Norton, 1989), 246.
63
Muriel and Otto Snowden, “Report of Committee to Mediate Upon and Attempt to Rephrase ‘What
Freedom House Is,’” 1962, Box 1, Folder 1, Freedom House, Inc. Records, Archives and Special
Collections Department, Northeastern University (hereafter: “FH”).

41
for racial equality in nearly every sphere of life for black Bostonians including education,

housing, employment, recreation, and urban development. Freedom House was so critical

an anchor for the city’s black freedom movement that it earned the moniker Boston’s

“black Pentagon.”64 Its hands-on, pragmatic approach to the fight for racial justice

offered up a myriad of community services and programs, including youth job training,

academic tutoring, and neighborhood clean-up campaigns.

An excavation of the early development of Freedom House brings to light the

genesis of a vision of democratic racial politics rooted in the practice of citizen-directed

municipal governance which quickly took root in the city’s burgeoning black education

movement. This history challenges conventional wisdom which identifies desegregation

as the sole objective of black educational activism in Boston and in the nation more

broadly. Freedom House promoted the right and capacity of all black Bostonians to play

active roles in every aspect of urban governance and civic life—including the schools.

The Snowdens passionately believed that this participatory model of urban governance

had political value for the city in that citizen-participation would yield more effective city

programs and policy. They also possessed a faith in the political import of this program in

that the act of participating in urban governance by definition politically empowered

black citizens.

Over the next ten months, the Snowdens and their neighbors crisscrossed Roxbury

sharing their vision of Freedom House with community members. Many Freedom House

founders drew upon their deep roots in Boston and prior experience in community

organizing in these efforts. Otto Snowden is remembered as particularly effective, given

64
The Boston Globe referred to Freedom House as the “black pentagon” during court-ordered
desegregation because of its pivotal role in coordinating black community activism during this period.
“History of Freedom House Inc., Education Highlights,” Box 1, Folder 1, FH, Northeastern.

42
his amiable personality and hands-on organizing style. Much of this organizing work

took place in spaces which fall outside the traditional definition of political—in homes,

streets, parks, bars and restaurants, and even grocery stores. An araticle wrote, “Otto

Snowden’s office is not really at 14 Crawford Street, but on the street, in Freedom Foods,

or anywhere people have a problem and want to talk about it.”65 Thanks both to its

persistence and passion, before long Freedom House had captured the political

imagination and commitment of the people of Roxbury, who saw the need for

neighborhood revitalization and community empowerment in every burnt out street light

and dilapidated school building.

The pivotal role of Freedom House in driving Boston’s fledgling education

movement highlights the importance of local institutions, and the linkages between them,

in movement building.66 While national organizations like the NAACP and Urban

League played significant part in the process, community-based and focused

organizations like Freedom House, Shaw Settlement House, Norfolk House Center, and

St. Mark’s Social Center were also key actors in the political, intellectual, material, and

psychological formation of the movement in its early period.67 Through the institutional

relationships it formed both with other local entities, and with national bodies like the

NAACP, Freedom House provided critical material and intellectual support to the

budding movement and its foot soldiers.

65
Untitled article, Box 1, Folder 1, FH, Northeastern.
66
Morris, Origins of the Civil Rights Movement.
67
Boston branch NAACP membership declined steadily in the immediate postwar period: 1946: 3,602;
1947: 3,429; 1948: 2,453;1949; 1950: 1,409. NAACP Papers, Boston Public Library, Part 25: Series A,
Reel 3. Describing the role of the NAACP community activist Victor Bynoe said, “The NAACP was a
parlor discussion group in the early days—too long…The NAACP never became effective until it got down
to the little people.” Carden, ed., Witness, quoted in Daniel McClure, “A Woman of Action”, 61.

43
Leading the Charge for Change

Husband and wife, Otto Phillip and Muriel Sutherland Snowden were the

intellectual, emotional, and political heart of the Freedom House from the first meeting in

their living room in 1949 through their retirement in 1984. The Snowdens possessed

complementary political skills. Otto was practical, hands-on, a passionate public speaker

sure to mobilize supporters and quick to lend support to fellow organizers. He was known

for his abilities in facilitating mass gatherings and he had an innate talent for connecting

with people from all walks of life. Muriel, in contrast, was the “big picture” political

thinker—working behind the scenes writing reports, crafting ideas, and developing

strategy.68

The Snowdens’ personal, childhood experiences with racism profoundly shaped

their political work. Muriel Sutherland was born in Orange, New Jersey on July 14, 1916.

Soon after, the family moved to the predominantly white, middle-class community of

Glen Ridge, New Jersey where they faced significant racial hostility. The racism was so

virulent that Dr. Sutherland, a Howard trained dentist, was forced to use a white person as

a “straw” to purchase the family home and to move his young family in under the cover

of night for fear of white mobs. Nonetheless, Muriel attended the all-white Glen Ridge

Public Schools through graduation, when she earned the honor of class valedictorian.

After graduation, she moved to the Boston area to attend Radcliffe College. Upon

graduation in 1938, she volunteered at several local institutions serving black Bostonians,

including St. Marks Social Center—a social service center connected to St. Mark’s

Episcopal Church in Roxbury. It was at St. Marks that she met her future husband and
68
Belknap, “To Chip Away at the Walls,” Snowden, Northeastern.

44
future professional partner, Otto Snowden. She briefly left Boston in 1943 for a two year

stint at the New York School of Social Work, where, on a National Urban League

Fellowship, she earned her Master’s in Social Work. During Muriel’s time in New York,

she and Otto reignited their earlier friendship, and they married in 1945, moving to

Roxbury, where they remained for the rest of their lives.69

Otto Snowden’s family had deep roots in the Boston area, arriving from Virginia

in the 1920s when Colonel Snowden was transferred by the Army Quartermaster Corps.

The Snowdens like many African American families who migrated North in this period

had high hopes of leaving racial segregation behind in the South. However, they soon

found that segregation and discrimination were very much alive and well in the “cradle of

liberty.” Otto’s experiences in the Boston Public Schools, and his observations of the

discrimination his father faced in the military, outraged the young man. As a student at

the Lewis Junior High School in Roxbury in the late 1920s, he led a boycott by African

American students on the school track team of a major meet, in protest of the racially

discriminatory practices of the school, which he later described as his first conscious act

of educational activism.70 After graduating from Dorchester High School, Otto briefly

attended Harvard before leaving school to help support his family during the Depression.

During this period, Otto began to volunteer at St. Mark’s Social Center. After completing

his degree at Howard University he took a teaching position at Camp Lee in Virginia

69
Muriel and Otto met at a dance sponsored by the YMCA in Roxbury while Muriel was visiting family in
the Boston area. Years later, when she was a student at the New York School of Social Work, Otto wrote
Muriel asking if he could visit. Although initially somewhat reluctant, Otto was persistent and the two were
married within two years. For a more detailed discussion of Muriel Sutherland’s life see Muriel Sutherland
Snowden Interview Records, Black Women’s Oral History Project (hereafter: “BWOHP”), Schlesinger;
Belknap, “To Chip Away at the Walls,” Snowden, Northeastern.
70
Untitled document, Box 1, Folder 1, Freedom House. Snowden wrote, “I was disturbed about Boston
schools as far back as 1927 when I was a student at Lewis Intermediate School. I organized a boycott
because of discrimination. I remember I was class president in the ninth grade there.”

45
during WWII. As a young man, Otto was disgusted by the discrimination his father,

Frank Snowden, faced in the Army (he was demoted five times during his first several

years in Boston) and remained critical of the discriminatory and segregative practices of

the U.S. military as a young man. When WWII broke out, Otto attempted to evade the

draft, but eventually agreed to the teaching position in Camp Lee to appease his father.71

Like Muriel, Otto pursued graduate studies in social work, as a special graduate

student at the Boston University School of Social Work. He soon returned to Roxbury to

become Director of St. Mark’s Social Center, remaining there until 1949, when he

resigned to devote himself fully to the development of Freedom House.72

With the vision for Freedom House and the support from the community

established, the founders set their sights on securing a permanent building in Roxbury

from which they could work. Early financial challenges forced the Snowdens to begin

operation of Freedom House out of their home, but they were eager to acquire a larger

space to accommodate community gatherings. They launched an ambitious fundraising

campaign in 1950, which raised $50,000, and enabled them to purchase a building at 14

Crawford Street in Roxbury, less than one mile from their home. Members, including

Muriel and Otto Snowden who served as co-Directors of Freedom House, worked

without pay for at least the first six months of its existence. During this period, Muriel

also worked at the Cambridge Civic Unity Committee to help support the family, since

Otto had left his position as Director of St. Mark’s Social Center to focus on Freedom

House full-time. Muriel continued to work at both CCUC and Freedom House, despite its

obvious strain, until 1950 when Colonel Snowden gave the couple a gift of $1000 to help

71
Belknap, “To Chip Away at the Walls,” Snowden, Northeastern, 5.
72
Box 5, Folder 1-2, Snowden, Northeastern.

46
them get Freedom House off the ground.73 From this location in the heart of Boston’s

African American community, Freedom House assumed its role as the hub of Boston’s

Black Freedom Movement.74

Significant demographic shifts unfolding in Boston in the immediate postwar

period fueled the emergence of Freedom House at this precise movement and drove its

agenda tackling the problems of racial segregation. The 1950s witnessed the beginnings

of rapid growth in Boston’s black population, and a concomitant increase in racially

segregative practices in education, employment, and housing—the result of which was a

vastly more racially closed city than had existed prior to World War II. African American

population of the city increased from 23,679 in 1940 to 40,057 by 1950 largely as a result

of the migration of black southerners.75 These developments presented considerable

challenges for black Bostonians, but also new opportunities thanks to their greater

numbers and expanded opportunity for political organizing. The Snowdens found a ready

audience when they spoke of their desire to arrest the physical degradation thanks to the

rising tide of segregation. The formation of Freedom House at that precise moment was a

reflection of the Snowden’s determination and the changing nature of the city’s racial

landscape.

While the African American population in Boston was growing, the white

population was in relative decline as increasing numbers left for the suburbs. Although

many scholars have pointed to the conflicts over court-ordered desegregation as the cause

73
McKenney, “Focus: The Community,” Box 1, Folder 1, FH, Northeastern; Belknap, “To Chip Away at
the Walls,” Snowden, Northeastern, 7-9.
74
“A Vision for 21st Century Leadership,” 1999, Muriel Snowden interview records, BWOHP,
Schlesinger.
75
Thomas O’Connor, Building a New Boston: Politics and Urban Renewal, 1950-1970 (Boston:
Northeastern University Press, 1993), 60.

47
of white flight, evidence shows that most whites left the city in the 1940s and 1950s lured

by the booming technology, research, and development industry in the newly booming

and prosperous suburbs. 76

These economic shifts, occurring simultaneously with the arrival of thousands of

new Black Bostonians, played a major part in the creation of a more racially segregated

city. After WWII, Massachusetts was at an economic crossroad after decades of decline

in the manufacturing and service industry.77 State leaders found their economic salvation

in the rise of a federally funded military-industrial-research complex so successful it

earned the moniker, the “Massachusetts Miracle.” This burgeoning high-tech industry

took root in a cluster of suburbs to the North and West of the city.78 The communities of

Waltham, Lexington, and Burlington exploded as new employees and their families

flooded the area. By the 1950s and 1960s the Route 128 technology corridor had

established itself as the model of a successful high tech industry. From 1949 to 1957, it

created 27,600 new “high tech” jobs, while the number of jobs within the city limits

decreased by 17,500.79 With the influx of a new generation of largely white and upwardly

mobile professionals, these suburbs became some of the wealthiest and most racially

76
H. McKinnis, “A Selective History of Boston 1635-1950,” 1986, Box 5, Folder 10, Series IV, Citywide
Parents Council Records (hereafter: “CPC”), City of Boston Archives (hereafter: “Boston City”). The
migration of many white Bostonians out of the city for the surrounding suburbs as early as the 1940s also
resulted in an overall decline in the city’s population. Between 1950 and 1960, Boston’s population
declined nearly thirteen percent from 801,444 to 697, 197. This decline in the period from 1950 to 1960
was a dramatic shift from the period from 1920 to 1950 when the city’s total population exploded from just
74,800 to 801,444—a growth of more than 930%; Tahi Lani Mottl, “Social Conflict and Social
Movements: An Exploratory Study of the Black Community of Boston,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis
University, 1976), 47.
77
Jeanne Theoharis, “We have to learn to define ourselves,” 108. Between 1947 and 1975 industrial jobs in
Boston declined from 112,000 to 50,000 and wholesale and retail jobs declined from 150,000 to 90,000.
78
“Freedom House Fact Sheet,” Box 1, Folder 1, 1950, Freedom House, Northeastern.
79
Geismer, “Don’t Blame Us,” 20. The majority of this industry was concentrated along Route-128 which
forms a sixty-five mile arc around the city. Fueled by the explosion in federal military and research
spending, some of the nation’s first major industrial parks—Raytheon, General Radio, and Wang, were
established along the 128 corridor. As the number of manufacturing jobs declined—formerly the lifeblood
of the state’s urban economy—the number of professional jobs, largely located outside of the city, tripled.

48
segregated in the state, if not the nation. Through its massive military spending and

support for a high-tech, research-based economy, the federal government fueled the

development of deeply racially segregated landscapes in metropolitan regions across the

nation, and metropolitan Boston was no exception. 80

The racial shifts which the Snowdens witnessed in Roxbury beginning in the late

1940s accelerated in neighborhoods across the city through the 1950s. Increasingly in this

period, the majority of white and black Bostonians lived in racially distinct

neighborhoods, whereas prior to the war the city contained many racially, economically,

and ethnically diverse neighborhoods. The shifts were most dramatic in neighborhoods

South and Southwest of downtown, including Roxbury, Dorchester, and the South End.

Prior to the 1950s, these neighborhoods were racially and economically mixed, with

sizable Jewish, white-ethnic, and African American communities. However, the influx of

migrants and immigrants and city officials’ concurrent creation of segregative housing

and banking policies, transformed the demographics of these neighborhoods. By 1960

ninety-seven percent of African Americans in Boston (all but 1,500 of 63,000) lived in

the neighborhoods of Roxbury, North Dorchester, and the South End, known as the

“Black Boomerang.”81

Federal, state, and local housing and banking officials played a critical role in

creating and maintaining this racially segregated landscape in Boston through restrictive

covenants, red-lining, discriminatory lending practices, and public housing policies. The

80
Ibid., 23. M.I.T. and Harvard led the way in federal funding for research and development in defense and
military related industries—ranking first and third respectively in 1963.
81
The demographic history of Blue Hill Avenue illuminates in microcosm this broader shift in the city’s
racial landscape. In the immediate postwar period, Blue Hill Avenue, a major thoroughfare running from
Lower Roxbury through North Dorchester and Mattapan, was the business center of the Jewish community
in Boston. However, by the early 1950s, the West Indian and African American community began to settle
along Blue Hill in larger numbers and within a decade the area was predominantly African American.

49
Boston Housing Authority (BHA) promoted residential segregation through its

administration of the city’s large public housing program. Drawing upon the mandate for

racially segregated housing outlined in the 1938 Federal Housing Authority Underwriting

Manual, the BHA created and maintained segregated public housing through the

assignment of tenants on an explicitly racial basis. A 1951 report by the Massachusetts

Commission against Discrimination (MCAD) wrote, “The pattern of racial segregation

and discrimination in public housing in the City of Boston was set as early as 1940 at the

beginning of the federal slum clearance program. By 1950 colored families were housed

exclusively in two projects in the South End and in the wing of a third.”82 Segregation

was the official policy of the BHA in public housing until the Massachusetts State

Legislature prohibited segregative housing practices in 1950, but discriminatory practices

continued as evidenced by the large number of complaints of racial discrimination filed

against the BHA after 1950.

Local and state banking and housing officials, in collaboration with federal

agencies such as the FHA, Veterans’ Administration (VA), and Home Owners Loan

Corporation (HOLC), also played a major role in promoting racial segregation in the

private housing market in Boston and the surrounding suburbs. A report authored by the

office of the Director of the United States Commission found that Boston real estate,

banking, and housing officials adhered closely to the segregative policies of the federal

82
“Plaintiffs’ Findings,” Morgan v. Hennigan, Papers of the NAACP, Library of Congress (hereafter
LOC), Series V, Box 954, Folder 4-5, 253. As of 1951, Boston’s public housing program was the second
largest in the nation. MCAD was a state body which was created by the state in 1950 to receive and address
discrimination complaints. The forerunner to the MCAD was the state Fair Employment Practices
Commission established in 1946. The FEPC had enforcement power to prohibit discrimination on the basis
of “race, color, religious creed, national origin, or ancestry.” The FEPC had limited resources, personnel,
and enforcement power in its early years until it expanded to become MCAD.

50
agencies.83 Boston banks denied mortgage applications for homes in the neighborhoods

of Roxbury, Dorchester, and South Boston, based on HOLC maps which marked these

neighborhoods as blighted. These practices forced many white prospective homeowners,

including returning veterans, to purchase a home in the suburbs rather than the city. As a

result of these discriminatory local, state, and federal policies, which effectively denied

suburban homeownership, the majority of African Americans had few housing options

outside of the South End, Roxbury, and sections of Dorchester.84

The increased racial segregation and discrimination which alarmed and mobilized

the Snowdens and their neighbors were also a result of an ambitious program of urban

renewal which took shape in the late 1940s and gained steam through the 1950s. City

housing, banking, and political leaders affected a major residential and economic

transformation of the city through re-zoning, corporate tax breaks, highway construction,

and the destruction and forced re-location of residential communities.85 Through urban

renewal, city leaders sought to boost the city’s ailing economy, halt the flow of white

Bostonians to the suburbs, and revitalize the declining city center. City leaders

accomplished their goal—but at the expense of racially and economically diverse

communities like Roxbury and the South End.86 Urban renewal’s destructive impact on

83
“Plaintiffs Findings,” Morgan v. Hennigan, LOC.
84
Massachusetts State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, The Voice of
the Ghetto, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1967; Morgan v. Hennigan; Geismer, “Don’t Blame Us”,
41-42.
85
Boston’s urban renewal agenda was overseen by the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), the
Boston Housing Authority (BHA) and city leaders (most notably Mayors Hynes, Collins, and White who
held office in the period from the 1950s through the 1970s).
86
See Barry Bluestone and Mary Huff Stevenson, The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space, and Economic
Change (New York, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2000); Sean Fisher and Carolyn Hughes, eds.,
The Last Tenement: Confronting Community and Urban Renewal in Boston's West End (Boston: Bostonian
Society, 1992); Marc Fried et al., The World of the Urban Working Class (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1973); Herbert Gans, The Urban Villages: Group and Class in the Life of Italian-Americans (New
York: Free Press, 1982); Chester Hartman, “The Housing of Relocated Families,” Journal of the American
Institute of Planners 30 (November 1964): 266-86; Thomas H. O’Connor, Building a New Boston: Politics

51
neighborhoods like the South End sent a clear message that city leaders could not be

counted upon to advocate for the interests of the city’s minority and poor communities,

and that if black Bostonians wanted to protect their neighborhoods; they would have to

do it themselves. The founders of Freedom House seized the opportunity to lead.87

The Snowdens and their co-founders were committed to empowering local people

to lead these types of programs. In its mission statement, Freedom House founders

wrote, “In the complex, dehumanized and centralized city life, it aims to restore some

capacity for direct influence of and impact by the individual upon his community and to

promote concretely the basic principles underlying a desirable community.” 88 Likewise,

founding Freedom House Board Member Elwood McKenney wrote, “Achieving the good

and Urban Renewal, 1950-1970 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1995). Although many scholars
have been critical of the impact of the city’s early urban renewal efforts, particularly in the West End, on
working-class ethnic communities, O’Connor’s work is more focused on the politics behind urban renewal
projects and presents a comparatively positive portrait of the motivations and actions of city officials. His
work contains little information about the opponents of urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s.
87
Local people and scholars alike point to the re-development of the neighborhood of the West End as
emblematic of the damaging impact of urban renewal on the city’s most vulnerable residents and the
enormous power held by city, state, and federal officials in re-making the city’s landscape. Beginning in the
mid-1950s urban renewal claimed the forty-eight acre residential community known as the “West End”
which had been home to a large multi-ethnic, working class immigrant community since the turn of the
century. The project, which was developed by the BHA and the U.S. Housing and Home Financing Agency
and administered by private developers and BRA, displaced more than 2,800 families to make way for
high-rise luxury apartment complexes and a large complex of government offices known as Government
Center. The project, which was one of the first of its kind in the nation, is generally considered an
economic debacle because of its failure to attract new residents, its displacement of a large economically
vulnerable community, and the lack of transparency on the part of city officials regarding the effect of
urban renewal. Moreover, the destruction of this racially diverse community furthered the trend towards
the forced isolation of the majority of Black Bostonians in a handful of neighborhoods. The BHA and city
leaders hoped that the newly constructed high-end residencies would attract middle and upper-class white
professionals who were leaving the city for the high-tech suburbs along Route 128 at this time. For a
discussion of the negative impact of the West End re-development project see Herbert Gans, The Urban
Villagers: Group and Class in the Life of Italian-Americans (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1962);
Chester Hartman, “The Housing of Relocated Families,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 30
(November 1964): 266-86.
88
“Freedom House Inc. Fact Sheet,” 1950, Box 1, Folder 1, FH, Northeastern.

52
community, then, is our 24-hour a day, full-time focus. Citizen-inspired, citizen-

organized, citizen-supported and citizen-staffed.”89

Beginning in 1955, the first urban renewal project in Boston claimed what was

known as the “New York Streets” area of the neighborhood of the “South End.” The

“New York Streets,” located in the far Northeast corner of the South End adjacent to

Interstate Highway 93, was home to a diverse working-class community in the first half

of the twentieth century. The neighborhood was razed to make way for a new plant for

the Boston Herald Traveler newspaper as part of a larger vision to bring factories into the

declining city center.90 Urban planners targeted the racially and economically diverse

neighborhood of the South End because of its close proximity to the downtown

commercial and business district, major highways, and the availability of space to

construct industrial and corporate facilities. Joyce King, a longtime community activist,

grew up in the New York Streets area. She recounts that the project clearly demonstrated

the discrepancy in power between city officials and community people. “They just did it.

There were no community meetings or anything like that. So people just moved out.

Everybody went in different directions once the neighborhood said, ‘You gotta get

out.’”91 The destruction of the New York Streets sent a clear message to working-class

89
Elwood McKenney, “Focus: The Community,” Box 1, Folder 1, FH, Northeastern. Hon. Elwood S.
McKenney was a long-time Roxbury resident and leader in social justice movements city-wide. In 1946 he
was the first African American appointed to the newly created Massachusetts Fair Employment
Commission (forerunner to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination). As a justice of the
Roxbury District court after 1950, he was a strong advocate for racial equality in the criminal justice and
legal system. In addition to his work with Freedom House Judge McKenney was also involved with the
NAACP and the Boston Legal Aid Society.
90
Christopher Marstall, “Boston’s Vanished New York Streets,” Boston Globe, 19 August 2012,
[Link]
streets/EVxSqBnv9ups9yO5Q6MhTP/[Link], accessed December 5, 2012
91
As urban renewal programs continued to target the South End in the 1960s, the African American
community rallied in formal opposition to development projects which called for the destruction of their
homes, schools, and churches. Joyce King, interview with author, 28 November 2012 (hereafter: “J. King
interview”).

53
nonwhite communities that their interests were secondary to city officials’ vision of

economic development.

Witnessing this steady physical decline and increased racial segregation, the

Snowdens and their neighbors were convinced of the need for immediate and bold action

to save their communities. As parent-activists, the Snowdens’ commitment to reversing

these trends was motivated foremost by their desire to create more just and safe

neighborhoods for their children. As such, education and youth welfare always stood at

the center of Freedom House’s mission. According to a founding document written by

Board President Elwood McKenney, “The future of every town as well as that of the

entire nation lies in its human resources—youth. Every young person should be

encouraged to develop and utilize his talents to his own best advantage and for the benefit

of society.”92 In the 1950s, Freedom House launched one of its early youth-focused

programs—an Applicant Preparation Workshop that assisted local Black and Jewish

teens to find jobs and internships. In 1952, the Snowdens and Freedom House established

Freedom House Play School, one of the city’s first interracial pre-schools, described as

an “experience in democratic living.” Their efforts on behalf of Roxbury youth in the

early 1950s also included the rehabilitation of local playgrounds and the establishment of

interracial after-school groups for teenagers.93

The Snowdens, like many parents, became involved in education politics because

of concerns for their children. Reflecting on their motivations for creating Freedom

House Muriel Snowden wrote, “As Otto and I looked around our community and thought

in terms of Gail, our little girl, we had to make up our minds whether we would do as

92
McKenney, “Focus: The Community,”, Box 1, Folder 1, Freedom House, Northeastern.
93
“Freedom House Activities Pamphlet”, Box 1, Folder 1, FH, Northeastern.

54
Otto’s father had done OR whether we should dig in where we were to try to reverse the

trend slum-ward.”94 Otto Snowden cited a specific incident in the early 1950s in which he

called the central office at Gail’s school and to his great surprise Gail herself answered

the phone. Upon questioning, Gail’s teacher informed Otto that she had sent Gail to the

office to answer the phones to occupy her because she was finishing her work more

quickly than her classmates.95

These youth programs show how Freedom House acted as a “magnet” bringing

together disparate organizations in the fight for educational justice and youth welfare

very early in the movement. Freedom House brought together a coalition of other

community organizations and religious institutions to become involved in these early

education programs including, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Elliot Congregational

Church, YMHCA, YMCA, and the Urban League. In keeping with their goal of

interracial organization and fellowship, Freedom House also brought a number of social

and racial justice organizations outside of Roxbury into their early educational programs

including the American Friends Service Committee, Massachusetts Division of

Employment Security, MCAD, Children’s Aid Association, and even the Vocational

Guide Department of the Boston Public Schools. Throughout the movement, Freedom

House was also one of the community organizations in the Black community most

willing to work with white liberal groups and state and city bodies.

Just months after its formation, Freedom House spearheaded a project focused on

youth welfare which exemplifies the central role community interests and alliance-

94
Snowdens, “What Freedom House Is,” Box 1, Folder 1, FH, Northeastern
95
Jenny Belknap, paper for History 187: Professor Gerald Gill, Tufts University, December 17, 1993, “To
Chip Away at the Walls:” The History of Freedom House, Inc.: Youth Programs and the Desegregation of
the Boston Public System, 1949-1969, Box 1, Folder 1, Muriel S. and Otto P. Snowden Papers,
Northeastern, 22 (hereafter “Snowden”).

55
building played in its political style. In the spring of 1949, Freedom House published a

brochure for parents listing programs available to Roxbury children and families during

the summer vacation. As they gathered information, it became clear the city did not

intend to staff or equip the three parks in the community—Munroe, Washington, and

Franklin Park. Appalled, Freedom House wasted no time, inviting staff from several

community institutions in Roxbury and the South End, including St. Mark’s

Congregational Church Social Center, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association (YMHA),

YMCA, and Elliot Congregational Church, to a meeting to strategize a plan to address

this problem. As a result of that gathering, this alliance of community organizations

presented a proposal to the School Committee and Parks Department to provide staff and

funding for the parks. In the following years, Freedom House submitted annual requests

to city officials reminding authorities of their responsibility to Roxbury youth.96

Freedom House was not the only organization in the black community working

for racial equity and community empowerment in the postwar period. It joined a small

but important network of settlement houses, founded in the early twentieth century,

including the Shaw Settlement House, Norfolk Center, and St. Mark’s Social Center. By

the late 1940s, these community centers, located in the South End and Roxbury, were

well-established in their respective neighborhoods as important gathering spaces and

social service providers for the community. As the racial demographics of these

neighborhoods changed, so too did the work of these organizations—shifting to focus

specifically on the welfare of black Bostonians. Reflecting on her experiences growing

up in the community of Madison Park in lower Roxbury in the 1950s, community

96
“Freedom House Fact Sheet,” FH, Northeastern, 2; Belknap, “To Chip Away at The Walls,” Snowden,
Northeastern.

56
educational activist Barbara Burke described the important role that settlement houses

like the Shaw House played in fostering community ties. “The settlement houses in the

area—Shaw House, Cooper Community Center, Shelbourne Center, Norfolk House,

Hecht House—people congregated there,” Burke said.97 Like Freedom House, the

political significance of these community centers lay both in the programs they offered

and this experience of social and political congregation.

Fighting for Democracy at the Higginson School

The Snowdens and Freedom House cut their political teeth on one of the first

African American parent educational reform movements of the postwar period. From

1949 to 1951, the Snowdens and a determined band of parent-activists in the Higginson

School District in Roxbury waged a battle for more democratic practices in school

governance.98 Before its end, the parents’ movement had sparked accusations of

Communist infiltration and sparked a major conflict between black parents and school

administrators. Ultimately, it demonstrated the ability of determined, organized people to

affect educational change.

The Higginson School District was located in the neighborhood of Upper

Roxbury, very close to the Snowden’s family home and Freedom House. The District had

an enrollment of 1,125 students in three elementary schools—the David A. Ellis, Henry

L. Higginson, and W.L.P. Boardman.99 In the late 1940s and early 1950s the

97
Barbara Burke, interview with author, April 18, 2013 (hereafter: “Burke interview).
98
“Temporary Committee to Secure a Democratic Home and School in the Higginson District,” 31
January, 1951, Box 6, Folder 238, Snowden, Northeastern. A partial list of active members of the
Committee included Muriel and Otto Snowden, Mrs. Margaret Marsh, Mrs. Eva Jordan, Mr. and Mrs.
Raymond Jarvis, Mrs. Irene Robinson, Mr. Bill Ellis, Mrs. Doris Hart, Mrs. Charlotte Pollock, Mrs.
Frances Teixera, Mrs. Edith Washington, Mrs. Rheable Edwards, Mrs. Marguerite McKinney, Mrs. Mary
Lou Morris, and Mrs. Alice Sherarion.
99
“Breakdown of the Henry L. Higginson District,” Box 6, Folder 238, Snowden, Northeastern.

57
neighborhood was racially and economically mixed, and included a large African

American and Jewish population. However, beginning in the early 1950s the racial

makeup of the neighborhood, like many others throughout the city, was becoming

predominantly African American.

On November 22, 1949 the year’s first meeting of the Higginson Elementary

School Home and School Association (HSA) was held. The meeting got off to a very

rocky start when Higginson School Principal Elizabeth Cloney announced the names of

the appointees to the HSA Board. Cloney was a forty-nine year veteran of the BPS with

twenty years as Higginson Principal. A group of African American parents stood up to

insist that board members should be elected, rather than appointed. The parents’ assertion

of their right to participate in HSA governance did not appear out of thin air—rather it

explicitly drew on a 1948 Boston School Committee directive which stated that parents

had the right to participate in the formation of a “democratic Home and School

Association in their district.”100 Despite this, Principal Cloney pushed aside the parents’

concerns. The parents, led by Mrs. Margaret Marsh, stormed out in protest of Cloney’s

“arbitrary, high-handed action.” Within a week, Marsh and a dozen other parents

established the Temporary Committee to Secure a Democratic Home and School

Association in the Higginson District.101

These struggles played out in a protracted battle over a single document—the

Higginson School HSA Constitution. Immediately after the November meeting,

Committee Chair Marsh and the Snowdens launched a campaign to revise the HSA

Constitution to include greater protections for parents’ rights and democratic practices,

100
Marshall Dames, “Spokes in the Hub,” undated, Box 6, Folder 238, Snowden, Northeastern.
101
“You Should Know About…The Temporary Committee to Secure a Democratic Home and School
Association in the Henry L. Higginson District,” Box 1, Folder 239, Snowden, Northeastern.

58
such as the election of board members. During the winter Marsh, the Snowdens, and

other Committee members met with Principal Cloney more than half a dozen times to

request constitutional revisions. Marsh and the Snowdens gathered 150 signatures for a

petition in support of these revisions. Further, they stated that they could have gathered

more signatures if not for parents’ fears of reprisals by school officials and teachers

against their children—pointing to the culture of racial animosity and authoritarianism

which had permeated school culture by this time.102

Although this HSA Board incident was the spark to the parents’ activism, the

conflict between white administrators and black parents at the Higginson School had

deeper roots. In a letter to parents, committee members wrote, “IS THIS SOMETHING

NEW? No, it is not. For twenty-five years parents have been disturbed and upset by the

tyrannical attitude of the principal of the district.”103 Comments made by Cloney

demonstrated the deep racial hostility which colored these conflicts over the HSA.

Cloney angrily rejected parents’ demands for a greater role in the schools. “This is my

job, not theirs,” Cloney told an interviewer in 1951. Cloney insisted that the Snowdens,

specifically, had “taken ten years off my life” with their protest. She denounced their

work and that of Freedom House in the community as well—criticizing their

neighborhood clean-ups on the grounds that street maintenance was the responsibility of

the city, not the people.104 In an interview with a local newspaper, Cloney described Otto

Snowden as a “college graduate, high type of colored person now trying to open up some

sort of community house and take jobs away from other people.” Cloney went on to

denounce many African Americans in the community for their supposed lack of

102
Ibid.
103
“Letter to Parents and Guardians,” 7 May 1951, Box 6, Folder 238, Snowden, Northeastern.
104
Interview with Principal Cloney, January 31, 1951, Box 6, Folder 238, Snowden, Northeastern.

59
religiosity and suggested that the growing racial tensions in the community could be

blamed on African Americans with “too much education.”105

Recognizing that they were unlikely to change Principal Cloney’s views, the

Committee began the search for outside allies. During the winter of 1950, as Cloney’s

wrath grew, the parents solicited the support of Boston Public School Superintendent Dr.

Dennis Haley and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Frederick J. Gillis. 106 At first, this

strategy seemed to find traction, as the parents convinced Dr. Haley to direct Cloney to

appoint a constitutional Committee to revise the HSA Constitution. At a moment in

which racial segregation and discrimination by school officials was on the rise, Gillis and

Haley’s willingness to back African American parents, particularly in opposition to

Principal Cloney, bears further consideration. Statements from the Committee suggest

that Gillis and Haley supported the parents simply because they agreed with their

position. In a pamphlet to parents the Committee wrote, “Dr. Dennis Haley,

Superintendent of Schools and Dr. Frederick J. Gillis, Ass’t Superintendent in charge of

overall Home and School Associations, agree that our request for a democratic

organization is a simple, normal, and reasonable one.”107 Moreover, Gillis and Haley

likely felt that the parents’ demands were in line with the School Committee’s 1948

directive regarding parental involvement in the HSA and they had a responsibility to

ensure compliance from school principals.

But ultimately even a direct order from her superior was not enough to convince

Cloney to accept greater parental involvement in the school. After agreeing to create the

105
Cloney made frequent racist and xenophobic comments throughout the interview. Interview with
Principal Cloney, January 31, 1951, Box 6, Folder 238, Snowden, Northeastern.
106
Committee meeting notes”, 8 February 1951, Box 6, Folder 238, Snowden, Northeastern.
107
“You Should Know About…The Temporary Committee to Secure a Democratic Home and School
Association in the Henry L. Higginson District,” Box 1, Folder 239, Snowden, Northeastern.

60