Equal Education Activism at the Robert Gould Shaw/54th Regiment Memorial

Part of the National Parks of Boston series "Desegregation in the Cradle of Liberty," on the Black struggle for equal education in Boston from 1787 to 1976.

During Boston's 20th-century movement for equal education, activists rallied across the city, including at places that are now part of the National Parks of Boston. One of the most visible was the Robert Gould Shaw/54th Massachusetts Regiment Memorial, on Boston Common facing the Massachusetts State House. It was easy to reach and hard to miss — and as a monument to one of the first and most influential Black regiments of the Civil War, it gave the fight for freedom and equal schooling a powerful backdrop. It drew people on every side of that fight.

August 1963: a march for freedom now

In August 1963, Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity founded for African Americans, met in Boston. To support the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in its campaign for equal education, some 500 members marched to the Shaw statue on Boston Common, then past the Boston School Committee on Beacon Street, protesting what they called de facto segregation in the city's public schools — segregation that happened even though no law required it.

Waving small American flags, they also marked the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation with a ceremony at the statue. Charles Wesley, the fraternity's history director and president of Central State College, told them they were answering a call to arms for freedom in the United States, that the nation was in trouble if segregation could persist in Boston, the cradle of liberty, and that they wanted freedom immediately.

June 1965: gathering to be heard

In 1965 the Reverend Robert L. Pruitt of the Boston Ministerial Alliance issued a press release calling on every responsible pastor and every thinking citizen of Roxbury to meet in front of the Shaw Memorial. From there they planned to march to the Boston School Committee's headquarters to press for better educational opportunities, so that their voices — and their numbers — would be heard.

April 1973: protesting the Racial Imbalance Law

As Boston fought over school desegregation, thousands of demonstrators gathered on and around the memorial in April 1973 to protest the Racial Imbalance Law, a 1965 Massachusetts law requiring racially balanced schools. Many came from South Boston, a largely white, working-class neighbourhood soon to be affected by court-ordered busing. Among the leaders was former Congresswoman Louise Day Hicks, who told the crowd that some would criticise them and others call them bigots, but that they should not be discouraged. A newspaper photograph showed white students and adults in front of and on the memorial with signs against busing in South Boston and Charlestown, and students at the rally vowed to keep Black students out of South Boston.

October 1979: the backlash continues

In 1979, with the conflict still raging, white students held a rally at which they hung a "White People's Rights" sign on the memorial. A Boston Herald article observed that the students had climbed all over a monument to one of the country's early examples of racial integration, apparently without reading its inscription or noticing that the soldiers marching behind Shaw were Black.

November 1979: love thy neighbour

To ease the city's explosive racial divide over busing, interfaith leaders launched a "love thy neighbor" campaign in 1979. Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim leaders held an ecumenical service beside the memorial to Black Civil War soldiers, attended by an estimated 4,000 people.

1981: a stirring symbol

In the early 1980s, as the city moved towards healing — and as the monument suffered from acid rain and vandalism — Boston leaders formed the Committee to Save the Shaw/54th Regiment Memorial. Its co-chairman, John D. O'Bryant, said the monument showed what everyone should strive for: access, equality and a better way of life. Another member, John T. Galvin, wrote that no memorial in the country so vividly symbolised what the nation should stand for — Black and white soldiers fighting side by side for a noble common cause — and hoped Boston's schoolchildren, Black and white, would learn its lesson. Henry Lee of the Friends of the Public Garden, which oversaw the restoration, hoped it might help heal present conflicts, while admitting that no one expected one small effort to make great waves.

"Effort, not victory complete"

At the memorial's dedication in 1897, Booker T. Washington said the monument stood "for effort, not victory complete," and urged: "What these heroic souls of the 54th Regiment began, we must complete." Many in Boston's 20th-century education movement tried to answer that call at the memorial.

Today, students and visitors from around the world learn about the 54th Massachusetts Regiment there. The memorial is also the starting point of the Black Heritage Trail, which explores the struggle for abolition and equal rights in 1800s Boston.

Sources

Based on "Equal Education Activism at the Robert Gould Shaw/54th Regiment Memorial," part of the series "Desegregation in the Cradle of Liberty," published by the National Park Service, Boston African American National Historic Site and Boston National Historical Park; much of it first appeared in the National Parks of Boston feature "The Ongoing March: Commemoration and Activism at the Robert Gould Shaw/54th Regiment Memorial"; rewritten in hubnx's own words.

• The article draws on the Boston Herald, Boston Record American, Boston Traveler, Springfield Union and Boston Globe (1963–1982), a 1965 press release held by Northeastern University Library, and The Monument to Robert Gould Shaw (1897).
• The article's photograph of the memorial, credited to a named photographer, and its newspaper images are not reproduced.
• Words on this page from people and organisations outside the federal government are paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx's own words.