Author Zebulon Vance Miletsky will discuss recent book, Before Busing: A History of Boston's Long Black Freedom Struggle. Before Busing tells the story of the men and women who struggled and demonstrated to make school desegregation a reality in Boston. It reveals the legal efforts and battles over tactics that played out locally and influenced the national Black freedom struggle. And the book gives credit to the Black organizers, parents, and children who fought long and hard battles for justice that have been left out of the standard narratives of the civil rights movement. What emerges is a clear picture of the long and hard-fought campaigns to break the back of Jim Crow education in the North and make Boston into a better, more democratic city—a fight that continues to this day. Zebulon Vance Miletsky is associate professor of Africana Studies at Stony Brook University.

Presented in partnership with Tewksbury Public Library and other libraries from across MA and NH.