Tag Archives: Mosaic

The Afterlife of Slavery, South Boston High School, and Mosaic

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Black and white photograph shows young person with arms up in snow in front of large brick building

Photograph from the 1987 issue of Mosaic shows a young boy playing outside of a school in South Boston. The picture was take by South Boston High School student and photographer Tammy Lambright.

Author: Kayla Allen, Archives Assistant and graduate student in the History MA Program at UMass Boston

Black and white photographs shows eight students on the steps of a brick school building

This photograph, taken by South Boston High School student and photographer Lorna Reid for the 1987 issue of Mosaic, features a high schooler playing on the steps of SBHS.

Juneteenth is coming up this Saturday, June 19th. It is a holiday that celebrates the true end to slavery in the United States (specifically in Galveston, Texas) in 1865, about two and a half years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. As I write this post, not only have the Senate and House both voted in favor of the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, but President Biden has signed it into law. This holiday is about joy, hope, and love; it is a happy day, and we will be celebrating!

Still, we are in a period of turmoil in the United States, perhaps as we have been for centuries. Slavery has had a long-lasting impact on our communities. Generational trauma, poverty, and discriminatory policing are just some of the lingering effects of slavery that we continue to deal with every day. In the spirit of Juneteenth, people all over the country are working tirelessly to make things better for the Black community and to address these symptoms of a pandemic long since “over.” One of the most important things we can do is love and support Black youth, especially in their pursuit of an education. There is still no end in sight to the racial segregation of schools in our cities. Black students are disproportionately living in poverty and attending schools that are underserved and under-resourced.

Black and white photographs shows the photographer holding a camera, taking his own picture in a mirror.

Self-portrait of Anthony Adams, student and photographer at South Boston High School, taken for the 1987 issue of Mosaic.

In Boston in the 1970s, there was a contentious, court-ordered process of desegregating the city’s public schools overseen by Judge W. Arthur Garrity. This was in an effort to address some of the after-effects of slavery and follow through with a desegregation ruling that had passed a decade before. Unfortunately but expectedly, this caused an immense number of problems. There was a large presence of white Bostonians that desperately wanted integration to fail. In addition, many students, especially high schoolers, did not want to go to a new school and ended up dropping out. It was a tumultuous, violent, and traumatic time, especially at schools like South Boston High School (SBHS).

Black and white photographs shows students seated on a schoolbus and the schoolbus emergency exit sign.

Here, South Boston High School student and photographer Bethzaida Rivera took a picture of students in the back of an SBHS school bus for the 1987 issue of Mosaic.

In an effort to support their young people and help them heal, Harvard undergraduate Michael Tierney and several of his colleagues at South Boston High created a publication called Mosaic. It started out in 1980 as a book of poetry written by SBHS students and edited by poet-in-residence Kate Rushin. Over the next decade, it morphed and changed to fit the needs of the students. It was a way for these high schoolers to become invested in their community and get to know their peers. They wanted to learn and grow and find ways to overcome the negative reputation that SBHS had picked up during the violence of the “busing crisis.” With the guidance of professionals like Michael and Kate, South Boston High School students created something truly special. They learned about poetry, interviewing, writing, and photography. They created exhibits of their work. After the final issue was published in 1988, they even brought their photographs and stories to be displayed at the Boston Public Library. In Mosaic, there was sadness and trauma, but there was also healing. It brought some much-needed hope to the SBHS community.

University Archives and Special Collections at UMass Boston has digitized the full collection of Mosaic publications (view the finding aid). Going through them is at once moving and sweet. It’s something precious to look at the work of young students discovering their voices and learning that their stories are worth sharing. 

In honor of Juneteenth and our fight for equity and liberation, I’ve selected a few pages for you to look at from the 1987 Mosaic publication Knowing the Light Will Come: Stories and Photographs by Students at South Boston High. If anything catches your eye, be sure to explore the rest of the digital collection.

The cover of the Mosaic publication issued in 1987 titled Knowing the Light Will Come: Stories and Photographs by Students at South Boston High.
Page one of the 1987 issue of Mosaic, featuring a short poem by South Boston High School student and poet Bridgette Brown.
Page twenty-six from the 1987 issue of Mosaic. This page features the beginning of a story “Questions for my father,” written by SBHS student and writer Marcellus Blanding, and a picture of a young boy taken by student and photographer Tammy Lambright.
Page twenty-seven from the 1987 issue of Mosaic. This page comprises the end of the story “Questions for my father,” written by SBHS student and writer Marcellus Blanding, and the beginning of the story “The butterflies in your stomach,” written by student and writer Sonny King.
Page twenty-eight from the 1987 issue of Mosaic. This page includes the end of the story “The butterflies in your stomach,” written by SBHS student and writer Sonny King, the story “An imposter,” by student and writer, Audrey Powell, and a photograph of a young girl taken by student and photographer Lorna Reid.

If you’d like to learn more about the afterlife of slavery, a term coined by Saidiya Hartman, and its impact on our country today, there are many incredible resources out there for you to check out. This page from UC Berkeley is just one of the assets I’ve found in my research. The Atlantic also has a moving article about the Boston desegregation of schools in the 70s and its legacy, and graduate students from UMass Boston’s History and American Studies department put together some wonderful articles as well.

From the author: Personal dedication to the students at the Barack Obama School of Career and Technical Education in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Telling the complex stories of school desegregation and busing in Boston

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Spring 1981 issue of Mosaic, a publication by the students of South Boston High School

Spring 1981 issue of Mosaic, a publication by the students of South Boston High School

In the summer of 2015, University Archives & Special Collections at UMass Boston began to work with a number of area archival institutions to create “a digital library of material that can be widely disseminated for both curricular and scholarly use” related to the history of school desegregation and busing in Boston. And earlier this month, I participated in a panel at the Spring Meeting of New England Archivists about our efforts to make available archival materials related to school desegregation in Boston and about the work of educators to use archival materials in curricular settings.

View my presentation files and read a short essay based on my New England Archivist presentation here. For more information about this multi-archive collaboration, click here.

The process of selecting materials for digitization as part of this project was fairly difficult, as University Archives and Special Collections holds more than 200 linear feet of material related to Boston school desegregation. Too often, the history of Boston school desegregation seems weighted down by some of the most visible characters involved – politicians, policy-makers, court officials – so we decided early on to focus largely on identifying materials that tell a more complex, personal history of school desegregation and busing in Boston. After reviewing the range of materials in our care and the myriad rights issues involved, we decided to focus on two collections: the records of Mosaic, a program out of South Boston High School from 1980 to 1989, and the chambers papers of Judge Arthur Garrity, the federal district court judge who oversaw the Boston Schools case.

Mosaic was launched at South Boston High School in response to the effects of school desegregation. Led by professional writers and photographers, students produced stories and photographs about themselves and their communities. Eleven issues of Mosaic were produced, which include contributions from approximately 269 students at South Boston High and that address a range of topics, including immigration, homelessness, teen pregnancy, racism, work, and family. Explore the digitized issues of Mosaic here.

Letter from Louise Day Hicks to Judge Arthur Garrity, August 21, 1974.

Letter from Louise Day Hicks to Judge Arthur Garrity, August 21, 1974.

What’s particularly interesting about the chambers papers of Judge Arthur Garrity is the extent to which they do indeed tell some of the varied stories of those whose voices, in many ways, were marginalized throughout the desegregation process. By looking beyond one of the well-known characters in the Boston Schools case – the creator and a subject of this collection, Judge Garrity – we are able to begin to tell some of the more complex, personal stories of school desegregation and busing in Boston.

We digitized a number of materials from the Garrity papers, including the Judge’s correspondence with public officials and a full year of observer reports prepared by the Citywide Coordinating Council.

The correspondence we digitized offers an interesting window into the perspectives of people like Boston mayors Ray Flynn and Kevin White, as well as figures like Louise Day Hicks, the Boston City Councilor, School Committee member, and anti-busing activist. The correspondence also includes copies of letters to public officials from their constituents, as well as letters from the general public to Judge Garrity.

A page from Kathleen Field's May 26, 1976, observer report from Charlestown High School.

A page from Kathleen Field’s May 28, 1976, observer report from Charlestown High School.

The Citywide Coordinating Council was established in 1975 to monitor implementation of the desegregation plan. Council observers were placed in schools throughout the city to report on activities within the schools. The reports required observers to complete a form noting different information about each school day, but what’s perhaps most intriguing about the reports are the descriptive assessments of the individual schools that observers provide. We digitized more than 400 daily observer reports from high schools around the city. View the digitized correspondence, observer reports, and other materials from the Garrity papers here.

We’ll be sharing more information about this project and these collections in the coming weeks and months. Visit blogs.umb.edu/archives for updates and information.

Please note: Some content in this post was drawn from my presentation at the Spring Meeting of the New England Archivists. See the presentation files and read a short essay based on that presentation here.

University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston collects materials related to the university’s history, as well as materials that reflect the institution’s urban mission and strong support of community service, notably in collections of records of urban planning, social welfare, social action, alternative movements, community organizations, and local history related to neighboring communities.

University Archives & Special Collections welcomes inquiries from individuals, organizations, and businesses interested in donating materials of an archival nature that that fit within our collecting policy. These include manuscripts, documents, organizational archives, collections of photographs, unique publications, and audio and video media. For more information about donating to University Archives & Special Collections, click here or email library.archives@umb.edu.