The First Anti-Ted Kennedy Tea Party: Boston's Anti-Busing Brigades

While submerged in the WGBH archives, watching old clips on the busing battles that gripped South Boston in the 1970s, I came across this "The 10 O'Clock News" coverage of a September 9, 1974 rally at Government Center denouncing Judge W. Arthur Garrity, who ordered the desegregation of Southie schools. Sen. Ted Kennedy attempts to calm the crowd, but is shouted down and pelted with newspapers and tomatoes.

The WGBH anchor notes a "new touch" to the protest movement, "the abundance of teabags, apparently to signify that the demonstrators were in the same vein of those who tipped the tea into the harbor."

Also note the placard denouncing Judge Garrity is illustrated with a small Irish flag and the letters "IRA."