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Mary Ellen Smith, a Boston community activist who founded the Citywide Education Coalition (CWEC), reflects on her work in education and community organizing in Boston, as well as the ramifications of the 1974 Garrity decision, which required some students to be bused between Boston neighborhoods with the intention of creating racial balance in the public schools. She discusses the various organizations with which she has worked, including CWEC, the Citywide Coordinating Council, and the Massachusetts Board of Education; her experiences working in the Boston Public Schools; the effects of the Garrity decision on the school system and Boston in general; and the ways that her community work has affected her life.
