50 years ago this week, residents of one Boston neighborhood carried out an act of civil disobedience, bringing attention to the city’s need for affordable housing. A group of mostly African American residents occupied an empty lot where rowhouses once stood. It was Boston’s 1968 Tent City protest, and it helped change how the city approaches development and urban planning.
Tent City
- An overview of urban renewal in the South End.
- An overview of the Tent City protest from Mass Humanities.
- SEPAC newsletter collection.
- A 1978 report looks at the Tent City site after ten years.
- A ton of Tent City documents have been digitized by the Internet Archive.
- Mel King gives his opinions of the 2011 Occupy Boston protest.
- Read Mel King’s book Chain of Change: Struggles for Black Community Empowerment.
- Boston’s housing crisis by the numbers.
- WHDH footage of the Tent City protest from 1968.
- Follow up coverage from WGBH in 1981.
- WGBH covers the opening of Tent City leasing in 1987.
- WGBH talks to Mel King and Betty Meredith as the development opens in 1988.
- Getty has pictures of the Tent City protest: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Featured Historic Site
In a small commercial space on Staniford Street, near the TD Garden, a small museum keeps the memory of a bygone neighborhood alive. The West End Museum is focused on development and urban renewal, with a special focus on the historic West End. The West End was one of early Boston’s major neighborhoods, hugging the banks of the river Charles between Beacon Hill and a lagoon that divided it from the North End. In the late 19th century, it was home to immigrants from all over the world. In the 20th century, it became Boston’s most densely populated, most diverse neighborhood, so of course the city decided that it had to be knocked down in order to build luxury housing.
Learn the full story at the West End Museum, which is open Tuesday through Friday from noon to 5pm and Saturday from 11am to 4pm. Admission is $5.
Upcoming Event
On May 17th, author and librarian Corinne Smith will give a presentation called “Mom’s World War II Letters” at the Watertown Public Library.
In May, 2017, Corinne Smith found her mother’s stash of more than 100 letters from 16 servicemen with whom she had corresponded from 1944-1945. Most of the men were from Allentown, PA, or Trenton, NJ. Corinne began to trace the soldiers’ family trees with one goal in mind: to return the letters in person to their children. She started a Mom’s WWII Letters (1944-1945) blog to document this project. This presentation will link history and genealogy to present-day research and diligence. It will revisit a time that we may not want to forget and may prompt others to wonder for themselves what treasures lurk in their old family boxes and how the information can be shared with others.
The program is free and registration isn’t required. Find out more.