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Reporter Meg Vaillancourt at the Old Colony housing project
Program:
[South Boston residents talk about housing integration]
Original Airdate: 6/16/1988

Length: 00:03:04
Item Type: newstape - edited story master


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Full Description

1:00:02
Visual: Footage of a white female South Boston resident looking out of the window of a housing project apartment. The woman says that she would like her neighborhood to remain white.

Meg Vaillancourt reports that South Boston residents remain hostile to the idea of integration of public housing projects.

V: Shots of white residents outside of a housing project in South Boston. Footage of a white female resident saying that South Boston should stay white; that there will be trouble if the housing projects are integrated. Footage of another white female South Boston resident saying that white residents have not received fair warning about the placement of African American families in white housing projects. Shots of white children playing with a hose outside of a housing project in South Boston.

Vaillancourt reports that Ray Flynn (Mayor of Boston) announced plans to integrate South Boston housing projects in October; that Flynn tried to explain the policy at a community meeting in South Boston in January.

V: Footage of Flynn and Doris Bunte (Boston Housing Authority) the community meeting in January of 1988. Flynn addresses the crowd. A white woman shouts out a comment. Footage of Flynn approaching the stage as the crowd jeers at him.

Vaillancourt notes that the audience at the community meeting was hostile to Flynn. Vaillancourt stands in front of a housing project building in South Boston. Vaillancourt reports that there is mounting evidence of discrimination against African American families requesting apartments in public housing projects. Vaillancourt notes that the mounting evidence has not changed the attitudes of white South Boston residents.

V: Footage of Vaillancourt interviewing a white male South Boston resident. The man says that there will be trouble if African Americans move into the South Boston housing projects. Footage of another white male South Boston resident saying that the residents want their neighborhood to remain as it is. Footage of a white female South Boston resident saying that she will not be bothered if an African American family moves into her building. She says that African American families need housing as much as white families do. The woman says that some people do not feel the same way as she does; that she hopes no one will bother the African American families who move into the project. Shots of white residents outside of a project building; of a white baby playing in a wading pool outside of a project building.

Vaillancourt reports that the city's housing policy has kept the housing projects segregated for fifty years; that the city is now changing its policy. Vaillancourt reports that some residents feel that the new policy will be biased.

V: Footage of a white female South Boston resident sitting in a wading pool. The woman says that the city should not make tenants identify their race; that the city should place tenants in an apartment without knowing their race. Shots of the woman and two children in the wading pool.

Vaillancourt notes that talk of integration in South Boston raises memories of the busing crisis in the 1970s.

V: Footage of a white male South Boston resident saying that school desegregation caused the decline of the Boston School System; that most South Boston residents send their children to private schools. The man says that he will move out of public housing if African American families move in to the projects. Shots of female parochial school students walking toward a housing project building.

Vaillancourt reports that the Boston Housing Authority (BHA) has not announced when the first African American family will move into the projects.


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