At that twelfth hour meeting, Miss Marguerite Sullivan, assistant Superintendent of Schools, appeared without warning, to present a new distribution plan which Ohrenberger had just drafted. The plan was to transport certain special classes and programs to other schools, thus relieving overcrowding in Roxbury without directly violating the School Committee's prohibition.
Ohrenberger's timing made it appear that he had thrown the plan hastily together at the last minute when it became clear that Operation Exodus would go into effect-with a good deal of publicity-the next day.
Mrs. Jackson, chairman of the parents meeting, refused to bring the plan up for discussion. "We didn't particularly feel as if we should give in to a last minute plan which they weren't even sure could be executed," she said.
That night about 275 families signed up for Operation Exodus, and the next day 400 children boarded buses for four white schools which had had vacancies last spring. At two of the schools, the principals refused to let the Negro children into the classrooms since they did not have transfer slips from their Roxbury principals. At one of these, all the schoolchildren, white and black alike, were locked out until an unsuspecting janitor opened a door and the Exodus children streamed inside.
Eventually they were allowed to sit in auditoriums and hallways in both schools, and the next day were admitted into classes, with a period of grace in which to obtain transfer slips.
Four new schools took in Exodus children the next day, and at present 327 kids are being bused to 13 schools outside Roxbury.
The central question which the Operation Exodus incident raises is, why did Eisenstadt introduce his resolution when he did? While he and Mrs. Hicks portray the ban on busing as a defense of the neighborhood school, over 1000 students had been bused last year, without raising a public objection from anyone on the School Committee. If Eisenstadt had not put the busing plan to a vote, it probably would not have become a partisan issue.
The answer lies in the two crucial differences between this year's busing proposal and that of last year. first, all the new students to be bused-50 per cent more than last year-are Negro.
Political Hobbyhorse
Second and even more important, the School Committee's biennial elections are coming up this November. Observers have speculated that Eisenstadt felt that he was losing votes because he had endorsed a motion for the School Committee to meet with the leaders of the school boycott of 1964. His new busing proposal, however, placed him solidly back in the Hicks camp, and provided both him and Mrs. Hicks with a political hobbyhorse for the coming campaign.
And, if the preliminary election vote is any indication (Mrs. Hicks ran way out in front and Eisenstadt was second), a large number of people were convinced. Mrs. Hicks' proportion of the vote increased substantially over the 1963 returns in atleast four of the precincts containing Exodus-receiving schools.
On the other hand, Operation Exodus has provided important lessons for the present and the future. For the present, it has demonstrated that busing large numbers of Negro children into white schools does not lead to riots and mass withdrawals. Despite the way they voted, few white parents went so far as to withdraw their children from the schools receiving Negro students.
Its implications for the future are even greater. Under Massachusetts' new Racial Imbalance Act, all school boards must submit a plan for eliminating de facto segregation, or face the loss of state aid. At present 42 of Boston's 195 schools have non-white majorities.
It is clear that as soon as Mrs. Hicks and company stop playing political football with the busing issue, the School Committee can settle down to concrete planning for better racial distribution and better education for Boston's students