Long-time Boston City Councillor James Kelly died this morning of cancer at the age of 66.
Kelly was an extremely controversial figure, as is evident even from the obituaries now running in various media outlets. The Globe plays up Kelly’s less-than-savory role in Boston’s struggles with desegregation, particularly with respect to busing and the integration of South Boston’s housing projects. The Dig is unhappy about the Globe’s take, saying “that’s not who he was,” calling it “pretty f&*#ing nasty,” and opining that Kelly should instead be remembered as a hard-working public servant (which he no doubt was) and as someone who “cared deeply about people” (ah, but which people, Paul?). The Phoenix leans toward the Globe’s take, noting that, Kelly’s work ethic and bravery in the face of mortal illness notwithstanding, “he also embodied Southie parochialism at its most malignant. That’s part of who Kelly was, too.” Keller makes an interesting point linking the populism of the anti-tax movement with some of Kelly’s other, uh, causes. And the Herald ducks the whole issue, barely mentioning Kelly’s stands on issues surrounding (especially) race and sexual orientation, instead just lumping it all together as his being a guy who “always stood his ground.” Well, hard to argue with that.
I’m no Boston City Hall junkie, so I don’t honestly know that much about Kelly. In general, though, I don’t think we do political figures any favors by whitewashing stands that they took in years past, even if in retrospect those stands now look misguided. Jimmy Kelly, like everyone else, said what he said, did what he did, and was who he was. To pretend otherwise is bad history, and does both the living and the dead a disservice.
And to pretend that busing in Boston was anything but an elitist attempt at the expense of the poor and politcally weak to correct past wrongs committed by the same upper classes is also a diservice to the living and the dead.
I do think that busing was a mess, and that its critics had a point. But that doesn’t lessen the racist ugliness of some of what went on in those days.
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The guy with the flag…Who does he represent to you?
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white people?
Boston people?
white boston people?
Boston irish Catholics?
White Bostonians against Busing?
South Boston
Charlestown?
East Boston?
Hyde Park?
Racist?
Something rasonably expectewd to happen as a result of forced busing?
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Or what?
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Just wondering.
is that its meaning goes so far beyond the individuals it depicts. I think to say that the guy “represents” any one of those categories is to sell the photo short.
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Who does he represent to you, Ernie? And who does Landsmark represent?
my mistake
I think the way to evaluate any anti busing politician from that time period is to see how they handled race relations in other arena. My family is working class and Irish and Cambridge used voluntary busing to fix its problem so we weren’t really connected to the Southie crisis, but I can see a parent with genuine concern over their children’s well being, personally I wouldn’t want my children shipped across town on a 30 minute and perhaps dangerous bus ride just to satisfy some arbitrary quotas, on the other hand I know that there were a lot of genuine racists who were angry and didn’t want black children in their local schools. So the test is to see if their opposition fell into the first category simply wanting their children go to neighborhood schools (which as much as she gets a bad rap was the real intention of Louisa Day Hicks who as a Congresswoman had a stellar national civil rights record which is often overlooked by local media) or if there was legitimate racism involved.
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In the case of Mr. Kelly he was a member of several “Irish” clubs not open to any black people, the member of a union that had no black members, and he had no black members on his city council staff throughout his career. Ive also heard stories about private uses of epithets by the man. Granted I cant confirm the latter, and the first three could just be due to the fact that the local union was in a predominately white neighborhood, there are few black Irish Catholics, and that he only hired people from the neighborhood to work on his staff.
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But I do know that he consistently opposed all affirmitive action programs, minority contract preferences, and housing integration positions that even die hard busing opponents like Billy Bulger, Ray Flynn, and Ms. Hicks proudly supported. So now that hes gone we can only let his record speak for him.
one of the many ignorant people in this world that lash out at entire race because they have a grievance.
This person represnts what most residents of Charlestown, East Boston, South Boston, Hyde Park, Roslindale etc know exists. A small percentage of their neighborhood. People who the other residence (the large majority) knew would act this way when they are told that they or their kids can no longer go to the school with their neighbors and friends like their parents did. They will lose the sense of neighborhood which gave them pride and security.
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Most people didn’t want busing. Very very few were violent. Those who were violent did not surprise anyone with an ounce of experince.
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However, as you say David. That picture represents everything I mentioned.
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Do you blame the other 99% of white Boston who were against busing but disgusted by what the few animals did?
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This is where some of the healing starts. If you school district is suddenly being bused and you would rather your kid stays in the neighborhood school then according to you david, you are the guy in the picture with the flag.
with the caveat that your last line grossly mischaracterizes my position (as I think you acknowledged upthread), I think that’s a pretty good comment.
I never saw a black face, in person, before 10th grade.
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BUT – my immigrant household was VERY against discrimination because my dad had been a liberator in the camps in WWII, my grandmother was born in Africa as a missionaries’ daughter, and we weren’t Irish or Catholic (which seemed to have the strongest bias?).
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But I grew up with lots of these guys. Not in Boston, so I never knew Kelley either, but in the seedy parts of Worcester, which isn’t that different from Southie and Eastie. We never had bussing, so everything was still under wraps. And we never had a James Michael Curley (his record on race relations isn’t anything to write home about) to give us power.
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Howie Carr had the best take on it; David, we CAN’T entirely judge these people by the standards of a subsequent era. How many good people belonged to America First and tried to keep us out of WWII? How many people were worried about Stalin and Communism, and shunned socialists? So much of your comment is 20/20 hindsight.
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Which people, David? Why, the poor working class people who elected him and asked him to represent them. You may disagree with his biases, but he built the Democrat party that toppled decades of Republican hegemony, and gave you a platform to stand on. Him and guys just like him. Because he genuinely cared about individuals over ideas – much like the gay marriage advocates are begging us to do now. Putting a person into context isn’t whitewashing, David – it’s understanding.