Tallulah Morgan facts for kids

Tallulah Morgan (born in 1948) was the main person who started an important court case called Morgan v. Hennigan. This case helped end the separation of students by race in the Boston school system during the 1970s.

Early Life of Tallulah Morgan

Tallulah Morgan's early life isn't fully clear. Some information suggests she was a student in the Boston Public Schools. However, other detailed sources, like the book Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade on the Lives of Three American Families, describe her as "a twenty-four-year-old mother of three school-age children."

This is supported by the first official document filed in the Morgan v. Hennigan case. It lists Mrs. Tallulah Morgan and her three children: Petri, Kimberly, and Kirsten.

Tallulah Morgan was a Black woman living in Boston and working hard. The lawsuit showed her frustration with how Boston Public Schools separated students by race. It also showed how schools with mostly Black students did not receive enough money.

The Morgan v. Hennigan Lawsuit

Tallulah Morgan was the first person named in a big lawsuit against the Boston School Committee. The School Committee's director, James Hennigan, was named as the main defendant. The lawsuit accused the School Committee of purposely creating and keeping schools separated by race in the Boston School District.

The lawsuit was filed on March 14, 1972, by the Boston Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The judge for the case was Judge W. Arthur Garrity. He announced his decision on June 21, 1974.

Why the Lawsuit Was Filed

The people who filed the lawsuit claimed that the Boston School Committee had denied Black students fair treatment under the law. They said this happened through several practices, including:

• How students were assigned to schools.
• How school zones were drawn, which reflected neighborhoods separated by race.
• How schools were built and expanded.
• How students were transported.

Another accusation was that the School Committee had treated people unfairly when hiring and assigning teachers. They also said the committee did not share resources equally. They claimed the committee discriminated against Black children when admitting them to certain schools. The lawsuit also stated that the committee knowingly spent less money on teaching for some children. All these actions violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. This meant Black children were not given equal access to education, which the Constitution guarantees.

Judge Garrity's Findings

Judge Garrity's investigation confirmed that the Boston school system was indeed separated by race. He found that the city officials had not used their power to redraw school zones to reduce racial separation, even though they knew they could. In one case, they even used redistricting to make racial separation worse in schools.

Similarly, he found that the way students moved from one school to another, the open enrollment policy, and the rules for hiring and promoting teachers all helped keep schools separated by race. These practices also led to lower quality education in schools where most students were Black.

Legacy of the Case

Tallulah Morgan's victory in this lawsuit led to major efforts to break down the system of separate education. The court decided that the defendants had, many times, made choices that kept racial separation alive in the Boston school system. This meant they had acted against the Constitution.

The court then created "remedial guidelines." These were rules aimed at fixing the problems caused by the policies that had led to racial separation. The court stated that simply acting "neutral" was no longer enough to meet constitutional requirements.

Judge Arthur W. Garrity ordered and watched over the process of ending racial separation in Boston Public Schools through busing. This process began with Black students from the Roxbury neighborhood being bused to the white, working-class neighborhood of South Boston, and white students being bused to Roxbury. The problems that followed started when the busing program began in the fall of 1974 and lasted for several years. The Boston Busing Crisis became one of the most well-known battles to end racial separation in the northern United States.

The Tallulah Morgan Education Foundation was started in September 1979. The foundation's goal was to represent Black Bostonians who wanted better education for students of color. The foundation created scholarships and grants to help Black students and civil rights groups. It also organized conferences for people who supported ending racial separation. The foundation also did community work, like surveys about what people thought of Boston Public Schools and efforts to end racial separation. It is not clear if this foundation is still active today.