I was running late for a meeting at City Hall, and as I turned the corner I went straight into the front of an anti-bussing demonstration. They were opposing plans to end racial segregation by bussing children of different ethnicities into schools. Had I known that was happening, I would have avoided it: I’d been involved in a number of civil rights marches and it generally doesn’t make sense to walk into the front of a demo.
The leaders of the march had already passed by, but a couple of them decided to double back to attack me. They shouted “There’s a nigger, kill him!” and I was hit. My glasses were knocked off and my nose was broken. Then a young man with a flag swung it at me. He missed me by about two inches. The older person in the picture, who is standing behind me in the dark jacket, is reputed to be Jimmy Kelly, who was part of the anti-bussing movement. It looks like he’s wrestling with me, but in fact he’s trying to separate me from one of the kids holding me from behind. The crowd then continued their protest, leaving me alone on the Plaza.
A policeman came up to me. He indicated that the attack had been seen from the mayor’s office in City Hall, that the police had been notified, that an ambulance had been called and that he was there to escort me to it. He took my arm, but I suspected that reporters were covering the event and I didn’t want it to look like I was being arrested. I had a sense that something really significant had happened.
After the doctor bandaged me up, he told me there was a crowd of reporters outside. I realised I had been presented with an opportunity to say something important about race relations in Boston. I couldn’t really hold any anger towards the kids themselves, because I felt they were being manipulated by policies that had unfairly discriminated against minorities in Boston. I said that people really needed to sit down and talk through solutions rather than let the violence escalate.
Later that evening, I got a call from Boston police, who wanted to show me the contact sheet of this image; when I saw the photo, I recognised that it would become iconic, and the next morning it was on the cover of the Boston Herald. Friends from around the country started calling me. Commentary centred on the misuse of the flag during America’s bicentenary year. The shot won the Pulitzer prize for spot photography the following year.
There was a sense of shock, which led to a lot more people discussing racism in Boston. I found myself cast in a role I hadn’t expected to be in at such an early stage in my career. I was 29, and a director of a construction trade association that lobbied on behalf of minority workers, and now I became a spokesperson for issues of social justice in Boston. I was asked to make presentations at colleges, schools and church groups.
When I look at it now, it is still painful – I could have been killed that day – but it changed my life. I suddenly had access to many of Boston’s leaders; I was appointed to the board of directors of the Transit Authority; and I went to work with a small black law firm in Boston working on bussing issues around the country. I couldn’t control what happened, but I could control my reaction. I felt a duty to use it to make Boston a more equal city.
amp.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/apr/17/thats-me-in-picture-ted-landsmark-boston-anti-busing
Connect the Dots 101 Blog 