The social forces influenced the lives of youth in Boston and required sudden changes. Following are some case studies that demonstrate the struggle, desire, doggedness, and victory over those obstacles: The Busing situation in Boston in 1970s and DSNI (Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative) and the whole complex process provided by young people willing their time to find the solutions for their problems. These are two topics where brave enough people were aware of the seriousness of their situations and found desire to overcome their problems.

Boston, during 1970s was a time of racism, and inequality. The place where the Revolution was “born” now was becoming an arena of fights, protests, and horrible incidents between students of different races as well as their parents; adults whose were fighting to better the lives of their children. In “De jure” community, where desegregation was required by law, the District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity, Jr. ordered “racial balance”. Everything started to get complicated. Parents, students, teachers, government could not find a consensus to solve all educational and racial problems. Everybody was hoping to achieve what they wanted and nobody was about to give anything up. In this case study we will focus on Geography, social/cultural values and education.

           The connection of social forces to the experiences and actions of leaders, parents and students in the 1970s are apparent. The first social force I’d like to write about is Geography and the whole mess between the northern and southern parts of Boston, between blacks and whites, between rich and poor, and finally between equal and unequal. Dorchester and South Boston were the settings of those inequalities and events that none of the sides ended being happy about. The situation was getting out of control; hatred between two races was endless, causing those foolish people to fight, attack, kick, hit, throw rocks at the buses with “niggers” and “crack heads” inside, and write the graffiti on the walls titled “KILL NIGGERS”. Everything was caused by differences of color, skin, culture, or language. For example, an African-American girl from Charlestown High School who found her education as one of the most difficult lessons of her life admitted that it’s all because she had to go to a different neighborhood where she was unwelcome. “A Bizarre pictures of fierce-looking African with rings in his nose and bones in his hair”, Niggers eat shit scribbled on the title page” or dumb comments like “Anybody smell something peculiar in here, throw them a banana” (“Common Ground: Activism in Charlestown”) are only few of the examples of discrimination during her life and many others that had to face busing in Boston. These events and hardship in life did not put them down; instead of collapsing this young girl and other students became activists. Looking and fighting for the equality in education, they wrote petitions to their principle, created the Minority Students’ Council, and protested in behalf of those young people wanting only one thing: an equal education.

            Another study case is a DSNI. Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative was a group of residents organization in Roxbury formed in 1980s to create possibilities and fight with the problems accruing in their neighborhood. As usually poor people took a step ahead and strong enough decided to fight this unequal battle with government, who did not pay attention to their needs at all. The Social Forces that took place in these events were Social/Cultural values, economics, and government.

Unity of people of different backgrounds, ideas, and races bring us to Social/Cultural values. Urban residents as people with problems, not solutions came together organizing “the renewable energy that powers DSNI and many slogans: “Don’t Dump On Us,” “Take a Stand, Own the Land,” “Building Houses and People Too,” “Dudley PRIDE – People and resources Investing in Dudley’s Environment,” “Unite the Community, Celebrate our Diversity,” “ Economics With People In Mind.” (From the book, “Streets Of hope”). The residents made campaigns to clean up the vacant lots and close down illegal trash transfer stations. Hundreds of residents all together showed a new sense of neighborhood identity and forced city government to respond. Those steps were the beginning of the whole action, short term goals that sooner or later would create a long term goals on the Newbury streets.

Economics, together with Government, present another two social forces that appeared on Newbury streets during the DSNI actions. Rich people in Boston had the power to manipulate and decide about the changes in neighborhoods. Having no idea of what those poor people in Newbury needed to change and how to change it brought high tension between people from Dudley Street and the Government. They were sick of outsiders who made plans without consulting them together. Politicians weren’t listening to their concerns. Consequently, poverty and unemployment rose day to day reaching enormous levels. Moreover, terms like redlining, where banks refused to do business in Newbury because of dangerous and risky territory or Eminent Domain, which gave power to the Government to take private property for public use, often used to tear down low-income neighborhood (“urban renewal”), brought disastrous results. Those entire situations once again brought people together to fight and change. Poor people decided to fight this unequal battle with rich and powerful politicians to find the change they were looking for.

In all case studies the social forces that impacted the change of youth in Boston has been made. We see a connection between poor, discriminated people fighting for one goal: Better lives, equal lives, lives which all human beings should get. Nothing makes us different from each other. Color of skin, nationality, language, sex or even place where we live, doesn’t mean anything. Anyway, those events above still overwhelming me, and I am apprehensive that what I said here won’t affect the way people think, act and do. I am hoping that young people and not only, will not have to act in response too often to inequalities caused by whatever reason.

            Youth activism stays with us in many aspects of our lives. There are the social forces that influence the lives of youth in Boston mentioned above. There are also sociological and theoretical frameworks that are relevant to youth activism, such as ephebiphobia, structural racism, and social reproduction theory.