Jean McGuire, who in 1981 became the first Black woman elected to the Boston School Committee, is 90 now. She’s vibrant and chatty on a recent morning in her kitchen, eating sweet potato pie before her daily swim. But when the conversation turns to how she lost her school committee seat in 1992, her tone grows steely.
That’s when then-Mayor Ray Flynn successfully led the charge to take control of the Boston school committee by making it an appointed body and knocking out of office every elected member, including rising Black political voices in the days following court-ordered desegregation.
“The whole idea of giving up any vote for anything, [even if] it's dog catcher,” she said with bewilderment, “you don't give it away. That's power!”
That blow to Black political power in Boston has not been forgotten. Two Boston city councilors, Ricardo Arroyo and Julia Mejia, are mustering support for a return to an elected school committee, calling it a matter of righting past wrongs. The councilors also say a shift might help fix an ineffective body that has allowed Black and Hispanic students to fall behind their white peers for decades.
The question of how to structure the committee has also become an issue in this year's mayor's race, with the major candidates split on their views.