Louise Day Hicks

Louise Day Hicks, Boston City Council candidate, October 1969

Anna Louise Day Hicks (October 16, 1916 – October 21, 2003) was an American politician and lawyer from Boston, Massachusetts, best known for her staunch opposition to court-ordered busing in the 1960s and 1970s.

Early life

She was the daughter of William and Anna (née McCarron) Day. Her father was a lawyer and an influential judge in Boston; he inspired her to become a lawyer at a time when female lawyers were rare. Her mother died when she was 14. In 1942, she married John Hicks, an engineer, and they had two sons, John and William.

Career

After her father's death in 1950, Hicks resolved to follow in his footsteps. By 1955, she had earned a law degree from Boston University. She opened a law office — Hicks and Day — with her brother John. She ran successfully for the Boston School Committee in 1961, presenting herself as a reform candidate. In January 1963, she became the Committee chairperson and seemed likely to be endorsed by the leading reform group when, in June, the Boston chapter of the NAACP demanded "an immediate public acknowledgment of de facto segregation in the Boston public school system." At the time, 13 city schools were at least 90% black.

De facto segregation

The Committee refused to acknowledge the segregation. Hicks was recognized as the holdout; within months she became Boston's most popular politician and the most controversial, requiring police bodyguards 24 hours a day. Hicks became nationally known in 1965 when she opposed court-ordered busing of students into inner-city schools to achieve integration.

By refusing to admit segregation existed in city schools and by declaring that children were the "pawns" of racial politics, she came to personify the discord that existed between some working class^{[citation needed]} Irish-Americans and African-Americans. "Boston schools are a scapegoat for those who have failed to solve the housing, economic, and social problems of the black citizen," Hicks said. She asserted that while 13 Boston schools were at least 90% black, Chinatown schools were 100% Chinese, the North End had schools that were 100% Italian American, and South Boston contained schools that were mostly Irish American. The Boston Public Schools included a conglomerate of ethnic Whites ("Caucasians") with very few WASPs.

Mayoral bid, City Council, and Congress

In 1967, Hicks came within 12,000 votes of being elected Mayor of Boston, running on the coded slogan "You know where I stand." The race against fellow Democrat Kevin White became so acrimonious that the Boston Globe broke a 75-year tradition of political neutrality to endorse White. After the unsuccessful mayoral bid, Hicks ran for City Council and won. Two years later, after Speaker John W. McCormack retired, Hicks beat out 11 other candidates to win the Democratic primary for his South Boston-based Congressional district; in heavily Democratic Boston, the winner of that primary was essentially assured victory in the November election. She served one term in the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to 1973, becoming the first female Democrat to represent Massachusetts in the House. A member of the National Organization for Women, while in Congress Hicks lobbied for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. She sought reelection, but was narrowly defeated in the general election by City Councilman Joe Moakley, a more liberal Democrat who was running as an Independent. Moakley reverted to his Democratic party affiliation after he entered the House.

In 1973, Hicks ran for the Boston City Council again and won. Her most notable campaign took place in autumn 1975, after a federal judge ordered Boston schools to expand their busing programs to comply with the 1971 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education decision. To counter the trend, Hicks started an organization called Restore Our Alienated Rights (ROAR) which actively engaged in incidents of massive resistance to school desegregation. In 1976, Hicks was elected the first woman president of the Boston City Council, largely on the strength of ROAR, which was then at its peak. During this time Hicks supported another controversial position, a curfew for minors in the city of Boston.

Retirement

She was defeated for reelection in 1977. In 1979, she filled a vacant seat but lost again in 1981. Hicks began to experience health problems and retired from politics after that.

External links

• Boston Globe obituary
• Guardian obituary
• WGBH Open Vault

United States House of Representatives
Preceded by John W. McCormack	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's 9th congressional district 1971–1973	Succeeded by Joe Moakley