Positive Action in Roxbury

"The Long Hot Summer" was a tired cliche when Boston's prediminantly Negro community of Roxbury ushered in this year's season on June 2. A sit-in demonstration by the Mothers for Adequate Welfare at a Roxbury welfare office escalated into a clash between police and local youths that was followed by several nights of violence.

Scores of people were hospitalized and arrested as a result of the violence, which left a series of charges and countercharges in its wake. Negroes criticized the police for starting the violence by beating the demonstrators; Roxbury's Bay State Banner printed a headline reading "Police Riot in Grove Hall..." Whites, from Richard Cardinal Cushing to Mrs. Louise Day Hicks, criticized the Negroes for their lack of restraint.

Almost the only positive action to come out of the situation was Boston Mayor John F. Collins' appointment of a group to study welfare conditions in Boston.

Collins, who has announced that he will not seek reelection in November, has compiled a record of achievement in Boston that leaves the city with only one major problem within his control: race relations. For political reasons, Collins has often been forced to take a rough stand with the Negro community. Now that he no longer must curry the favor of the voters, he has an ideal opportunity--perhaps Boston's last real chance--to improve the city's racial situation.

The investigation of the Boston welfare program is a start, a small start, but much remains to be done. Collins, of course, cannot do everything, but there are several programs and measures which he should at least initiate.

* City Hall should establish regular communication with the Roxbury community. This could be done through regular meetings with Negro representatives who are in close contact with, and have the confidence of, all segments of Roxbury society. Until now, the mayor's office has been far too inaccessible to such representatives, but meetings were held during the recent violence and should be continued. Collins might also establish a "little city hall" in Roxbury along the lines proposed by Mayor John V. Lindsay in New York City.

* Most immediately, the police department should ensure greater retraint by policemen in Roxbury and work to improve existing police-community relations programs from both ends. Furthermore, police protection in Roxbury should be strengthened; at present there are no foot patrolmen in the area, and Negroes are the main victims of the crime that the police have allowed to flourish in their neighborohod.

* City agencies and local businesses should work together with Roxbury organizations to increase job training and job recruitment in Roxbury.

* Housing regulations should be strictly enforced in Roxbury. One of the most negligent landlords in the city is the Boston Housing Authority, which allows intolerable conditions and lack of services to prevail in its public housing projects.

* Massachusetts' model fair housing laws and the statutes forbidding discriminatory employment practices should be fully enforced. The city should also consider the construction of new low-cost housing; no such public housing, except for the elderly, has been built in over a decade despite massive urban renewal.

* Adequate sanitation services, park maintainance, recreational facilities, and street repair in Roxbury should be assured. The lack of such services has been the subject of recurrent complaints by Negro activists.

* Action for Boston Community Development, the local War on Poverty agency, should allow full and meaningful community representation on its policy-making executive board. Other city agencies should also give Roxbury a real chance to be heard in the decision-making process.

* The City Council, which is currently elected city-wide, should be reorganized to assure Roxbury's representation. Either proportional representation or a system of district councilmen would achieve this goal.

Roxbury, with a relatively small population of 80,000, a large and active middle class, a wealth of community consciousness, and potential economic vialibity, could still become a model of development for the rest of the orNth. Crucial areas such as education are not within the control of City Hall. But Collins still has a unique opportunity to make Roxbury part of the New Boston he created. The chance is too good to miss.