CYNTHIA MARTIN
"If I were to be bused, I might not know what to do. I would be scared. I would not know where to go or what to do, or what neighborhood I would be in. I would not know anything."
In 1974, students from the Holmes Elementary School in Dorchester wrote essays expressing their feelings about court-ordered busing.
Below, listen to some of the essays being read by the students that wrote them, and click the thumbnails of the essays to read them in full.
"If I were to be bused, I might not know what to do. I would be scared. I would not know where to go or what to do, or what neighborhood I would be in. I would not know anything."
"I heard some kids say there were riots every day. I was unafraid about getting beat up because I could fight. I felt worried about integration because last year the white kids threw rocks at the buses that the black kids were riding."
"Horace was my first friend, until I started talking to another boy named Alfred. Surprisingly enough, both of them were blacks, but as it turned out they were both good friends."
"When I first heard the word integration, I wasn’t sure what it meant. But when I discovered the meaning I didn’t care about being integrated because I had experienced it in the John Marshall."
"One day on the news I heard about all of the being stoned. I really got scared, and I didn’t want to be bused. Then I got my notice that told me I was going to the Holmes. I was relieved, because the Holmes School was right around the corner from my house."
"I’m hoping for a happy, peaceful year, and I think I’ll have one in the seventh grade but in high schools like Roxbury, English, Hyde Park, and South Boston, they won’t."
"I think that when they brought up integration, they picked the wrong place. Perhaps South Boston ruined the whole idea. But here at the Holmes, both races get along fine."
