Today in Boston history: NAACP calls out segregation in schools

Flashback: After Boston School Committee members said de facto segregation did not exist in BPS, the Boston NAACP issued a 12-page report with several recommendations.

• The report called for "race relations" training for teachers and principals, diverse media representation in schoolbooks and other visual aids, smaller class sizes for first through third grades and an investigation into why BPS had no Black principals.

Reality check: The school committee still denied the existence of de facto segregation afterward and didn't consider those changes until more than a decade later, following the federal busing order.

Yes, but: The Boston NAACP branch kept fighting with the following promise in mind: "We here pledge that our children shall not be handicapped in the way we, their parents, have been," members wrote in the 1963 report.

• "We at least want them to be armed with the best possible education. Thus armed, the future of this country, of this state, of this our city will be immeasurably enriched."

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