Although the 1974 Boston school desegregation busing crisis remains decades later a bitter memory for many, Daniel Adams, whose “The Walk” recreates that era, feels now is the right time for a reconsideration.
In 1974, students from basically Black and white areas were bused under court order. Over the first three years, there was a “white flight” to the suburbs.
“Among my earliest childhood memories,” Adams, 60, explained, “was of my dad who was a civil rights activist in the ’60s and ’70s. He was on the Mayor’s Commission on Civic Unity. He was head of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. And one of his jobs was to help integrate the schools back then.
“Some of my earliest childhood memories was getting rocks thrown through our window and death threats over the phone for my father. I was just a little kid and obviously those childhood experiences stuck with me.
“So when my co-writer George Powell suggested this story, it was something that was always in the back of my mind. I wanted to tackle the subject.”
“The Walk” is neither documentary nor a docu-style drama. Fictionalized characters represent the opposing sides led by a South Boston cop (Justin Chapman of “Shameless”) who secretly sympathizes with Black efforts to fight oppressive racism and a Black father (Terrence Howard, “Iron Man,” “Hustle & Flow”) whose 18-year-old daughter will be bused to South Boston.
Malcolm McDowell (“Father Stu,” “A Clockwork Orange,” “Bombshell”) is a Southie mob boss modeled on Whitey Bulger who stokes violence to prevent desegregation.
“It’s fiction but it’s got a backdrop of fact,” Adams noted. “There were riots on the first day of school. Mayor White did have to bring in all the police. There were stabbings, lots and lots of people beaten up.
“The footage you see on the TVs in the film is all actual footage. That was not recreated. And there certainly was a mob boss at that time in South Boston.
“George, my co-writer, his sister was being bused into South Boston. So George remembers from the other side, the other perspective of what it was like.
“We’ve had a lot of people that have seen the film; it really evokes a lot of painful memories for them because of that time period.”
Was this resurrection of that era partly because it’s being echoed now?
“It’s a subject that really has to be discussed. The problem is that we haven’t come very far. In fact I find we’ve regressed.”
“The Walk” opens Friday at the Kendall Square Cinema and on VOD. Adams and Powell do a Q&A Saturday at the 6:30 p.m. Kendall Square screening. On Sunday, Mayor Michelle Wu along with U.S. Rep. Ayanna Presley and other Boston elected officials will host a private screening with a young audience. “They will be talking about how far we’ve come as far as the racism issue,” Adams said.
Read More: Daniel Adams revisits Boston busing crisis in ‘The Walk’