Urban Sights: Urban History and Visual CultureMain MenuIntroductionConflicting Visions of Renewal in Pittsburgh's Hill District, 1950-1968 by Laura GrantmyreSan Francisco Views: Robert Bechtle and the Reformulation of Urban Vision by Bridget GilmanVisualizing Iraq: Oil, Cinema, and the Modern City by Mona DamlujiFilmic Witness to the 1964 Kitty Genovese Murder by Carrie RentschlerBuses from Nowhere: Television and Anti-busing Activism in 1970s Urban America by Matt DelmontMona Damluji89c6177132ce9094bd19f4e5159eb300a76ef0dfMatthew F. Delmont5676b5682f4c73618365582367c04a35162484d5Bridget Gilman032da9b6b9003c284100547a1d63b1ed9aca49e2Laura Grantmyre8add17c1c26ed9de6b804f44312bd03052f5735eCarrie Rentschlere7ded604f66cae2062fa490f51234edecd44a076
Buses from nowhere – conclusion
12013-08-16T13:16:08-07:00Matthew F. Delmont5676b5682f4c73618365582367c04a35162484d52554plain2016-03-04T14:57:35-08:00Matthew F. Delmont5676b5682f4c73618365582367c04a35162484d5Viewed from one perspective, both Claude Kirk and Irene McCabe were unsuccessful. Busing for school desegregation started in Manatee County and Pontiac, despite their protests. Kirk lost the 1970 gubernatorial election to Reuben Askew and never held elected office again. By the mid-1970s, McCabe was selling real estate in Clarkston, Michigan, 10 miles northwest of Pontiac. Neither Kirk nor McCabe ever received national media attention again. Viewed from another perspective, however, the individual fortunes of Kirk and McCabe are less important than the fact that television news enabled them to push 'busing' as a national issue while separating 'busing' from the historical and legal context for busing orders. Television news coverage of Kirk and McCabe was crucial to establishing a common sense view that, through busing for school desegregation, the rights of parents and homeowners were being violated by activist judges and federal bureaucrats. Television news focused on school desegregation in cities like Bradenton and Pontiac (and later Boston, Cleveland, Louisville and Los Angeles) long enough to capture images of marches, speeches, and fights, but not long enough to detail the structures of racial segregation that led to busing.