All Souls: A Family Story From Southie

In the summer of 1994, Michael MacDonald returns to Southie. He visits the cemetery, remembering his neighbors, brothers, and friends who died of violence and drugs: “No outsiders could mess with us. So we had no reason to leave, and nothing to leave for” (2).

He returns because of a call from Citizens at Safety, where he has been working on anti-violence campaigns since 1990. A reporter was working on an article about the “white underclass.” The Lower End—the author’s neighborhood—had been shown in demographic studies to have one of the highest concentrations of poor whites in the country. Seventy-five percent of Lower End families have no fathers:“Liberals were usually the ones working on social problems, and they never seemed to be able to fit urban poor whites into their world view, which tended to see blacks as the persistent dependent and their own white selves as provider” (3).

In the 1970s, which will be covered more in future chapters, Southie responded violently to court-ordered busing. Ever since, the whites there, in the author’s view, have been portrayed as racist oppressors. Southie politicians openly (and dishonestly) stated that Southie citizens had the lowest rates of social problems in the country, and wanted to maintain that status by keeping blacks out.