For the business and professional classes, self-interest appeared to coincide with moral idealism—a happy conjunction. Racially integrated and otherwise "innovative" schools would break the hereditary cycle of poverty and make it possible (when accompanied by aggressive programs of affirmative action) for qualified members of the "underclass" to achieve professional status. The only thing that stood in the way of racial justice and civic renewal was the obstinate resistance of "self-enclosed" ethnic "enclaves," as they were invariably referred to by reformers, which clung to their "small-world insularity and intransigence." Neighborhoods like Charlestown and South Boston—"peninsulas ethnically rigid and ingrown," inhabited by "hooligans," "bigots," and "hysterical racist mobs"—automatically opposed any kind of innovation, especially if it promised to benefit black people.

The party of civic improvement could see nothing but racism in their opposition to busing. Mrs. Hicks might denounce Garrity's order as a solution foisted on the city by "rich people in the suburbs," the "outside power structure," the "forces who attempt to invade us"; but "racism" was the "real issue," in the words of Elaine Noble, a liberal in the state legislature. Jon Hillson, a black liberal, attributed opposition to busing to the "extreme insularity" and "backwardness" of the Irish, "fostered and preyed upon by racist politicians" who knew how to exploit "rude, primitive fear." Hillson dismissed the claim that "gains won by the civil rights ... struggle come out of the pockets of white workers" as an outright "lie" propagated by the "racist alliance that runs America." Jonathan Kozol, well known for his book Death at an Early Age, an account of his experiences as a teacher in Boston, traced the antibusing movement to "mob terror and decades of miseducation, stirred by demagogues, preplanned by those who feed on hate." All the violence surrounding the busing controversy, Kozol insisted, derived in the last analysis from the violent resistance initiated by whites. When Michael Faith, a senior at South Boston High School, was stabbed by a black classmate from Roxbury, Kozol managed to convince himself that "it was ... Louise Day Hicks ... who put the knife in Michael Faith."

In fact, Mrs. Hicks had lost most of her supporters in South Boston by this time, precisely because of her condemnation of violence. The stabbing incident directly contributed to the decline of her influence. As word of the assault spread through South Boston, a mob gathered outside the high school and refused to let the black students, trapped inside the

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