Series: The Ten O'Clock News
Date: 1988-06-16
Duration: 00:03:04

Subject: Discrimination
People: Bunte, Doris; Flynn, Raymond; Vaillancourt, Meg;
Geography: South Boston (Boston, Mass.)|

Clip Description
Meg Vaillancourt reports that South Boston residents are opposed to the city's plans to integrate public housing projects. Vaillancourt notes that residents were hostile to Ray Flynn (Mayor of Boston) when he attended a community meeting in South Boston to discuss plans for integration. Vaillancourt's report includes footage of Flynn and Doris Bunte (Boston Housing Authority) at the community meeting. The audience jeers at Flynn. Vaillancourt notes that South Boston residents have not changed their attitudes in the face of evidence that the Boston Housing Authority (BHA) practices discrimination against African American tenants of public housing. Vaillancourt interviews South Boston public housing residents about public housing integration. Many residents are opposed to integration. Some fear that the quality of life in the projects will decline after the housing projects are integrated. Others say that racial violence will be a result of integration. A few residents are not bothered by the prospect of integration. Vaillancourt notes that the controversy over public housing integration evokes memories of the busing crisis in the 1970s. Vaillancourt's report is accompanied by footage of white tenants of South Boston housing projects.

This edition of the Ten O'Clock News also included the following item:
Officials attempt to explain the new rules for the Boston Housing Authority's revised public housing tenant selection policy.
BHA tenant selection policy

Series Description
A local program aimed at the Boston audience, The Ten O'Clock News debuted on January 15, 1976. Its two immediate predecessors were The Reporters and Evening Compass. A news and public affairs show focusing on neighborhood, local and state issues, The Reporters was produced and broadcast on WGBH from 1970 to 1973. The Reporters was then replaced by Evening Compass, which expanded into a twice-nightly news broadcast during the tense moments of Boston's busing crisis. On the air from 1973 to 1975, Evening Compass found an audience through its in-depth coverage of school desegregation in Boston, which began in 1974. The Ten O'Clock News stood out as an in-depth news program. It strove for a balance between local and national stories, between politics and the Arts. The last The Ten O'Clock News program was broadcast on May 30, 1991.

See also: http://main.wgbh.org/ton/programs/5826_02