Threatened bridge sabotage forced East Boston to swap forced busing for voluntary magnets.

Evidence

East Boston, for example, had to terminate its “forced busing” policy because the resisting parents threatened to blow up the bridge that connecting it to Boston which would have paralyzed the entire city (Rossell, 47). A voluntary magnet program was implemented and three magnet schools were placed in East Boston. The city reached desegregation goals accomplished solely through voluntary means (Rossell, 47). — Marcy Crouch, Magnet Schools and Other Means of…, 39

Categorization

• CANDY: A school-desegregation standoff escalated to a credible threat to blow up a bridge and paralyze a whole city.
• XREF: Connects to the broader busing-resistance history, e.g. Boston’s anti-busing riots and the racial politics of Northern cities.