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50 years after busing in Boston: ‘My potential was lost’
Victoria Kelley was bused from Roslindale to Jamaica Plain in 1974. She shares her story of busing – fifty years since the desegregation order took effect in September 1974.
This story was told by Victoria Kelley of Roslindale who was part of Boston’s busing program, which began fifty years ago in September 1974. Kelley’s story has been edited from a conversation with Annie Jonas.
It’s been a long time. The majority of it sits with me, and always has. My house bordered Jamaica Plain, and I went to school in Roslindale [before busing]. I was part of busing, and I was just devastated.
We didn’t have much money or anything like that. I grew up pretty much in poverty. But during my time at Roslindale High [before busing], the whole one year I was there, I was in a lot of clubs. I was in the Glee Club, I was in the Honor Society, I was the editor of the class newspaper. I enjoyed school thoroughly. I was on a really good track. I had a lot of potential that I believe was taken away from me because of [busing]. I didn’t have a lot of parental guidance around going to college, things like that. I think school would have been able to guide me in that direction. It brings tears to my eyes now, to talk about it.
I used to walk to school [before busing], and now I had to grab a public bus to go to school. Nobody I knew went to Jamaica Plain High. I didn’t know anyone. So I just went and did whatever it was that I needed to do to graduate.
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I went in and out of Jamaica Plain High as if my eyes were closed. If you were to look back at some of my report cards, you could see the Roslindale grades were probably A’s and A pluses to C’s at Jamaica Plain. I just did whatever I had to do just to get through school, but I had a whole lot more potential than that. I think I was bitter. Even if there were other programs at [JP High], I probably didn’t know or want to seek them out.
It was in my 11th year that the guidance counselor came in and said, ‘Anybody who wants to go interview for John Donnelly & Sons, Inc., [a billboard advertising company], they are looking for secretaries.’ And I thought, ‘I’ll do anything to get out of school.’
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So I went and I interviewed for the job. My last school year was job related. I had to check in at the school and then I’d go to work, and that was part of my grades. I graduated – I made that a goal for myself, but that was it. And then from there my thinking was that school was bad and I didn’t want any part of it anymore. I started working in the billboard advertising company and I stayed in the company for many years.
But I feel that my potential was lost. I didn’t go to college until my daughter was seven or eight. I didn’t even really go to college, that’s how much I disliked school. I just did the book thing that wasn’t even online back then. It was like paperwork, you filled out your homework and mailed it back in, and back and forth. I was able to get my associate’s degree, and that was about it. I had to work. I had a daughter, there wasn’t a lot of time to do anything else. I went right from school to marriage to having a baby to just finding my own way. That’s part of life, you do have to find your own way. But I think I had a lot more potential that I missed out on. I feel that it put me in a totally different direction, that I probably would have gone off to college. I do feel that I would have been a lot more successful in life if I had been if I had stayed where I was. Busing was scary for me. It was totally unknown.
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I still can’t wrap my head around the purpose of it. Why would you take people out of their element to mix them with other people who are also out of their element? Why couldn’t you bring a better situation to them? I’m sure they were just as disrupted in life, we were all disrupted in life. Why disrupt the lives of young teenagers? It screwed up my life. I’m sure there’s very many people out there that feel the same way.
What to read to understand Boston's busing history
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