In a white, middle-class, liberal kind of way, that is.
It took leaving Boston to appreciate it anew, and the city's increasing diversity is encouraging, although some of it is taking place with the taint of gentrification, more an invasion of black areas than a mutual crossing of boundaries. I'd already crossed the river for Cambridge anyway and found it incrementally more soothing. Slowly, I am learning to understand why. In fact, slowly, I am learning to understand all of this better.
So. Another piece of that growth in understanding, from "A Tale of Three Cities in One," by George H. Hanford (Cambridge Historical Society, 1996):
In the 1880s Boston was engaged in a bitter fight over the issue of segregated versus integrated public schools. Segregation won, with the result that many African-American families moved to Cambridge, whose schools were integrated.
More than a decade after the Civil War, Boston, home of the great abolitionists, voted to segregate its schools.
Cambridge, to my great relief, did not.
3 comments:
I too love my adopted hometown, and can't think of a better place to raise a kid. Every time I think of moving, I think of the opportunities here and all the things we take for granted-- like everyone assumes that you have to TRY to get along even when it's hard, that we are obliged to recycle & live as small as possible, that it's assumed you will question everything-- and I can't imagine moving.
Well put. Very well put.
Name me one town or city that IS into "being a melting pot."
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