The ways Boston changed
The iconic photograph, which came to symbolize the racial strife that gripped Boston during the school-busing crisis of the 1970s, speaks for itself. Against the backdrop of City Hall Plaza, a white teenager carrying a flagpole bearing the American flag looks like he is about to spear an African-American man. Dubbed “The Soiling of Old Glory,” the image won Boston Herald American photographer Stanley Forman a Pulitzer Prize in 1977. The victim, Theodore Landsmark, suffered a broken nose in the assault, and was suddenly cast as a spokesman on issues of social justice, a role he hadn’t envisioned for himself. When the picture was taken, Landsmark, a Yale-educated attorney, was on his way to City Hall. He hadn’t been paying attention to the protests against court-ordered busing aimed at ending segregation in Boston schools. In October, Landsmark discussed the incident with students enrolled in “Reinventing (and Reimagining) Boston: The Changing American City.”...