Leary Warns of Charlestown Violence

Boston School Superintendent William Leary told a Science Center audience of 50 Wednesday that he is "extremely fearful" about the resumption of school busing in Boston this fall, especially about the start of busing in Charlestown, a neighborhood that borders Cambridge.

Leary said he hopes "we don't have any problems anywhere", but said he expects Charlestown and South Boston, the center of busing-related violence last year, to be problem areas in September.

Leary, who will leave office August 30 after three years as school superintendent, answered questions for an hour and a half from a panel of four reporters, sounding discouraged about the strife that has accompanied busing in Boston and unhappy with the anti-busing Boston School Committee.

Race War

"Three years ago I thought I had the answer", he said. "I really believed in an integrated society. I still do, but I don't know any more. In December, I thought we were going to have a race war. I thought, what are we doing this for? why are we doing this?".

If black and white workers would form a "united front" and work together instead of fighting they could make real economic and social progress, Leary said. "The capitalist system has got some problems," he said.

Leary said that because of the interference of the School Committee, he was able to run the Boston school system "pretty freely" for only three months of last year at the beginning of the school term.

Meet Influence

At other times, he said, it was "extremely difficult to function" because of the School Committee, which has more direct influence on the daily running of the schools than any major urban school board in America.

Leary said he would like to see a metropolitan busing plan that would affect the suburbs as well as Boston itself. Boston is an almost completely working class city, he said, and its whites and blacks fight "for the same jobs, the same turf".

Charles V. Willie, professor of Education and one of four court-appointed masters studying busing in Boston, moderated the discussion.