Stars And Strife:The Racial Collision That Involved The Flag, School Buses, And A Photo That Shocked The Nation
The incident on Boston’s City Hall Plaza took no more than 15 seconds, Ted Landsmark recalls.
What had happened was partly an accident of timing—a collision between a man walking to a meeting and young protesters out to make a point, a skirmish in Boston’s epic confrontation over court-ordered busing to desegregate the city’s public schools.
But in Stanley J. Forman’s photograph, the symbolism of the moment—the anger, the flag, the staggered figure that happened to be Ted Landsmark—seemed to epitomize the frustrations and grievances of a city on the edge.
Boston’s battle over busing dominated local civic life for more than a decade following a federal judge’s 1974 order to desegregate the schools.
On that day, April 5, 1976, Forman went to City Hall Plaza to photograph a demonstration by students opposed to busing.