Urban League of Springfield Records
A community development and service agency founded in 1914, the Urban League of Springfield works to secure equal opportunity for minority groups in such fields as employment, education, housing, health, and personal welfare.
This small collection is tightly focused on the period of the school busing (desegregation) crisis in Springfield, 1974-1975, and the League’s efforts to analyze and respond to the underlying issues in race relations and political engagement. The contents include surveys on racial attitudes and voting behavior in the city along with a selection of publications from the League and a set of board minutes and handouts.
A community development and service agency founded in 1914, the Urban League of Springfield works to secure equal opportunity for minority groups in such fields as employment, education, housing, health, and personal welfare. Advocating for the African American community in the Greater Springfield region, the League’s efforts in promoting academic development, economic self-sufficiency, and racial inclusion are directed toward obtaining full access.
The Urban League was a prominent voice during the tense months that followed Judge Arthur Garrity’s 1974 order to desegregate of the state’s public schools. The focus in Springfield fell largely on the elementary schools, unlike Boston, and resolved into a plan drafted by the Massachusetts Commission on Civil Rights to group the city’s schools into six districts that would preserve a sense of neighborhood integrity, busing children locally to remediate racial imbalance and provide better educational opportunities.
This small collection for is tightly focused on the period of the school busing (desegregation) crisis in Springfield, 1974-1975, and the League’s efforts to analyze and respond to the underlying issues in race relations and political engagement. The contents include surveys on racial attitudes and voting behavior in the city along with a selection of publications from the League and a set of board minutes and handouts.
Gift of Audrey Duckert, 1986.
Processed by I. Eliot Wentworth, Sept. 2015.
)Cite as: Urban League of Springfield Collection (MS 150). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.