Robert Dentler, a sociologist who helped Judge Garrity draft the busing plan, criticized Common Ground for 'distorted, questionable legends' and a 'docudramatic method of reporting' that 'cloak the ignorance, fear, and hostility of the minority of citizens in the white enclaves of Boston who initiated racial violence in the robe of civic innocence.'

In addition to the family stories, Common Ground examines many of the issues related to busing, including the protest movements, the disaffection between the 'two-toilet' Irish middle class and their working-class brethren, the impact of busing on national politics, and the evolution of the city's newsmedia.Ī television miniseries based on the book aired in 1990. After six years of combating racial and class tension and street violence, the Divers leave the city for suburban Newton.

The Divers are in favor of busing, but the effects hit home when they learn that it may result in their own son being bused to a foreign neighborhood. Colin Diver, a Harvard Law School graduate and assistant to Mayor Kevin White, and his wife Joan Diver, director of The Hyams Foundation, move into the gentrifying South End, a block from one of the Twymon sisters, who lives with her children in the shoddily constructed Methunion Manor housing project. The Twymons have long endured sub-standard education and are hoping that busing will finally change this.

The McGoffs are proud residents of Charlestown who see an attempt to change the dynamics of their school as an assault on their families. Through their stories, Common Ground focuses on racial and class conflicts in two Boston neighborhoods: the working-class Irish-American enclave of Charlestown and the uneasily integrated South End.Įach family is directly involved in the busing crisis. It gives brief genealogical histories of each families, focusing on how the events they went through illuminated Boston history, before narrowing its focus to the racial tension of the 1960s and the 1970s. The book traces the history of three families: the working-class African-American Twymons, the working-class Irish McGoffs, and the middle-class Yankee Divers.

It received the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, the National Book Award for Nonfiction, Īnd the National Book Critics Circle Award. Knopf in 1985, that examines race relations in Boston, Massachusetts, through the prism of desegregation busing. Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families is a nonfiction book by J.

Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas