John J. Kerrigan

John J. Kerrigan (1932-1996) was a member of the Boston School Committee from 1968 to 1975, and a member of the City Council from 1975 to 1977.[1] He was one of the leading opponents of the plan to integrate the Boston Public School through busing.[2][3]

John J. Kerrigan
Chairman of the Boston School Committee
In office
1969–1969
Preceded byThomas Eisenstadt
Succeeded byJoseph Lee
In office
1974–1974
Preceded byPaul R. Tierney
Succeeded byJohn J. McDonough

Kerrigan was chair of the school committee when, in December 1974, it voted to refuse to comply with the order of Federal District Judge Wendell Arthur Garrity Jr. to desegregate the Boston Public Schools.[4]

Kerrigan entered politics through the encouragement of future Mayor John F. Collins, who was a patient at the medical center where Kerrigan was working as an orderly.[5] Collins encouraged Kerrigan to get advanced schooling, which lead to him getting a law degree from Northeast Law School and later a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts.

Kerrigan argued that sending children on long bus rides from one neighborhood to another would not improve the quality of their education.[6] As a school committee member Kerrigan particularly criticized suburban support for busing, and in 1972 introduced a busing bill solely intended to bus students from inner-city schools into the suburban school district where the governor lived.[7] In 1974 he and two other committee members defied a court order to implement a busing plan to desegregate Boston schools, resulting in a contempt of court ruling that Kerrigan called "a gun that's held to the head of the people of Boston."[8] The Boston Globe later characterized Kerrigan's derogatory racial comments about a black reporter during this time as "the most ignominious moment in the stained history of the elected Boston School Committee."[9] After Kerrigan's election to the City Council, the School Committee resumed plans to desegregate the school system.[10]

Kerrigan joined the white flight to the suburbs caused by school busing, moving to Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1978.[6]

In 1994 Kerrigan ran unsuccessfully for the Governor's Council.[1] After a cancer diagnosis, he expressed public regret for being "more abusive than most."[11] Kerrigan died in 1996 at the age of 64. He was a practicing Catholic.[12]

References
  1. Sullivan, Paul (August 15, 1996). "OBITUARY - John J. Kerrigan, 64, outspoken busing foe". Boston Herald. p. 65.
  2. Kifner, John (October 31, 1973). "Boston School Board to Ask for High Court Ruling on State Order to Seek Racial Balance". The New York Times. Retrieved September 12, 2018.
  3. Reinhold, Robert (September 30, 1973). "Boston 8 years ago integrated schools intelligently". The New York Times. Retrieved September 12, 2018.
  4. Kifner, John (17 December 1974). "JUDGE IN BOSTON DEFIED ON BUSING: School Committee Refuses, 3-2, to Approve Staff Plan for City Desegregation Judge in Boston Is Defied on Busing Plan". New York Times. ProQuest 120154694.
  5. Lukas, J. Anthony (1985). Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families. Knopf. ISBN 9780394411507.
  6. Rezendes, Michael (7 September 1992). "Antibusing crusader returns, unhorsed A changed John Kerrigan seeks elective office". Boston Globe. ProQuest 294719517.
  7. Formisano, Ronald P. (2012). Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807869703.
  8. Kifner, John (December 31, 1974). "3 on Boston School Panel Fined Over Busing Order". The New York Times. Retrieved September 12, 2018.
  9. Rezendes, Michael (July 22, 1991). "Boston School Committee: uneven past, uncertain future". Boston Globe.
  10. Williams, Preston N.; Lovin, Robin W. (1978). "Rights and Remedies: A Study of Desegregation in Boston". The Journal of Religious Ethics. 6 (2): 137–163. JSTOR 40014910.
  11. Editorial Board (August 19, 1996). "John J. Kerrigan: 1932-1996". Boston Globe. p. A22.
  12. Gribble, Richard (2006). "Cardinal Humberto Medeiros and the Desegregation of Boston's Public Schools, 1974-1976". Journal of Church and State. 48 (2): 327–353. doi:10.1093/jcs/48.2.327. JSTOR 23922334.

Sources
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