Common Ground (56 page)

Through the spring and summer of 1975, Alice grew progressively angrier at the power, wealth, and privilege arrayed against her. An unelected judge, an unresponsive senator, and uncaring suburban liberals had joined hands to wrest from her the one thing in the world over which she still exercised some control: her family. If they could move her children around the city like pawns on a black-and-white chessboard, then what could Alice call her own anymore? As month after month went by, bringing them ever closer to September, Alice raged at those who would do her this final injury.

When a jangling telephone woke her on the second day of school, her neck was still throbbing painfully.

“Alice, dearie,” shouted Pat Russell, “get out of bed and get on down here. We need you.”

“I don’t know, Pat,” she said. “My neck still hurts like hell.”

“Well, we’ve got something that’ll make it feel a lot better. Since the cops won’t let us walk our own streets, we’re going to pray. Even those bastards wouldn’t dare break up a bunch of praying women.” Back in World War II, Pat explained, Charlestown mothers used to hold prayer marches for the boys in service. Now someone had suggested they try a prayer march against busing. Pat had cleared the idea with Captain MacDonald.

Alice hauled herself out of bed, put on her Thomas Collar, and joined the women who were already gathering in Hayes Square. Word had spread quickly through the town, and by 10:30 about four hundred mothers—many wearing
shorts and sandals on this steamy Indian summer day—began lining up in the middle of Bunker Hill Street. Some cradled infants in their arms, others pushed strollers or held young children by the hand. On the sidewalks, knots of teenagers and adult males—among them Danny McGoff—had gathered to watch. When some of the men tried to join the march, Pat Russell—wearing her “Mother Power” T-shirt—borrowed an electric bullhorn from the police. “No men or boys in this march today,” she bellowed. “This is a woman’s march. We don’t want any of you guys in it.”

“That means you,” Alice warned Danny. “No matter what happens, stay on the sidewalk.”

Pat gave the women their marching orders. “We are going to pray in silence,” she told them. “We are going to pray for our children; we are going to pray for our families; we are going to pray for our town. If Martin Luther King could do it, so can the women of Charlestown.” Then they set off up the street, led by a three-year-old girl carrying an American flag.

From the start, the women were in no mood for silent devotion. One group, performing for men lounging in front of the Horseshoe Tavern, struck up the football cheer, “Here we go, Charlestown, here we go.” Others down the line broke into “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” and “We Are the Girls from Charlestown.”

This wasn’t quite what Pat Russell had in mind. Waving the march to a halt, she huddled with Powder Keg’s leaders. Since silent prayer wouldn’t work, it would have to be a vocal prayer march. Pat, Alice, and their friends began reciting the rosary, intoning their “Hail Marys” in the singsong murmur familiar to generations of Charlestown mothers:

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee
.

Others picked up the chant, savoring the old rhythms.

Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus
.

Slowly, all up and down the line, the prayer caught on.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners
.

Soon, all four hundred women had joined in, flinging the prayer in defiance against the shabby brick walls of the housing project.

Now and at the hour of our death, Amen
.

At School Street, Pat Russell executed a sharp left turn and led her mothers toward the Warren Prescott School. This violated a new order by Judge Garrity prohibiting the gathering of three or more persons within a hundred yards of a Boston school (an order drafted for the judge by the Justice Department, despite private doubts there about its constitutionality). “Get some equipment across the street,” an apprehensive police officer muttered into his walkie-talkie. As the women passed the school, a mother near Alice shouted up at the open windows, “Ain’t none of our children in there. Just niggers!” But the marchers moved past the school with no further incident and turned left onto High Street, heading toward Monument Square, where, around the corner, Charlestown High School reared opposite the Bunker Hill Monument.

As soon as Captain MacDonald saw the women turn onto High Street, he left the line of march and headed up the hill to take charge of his men surrounding the high school. “I figure they’re headed up this way,” he told his sergeant. “Tell the men they’re to maintain the integrity of the hundred yards around the school.”

As they advanced on Monument Square, the women encountered a phalanx of police drawn up across High Street at the corner of Cordis Street, still a block and a half from the high school. A formidable force confronted them there. First a double line of a hundred MDC police, each holding his baton horizontally before him to form an unbroken wall. A few feet behind them stood another hundred Boston police. Next came two Black Marias, their doors open, ready to receive prisoners. And behind them, held in ominous reserve, were about sixty members of the Tactical Patrol Force. Up a side street roared half a dozen motorcycle police of the Mobile Operations Patrol, and at the foot of the Monument stood five mounted police in helmets and flak jackets. On the sidewalk nearby were six deputy U.S. marshals, part of the riot-trained Special Operations Group, which had recently returned from Guam, where it had policed Vietnamese refugee camps. Dozens of reporters, local and national, crowded the stoops on either side, ready to record the battle for posterity. Television crews maneuvered for position.

In the second row of marchers, Alice gaped in astonishment at the small army drawn up in their path. Ten feet short of the first policemen, the women stopped. Pat Russell stepped forward and told Superintendent Lawrence Carpenter of the MDC police that she had Captain MacDonald’s permission to continue, but Carpenter told her that if she went past that point she and her followers would be arrested. Then he ordered them to disperse.

Indignantly, Pat refused. “We have permission to march and offer our prayers to God. That’s what we’re going to do.”

“Beyond this point, you’ll be within a hundred yards of the high school. We’ll have to arrest you.”

“What are you talking about?” Pat cried. “We just marched right by the Prescott School, so close we could reach out and touch it. Why don’t you people get your stories straight?”

“I don’t care what you just did,” Carpenter said. “I’m telling you now, you can’t go any further.”

At this, most of the women sank to their knees and began praying again, the “Our Father” this time: “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name …”

Meanwhile, the two police wagons and the detachment of motorcycle police circled behind the marchers and stationed themselves in the middle of High Street at the rear of the procession. The marchers were surrounded.

Negotiations began. Pat Russell spoke for the mothers. Representing the authorities were Police Commissioner Robert DiGrazia, Police Superintendent Joseph Jordan, Public Safety Coordinator Peter Meade, MDC Superintendent Carpenter, Captain MacDonald, and Marty Walsh. In the center of the discussions
was an animated figure in a business suit who, the astonished Townies soon learned, was J. Stanley Pottinger, U.S. Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Rights Division. Pottinger had been designated as the Senior Civilian Representative of the Attorney General for Boston’s school desegregation—the personification of federal power in the crisis—a role he had previously played during the Indian uprising at Wounded Knee and the confrontation at Kent State. His presence on Breed’s Hill that day symbolized the Justice Department’s growing concern over the Boston situation, just as, a decade earlier, Burke Marshall and John Doar had signaled Washington’s determination to enforce the law in Mississippi and Alabama.

For nearly an hour, as the mothers prayed and the police twirled their batons, the negotiators huddled in the street beneath the Bunker Hill Monument trying to resolve their impasse, but they were caught in a stalemate which offered neither side an attractive option.

The mothers, and their male supporters who were quickly gathering on the adjacent sidewalks, sensed that this might well prove to be the crucial confrontation with Judge Garrity and his enforcement mechanism. If they gave in now, they might never again be able to muster this much moral indignation against his orders, yet the manpower massed against them was so overwhelming that physical resistance seemed out of the question. Nor could the police afford to give in. Believing that their “low profile” policy in South Boston the year before had only encouraged violence, police officials—vigorously seconded by the Justice Department—were determined to show the people of Charlestown that a repetition of last year’s disorders would not be tolerated. Yet a melee in which heavily armed police attacked defenseless women and children was unthinkable, if only because it would provide a
cause célèbre
which could fuel the anti-busing movement for months to come.

The negotiators met first together, then in separate caucuses on either side of the street. In the police caucus, fears of a major debacle were rising. “If we let them go through,” Joe Jordan warned, “we’re going to face this every day.”

“But, Joe,” said another official, “look at all those TV cameras. Can’t you just see
The NBC Nightly News
tonight showing us beating on a bunch of women in shorts and sandals.”

“This is starting to look like Porkchop Hill, with everybody digging in to make their stand,” warned Stan Pottinger. “We’ve got to find some graceful way out for these people.”

Ultimately, the police decided to offer the women a “face-saving” compromise. They would be permitted to walk single-file down the south sidewalk of High Street—the side furthest from the high school—to the Training Field, a shady park where eighteenth-century Townies had drilled their militia and where the anti-busing movement often rallied.

Pat Russell took the proposal back to her caucus, where Powder Keg’s leadership promptly rejected it. “We’re not a bunch of cattle who can be led down a chute,” said Alice McGoff.

“We’re going through,” Pat told the police. But Commissioner DiGrazia
insisted that the offer be communicated directly to the rank and file of mothers. For that, he turned to young Dennis Kearney, who, as state representative for the district, had faithfully supported the anti-busing movement, yet who, as a Harvard-educated pragmatist with high political ambitions, wanted to be viewed as a responsible moderate. He promptly agreed to make the appeal. Borrowing a bullhorn from the police, he stood at the head of the march and addressed the mothers: “Nobody’s going to win anything by violence here. Our intent has been to show how strongly we feel about busing. We’ve done that. Now let’s do it by walking quietly, single-file, along the sidewalk to the Training Field, where we’ll have our rally. We’ve come this far with respect and dignity. Let’s not spoil that.”

The mothers wavered, unsure what to do. From the sidewalk, bystanders urged them not to give in. “That’s a sellout.” … “Go back to Harvard, Kearney!” … “Bust on through those goddamned police.” Others, among them several priests from St. Mary’s, implored the mothers to accept the compromise.

Danny McGoff was anxious about his mother. “Ma!” he yelled from the sidewalk. “Ma! You got a bum neck. For Christ’s sake, get out of there.” But Alice didn’t budge.

Slowly, about one hundred mothers—the elderly, the sick, and those with infants and small children—rose to their feet and straggled up the sidewalk to the Training Field. Nearly three hundred remained.

Now Superintendent Jordan took the bullhorn. “Ladies,” he warned, “you will not be permitted to march past this point. You have fifteen minutes to walk to th6 Training Field or you will be subject to arrest.”

The remaining mothers seemed determined. Grimly, those still accompanied by children shunted them to husbands, relatives, or friends on the sidewalk.

Danny resumed his pleading. “Ma, for crying out loud, you’re sick! Get out of there!” Alice’s neck was killing her now; the excitement of the march had only intensified the pain, but having come this far, she was going to see it through. Removing the Thomas Collar, she flipped it across the street to Danny. “Here, take this,” she said, “and shut up.”

The minutes ticked by. A few mothers, mindful of the analogy which Pat Russell had drawn with Martin Luther King’s marches, struck up “We Shall Overcome,” but the song trailed off after a few seconds. Nobody seemed to know the words. Just then Pat Russell shouted, “Okay, girls, this is it. We’re going through. Heads down. Hard and heavy. But keep your hands at your sides. If they touch a woman, they won’t be able to hold this town—and they know it.”

Alice struggled to her feet. From her position in the second row of marchers, she could look across the ten feet of pavement directly into the gray eyes of an MDC sergeant who glared grimly back at her. Pain stabbed down her neck and along her spine, but she squared her shoulders, trying to look as fearless as she could. She was so close she could hear Commissioner DiGrazia
as he moved rapidly along the police lines, whispering urgently, “Don’t push anybody. Just stand in line, shoulder to shoulder. But don’t let them through. If they charge brutality, we’ll have the film.”

With that, the women moved forward in a tight platoon, many still chanting “Hail Marys” and “Our Fathers” under their breath. Some were already weeping. Others had their eyes closed, with purses, shopping bags, or pillows over their faces to ward off the expected blows.

Alice couldn’t bend her neck, so she walked with her head erect, arms slightly raised in front of her.

The front line of police obeyed orders, legs braced to meet the column with an unmoving picket of batons, arms, and shoulders. But here and there the women threatened to break through. Struggling to repel them, some policemen pushed back too vigorously. Scuffles broke out.