Hicks, Louise Day, 1916-2003

<p>A controversial critic of busing to achieve racial desegregation in the Boston public schools, Louise Day Hicks won election in 1970 to fill the Massachusetts congressional seat of retiring Speaker John W. McCormack. Expectations were that Hicks would become a prominent opponent in Congress of federal efforts to enforce busing programs. But Congresswoman Hicks instead spent much of her single term in the House working to return to power in her home city.</p>

<p>Anna Louise Day was born on October 16, 1916, in South Boston, Massachusetts. Her parents, William J. Day and Anna McCarron Day, raised their four children in a three-story, 18-room house in the predominantly Irish-Catholic community. Louise Day lived there her entire life. William Day eventually became a popular Democratic district court judge. Anna Day died when Louise was just 14, leaving her husband as the principal role model for the children. Years later, Louise recalled that William Day was “the greatest influence in my life … my first and only hero. My father must have been the creator of women’s lib because he felt there were no limitations to what I could do or to the opportunities I should be exposed to.” Louise Day graduated from Wheelock Teachers’ College in 1938 and taught first grade for several years. On October 12, 1942, she married John Hicks, a design engineer. The couple raised two sons: William and John. As a young mother, Louise Day Hicks earned a BS in education in 1952 from Boston University. In 1955, as one of just nine women in a class of 232, Hicks graduated with a JD from Boston University’s School of Law. She was admitted to the Massachusetts bar the following year and, with her brother John, established the law firm of Hicks and Day in Boston. She served as counsel for the Boston juvenile court in 1960.</p>

<p>Hicks’s first foray into political office came when she won election to the Boston school committee, which she chaired from 1963 to 1965. At the time, she clashed with the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) over a proposal to integrate Boston schools by busing students to different districts to achieve racial balance. Hicks gained national attention as a stalwart opponent of busing and as the leading defender of “neighborhood schools.” Hicks’s position on busing brought her notoriety, including a Newsweek cover story and local and national condemnation. Under constant threat, she sought a permit to carry a handgun and was regularly accompanied by bodyguards. “No one in their right mind is against civil rights,” she remarked at the time. “Only, let it come naturally.” She criticized white liberals who lived outside the city but supported busing as a remedy for educational inequalities in urban neighborhoods. “Boston schools are a scapegoat for those who have failed to solve the housing, economic, and social problems of the black citizen,” she declared. Congress of Racial Equality leader James Farmer denounced Hicks as “the Bull Connor of Boston,” alluding to the police commissioner of Birmingham, Alabama, who turned fire hoses and police dogs on peaceful civil rights marchers. Despite the protestations of the NAACP and the Boston media, she was handily re-elected to the school committee in 1964. In 1967, armed with the slogan “You Know Where I Stand,” she ran against Kevin White for Boston mayor and drew 30 percent of the vote in a 10-candidate race, but ended up losing to White by 12,000 votes. In 1969 she won election to the Boston city council by an overwhelming majority.</p>

<p>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 desegregation in Boston public schools, and especially to court-ordered busing, in the 1960s and 1970s. A longtime member of Boston's school board and city council, she served one term in the United States House of Representatives, succeeding John William McCormack.</p>

<p>The daughter of a wealthy and prominent attorney and judge, Hicks attended Simmons College and received her qualification as a teacher from Wheelock College. She worked as a first-grade teacher in Brookline, Massachusetts prior to marrying in 1942. After the births of her two children, Hicks returned to school and completed a Bachelor of Science degree at Boston University in 1952. In 1955, she received a JD from Boston University Law School, attained admission to the bar, and entered into partnership with her brother as the firm of Hicks and Day.</p>

<p>In 1960, Hicks won election to Boston's school board, where she served until 1970, including holding the position of chairwoman from 1963 to 1965. During her tenure on the school committee, she came into conflict with civil rights groups and black residents of Boston over her opposition to plans to integrate schools by busing students between districts to achieve racial balance. From 1970 to 1971, she served on the Boston City Council. In 1970, she won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House seat of the retiring John McCormack. She went on to win the general election and serve one term, 1971 to 1973. In 1971, she was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Boston. She was defeated for reelection to Congress in 1972 by Joe Moakley, a Democrat who ran as an independent.</p>

<p>After leaving Congress, Hicks was the head of an anti-busing group, "Restore Our Alienated Rights" (ROAR), which remained active until a 1976 federal court decision mandated busing to achieve integration in public schools. In 1974, Hicks returned to the Boston City Council, and she served until 1978, including holding the council president's position in 1976. She lost reelection in 1977, but was appointed to fill a vacancy in 1979. She served until 1981, and was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection. Hicks died in Boston in 2003, and was buried at Saint Joseph Cemetery in West Roxbury.</p>