Chapter 4: World War III: Southie Style

‘Twas on a dreary Thursday morn’

As the buses rolled along.

They came up on out peaceful town

With orders from The Law:

Desegregate and integrate

Or you will pay the price

Of loss of pride, humility,

And even your children’s lives.

But Southie’s spirit was so strong,

They made us a barrack town.

They took their horses, dogs, and guns

and set them on the crowd.

The TPF, their sticks did crack

On the youth and old alike.

But we united still, our spirits high,

We’ll fight for freedom’s right.

                                               -Helen King

            This poem starts off the fourth chapter, and I feel like it definitely geared me up for the chapter. I thought the third chapter was violent…but man; chapter four was like world war three. It was ridiculous.

            In my very first post I talked about Boston at this time, one of the more prominent points being the 1974 bus riots. When I read about it online it seemed like there was some resistance to it, but nothing too major. The way MacDonald described the riots made it seem like a much bigger deal than I thought. In MacDonald’s neighborhood, people lined the streets waiting for the busses full of black kids to roll through and just as they began to, all hell broke loose. Actually, that’s exactly how MacDonald described it, “Then all hell broke loose”. The crowd was throwing anything they could possibly find at the busses, while the cops tried to stop the crowds from rioting. In one section MacDonald actually made it seem like a war zone, describing the helicopters flying above their apartment buildings at night.

            In another act of rebellion, a bunch of people from MacDonald’s neighborhood got together, put pig heads on a stick and wrote things such as “KILL THE PIGS”, taunting the police. Although I was slightly disturbed by this, I had to wonder…Where does one get mass amounts of pig heads on such short notice? It’s something to think about.

            As I was reading through this, I thought it was obvious that the cops were trying to protect the blacks who were traveling through this neighborhood; however that began to come into question. A black man was killed while going through MacDonald’s neighborhood (he was picking his wife up at the Laundromat), and when MacDonald went by the scene of the crime, he noticed that no evidence was picked up to try and find out who killed him. Even MacDonald wrote that when this happened, he wasn’t sure whose side the cops were on. I was even more confused when the cops went into a white bar (with their badges covered) and started beating people up).

            Unrelated to the riots happening in this chapter, MacDonald’s mother, Helen, (who is now pregnant) had a slightly humorous encounter. One of her ex-boyfriends, who is thought to be the father of her unborn child yet is denying it, was in the hospital. Helen wasn’t pleased with the fact that he was denying her unborn child, so she went to the hospital, ripped out all of his tubes and wires, then started beating him up. I realize that she was completely wrong for doing that, but it was a little funny…you go girl.