The Boston Globe: Dean Emeritus Hubie Jones Recalls Strength of Racial Justice Movement in Boston in Years Preceding Desegregation

Inspired by a new event series that commemorates the 50th anniversary of the landmark 1974 desegregation ruling, The Boston Globe speaks to Hubie Jones, dean emeritus of Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW), about his leadership in Boston’s racial justice movement.

Excerpted from “Long before school desegregation in Boston, these Black leaders were pushing for racial equity in education” (The Boston Globe) by Niki Griswold:

Hubie Jones, a veteran social justice activist and dean emeritus of the Boston University School of Social Work, recalled organizing a one-day economic boycott to “get the attention of white leaders, business as well as civic leaders and political leaders, to know that they have been ignoring the grievances of Black people for too long.”

He said he marched with hundreds of people down Columbus Avenue, and by the time they reached the Boston Common, the crowd had grown to nearly 1,000 people.

“The presence was felt, and the message was sent,” said Jones.

Hubie Jones, dean of BUSSW from 1977 to 1993, has been an integral part of Boston’s civic landscape for more than five decades. In addition to his numerous academic leadership roles, he has led dozens of community organizations focused on the Black population in Boston, with a particular focus on childhood inequities. His Task Force on Children Out of School (now the Massachusetts Advocacy Center) published the 1970 report The Way We Go to School: The Exclusion of Children in Boston, an exposé of systematic exclusion in Boston Public Schools that led to two landmark laws mandating special education and bilingual education.

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