At Faneuil Hall, Former City Councilor DiCara Recalls The White Years

By Bob Oakes January 30, 2012

BOSTON — The City of Boston has set two days of mourning this week to honor the late Boston Mayor Kevin White. There will be a public wake Tuesday, followed by a funeral on Wednesday for White, who died Friday at the age of 82.

On Sunday, we headed downtown with former Boston City Councilor Larry DiCara to visit a spot a lot of Bostonians have been coming to in the last couple of days: Faneuil Hall.

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Frank Jones

Kevin did indeed care about Boston. Importantly, he also cared deeply about the people of Boston. To be sure, he was a politician, but he wanted politics to be a force for good. He wanted to bring people together. He tried to be the bonding agent that brought people together across racial, ethnic, and neighborhood turf lines. He knew his city was “racist” (his words) and he wanted to try and change it. The Boston Committee was his brainchild, the theory of which was if people worked together on issues of common concern, the bigotry born of unfair stereotypes would slowly recede as communities and individuals came to regonize that the things that united them were greater than those which divided them.

Unfortunately, Mayor White was tired when this initiative began but his successor, Mayor Ray Flynn, committed his administration to the program and the work continued. Boston is the better for it and many of the fair-minded no longer think of Boston as “the most racist city…”. To the extent that this is true, Mayor White and Mayor Flynn should be credited.