each incredibly interesting in its own right and an important part of the overall story. Moreover, every time Anthony Lukas introduces anything new he goes back to its origins and full history, making the mini histories of Irish, Black Bostonians, the Great Migration, The Boston Globe, the Charlestown high school, Judge Garrity, The Boston Globe, etc. Establishing and understanding that point took inhabiting the minds of several different characters from several perspectives and watching them change over the course of a decade. The point of this book was how complex race relations in general, and busing in particular, were in the 1960s and 1970s in Boston. Sometimes you get the point of a book quickly but it has lots of padding. Common Ground is very long (I mostly listened but partly read it over the course of two months), but I would not have parted with a page of it. Among the best narrative nonfiction books I have ever read, perhaps the best. In addition to the family stories, Common Ground examines many of the issues related to busing, including the protest movements, the disaffection between the "two-toilet" Irish middle class and their working-class brethren, the impact of busing on national politics, and the evolution of the city's newsmedia.Ī television miniseries based on the book aired in 1990.Wow. After six years of combating racial and class tension and street violence, the Divers leave the city for suburban Newton. The Divers are in favor of busing, but the effects hit home when they learn that it may result in their own son being bused to a foreign neighborhood.
Colin Diver, a Harvard Law School graduate and assistant to Mayor Kevin White, and his wife Joan Diver, director of The Hyams Foundation, move into the gentrifying South End, a block from one of the Twymon sisters, who lives with her children in the shoddily constructed Methunion Manor housing project.
The Twymons have long endured sub-standard education and are hoping that busing will finally change this.
The McGoffs are proud residents of Charlestown who see an attempt to change the dynamics of their school as an assault on their families. Each family is directly involved in the busing crisis.
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