An audio documentary series about struggles within the United States.
Each six-episode season covers one local story, told from the
viewpoint of working-class people.
The Point
Rebellion and Resistance in Boston Public Housing
Episode One, "Placement"
Mothers at the Columbia Point project form a blockade to stop dump trucks carrying waste
from urban renewal on Mount Vernon Street in Dorchester, 1962. (Boston Herald)
At a new public housing project in Boston, mothers organize to try and close
the city dump. Meanwhile, a Black freedom movement emerges across Northern cities.
[transcript |
mp3]
Episode Two, "Grove Hall"
Members of the Mothers for Adequate Welfare, known as "MAW," gather at a community space
at the Columbia Point housing project. (WGBH)
During a period of urban rebellion, welfare rights advocates in Boston public housing use militant
tactics to get services they are owed.
[transcript |
mp3]
Episode Three, "Rent Strike"
Occupations and squats were common in the South End during the late 60s and early 70s.
At "Tent City," Mel King, Chuck Turner, and others occupied a cleared lot in protest of plans for
a parking lot to be built there. (Northeastern University)
Tenants take their growing dissatisfaction and aim it at their landlord, the Boston Housing Authority.
[transcript |
mp3]
Episode Four, "Free Breakfast"
Free Breakfast for School Children, a "survival program" led by the Black Panther Party, combined service
to the hungry with a revolutionary program of socialism and self-determination. (Stephen Shames)
Sisters Angie Irving and Linda Wade bring the Black Panthers to Columbia Point.
[transcript |
mp3]
Episode Five, "Carson Beach"
During the 1970s, Columbia Point was subjected to white racism, police brutality,
and extreme neglect. (Spencer Grant)
In the turmoil of busing, Betty Ann Jones advocates armed defense while Betty Washington and Dorothy Haskins lead a wade-in to protest segregation.
[transcript |
mp3]
Episode Six, "False Hope"
Children play outside circa 1987, the last year of Columbia Point before demolition. (Linda Swartz)
Columbia Point tenants face new management and a private police force.
[transcript coming soon... |
mp3]
Reading Series
People's Anthology
A series of texts and speeches related to the era of urban rebellion,
from Claudia Jones to the Combahee River Collective.
People's History is an independent podcast and radio series examining the past
from the perspective of the working class.
Our first season, The Point, traces a social history of Boston from
the urban rebellions of the 1960s, through busing in the 70s, into the
Clinton era.
We investigate these events from the lens of one community:
Columbia Point, the largest public housing project in New England.
Built on an isolated landfill site next to the Boston city dump,
it was the site of major organizing, from welfare rights to a Free
Breakfast for Children program. It was also the first federal public
housing project to be sold off and redeveloped as private
"mixed-income" development (and was a model for the federal policy
"HOPE VI").
This is the untold story of the tenant struggles in and around
Boston public housing. It’s a story about working people—mainly
Black mothers—standing up to the mayor’s office, leading
sit-ins to get the services they were owed, fighting evictions,
and organizing for a better life.
Team
Alejandro Ramirez is an associate editor of Nashville Scene, and
grew up in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He is the former editor of
Spare Change News in Boston. Conor Gillies grew up in Maine and
studied history at Boston University. Formerly a producer for Radio
Open Source.
Co-produced by Alison Bruzek, Rehanna Fernandez Nuñez, Rosie Gillies,
and Qainat Kahn with help from Ed Paget, Patrick King, and Caitlin Rose.
Editing help from Ben Shapiro and Alissa Quart. Theme music by
Marisa Anderson, original score by Visitor, which
is a project of Liz Harris
and Ilyas Ahmed.
Header art by Seena Mavaddat. Detail from "Community Power," copperplate print, 2019.
