Petition from colored citizens of Boston to the Primary School Committee of the City of Boston, 1846

Petitions urging the  desegregation of  Boston’s public schools were submitted to the school committee in 1840, 1844, 1845, 1846, and 1849. 

To the Primary School Committee of the City of Boston:

The undersigned colored citizens of Boston, parents and guardians of children now attending the exclusive Primary Schools for colored children in this City, respectfully represent:—that the establishment of exclusive schools for our children is a great injury to us, and deprives us of those equal privileges and advantages in the public schools to which we are entitled as citizens.  These separate schools cost more and do less for the children than other schools, since all experience teaches that where a small and despised class are shut out from the common benefit of any public institutions of learning and confined to separate schools, few or none interest themselves about the schools, —neglect ensues, abuses creep in, the standard of scholarship degenerates, and the teachers and the scholars are soon considered and of course become an inferior class.

But to say nothing of any other reasons for this change, it is sufficient to say that the establishment of separate schools for our children is believed to be unlawful, and it is felt to be if not in intention, in fact, insulting.  If, as seeks to be admitted, you are violating our rights, we simply ask you to cease doing so. 

We therefore earnestly request that such exclusive schools be abolished, and that our children be allowed to attend the Primary Schools established in the respective Districts in which we live.

George Putnam, And Eighty-five Others

(Document 3.7.7)