Plus cheap eats in Little Rhody
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September 13, 2024
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🧩 1 DOWN Tibetan dumplings ([link removed]) | ☀️ A comfy 83° ([link removed]) | 🍽️ Table for one, please ([link removed])
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Diamond Naga Siu
Starting Point writer
X: @diamondnagasiu ([link removed])

Good morning. It's been a lovely first week (newsletter- and weather-wise). Our inbox is back up and running, and we're grateful for your comments, ideas, and critiques. For example, reader Amy (and a few others) would like to see more arts and leisure coverage, and we're happy to say that we're working on some upcoming guest features that will fit the bill. In the meantime, you can sometimes find similar content in our Points of Interest and Polaroid Diaries sections.

"So far, I am very pleased with Starting Point. As a former resident of Brighton and Newtonville, I so miss my Boston Globe, and pick up the Sunday paper whenever I am back in town. Starting Point has a good variety of covered areas, and I appreciate the links to the articles and topics. I would like to see a bit more Arts and Leisure, but the rest is perfect." – Amy

Thanks, Amy. To the rest of you: Keep the feedback coming! Send your thoughts to us at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]?subject=Feedback) .

Today we're looking at the Great American Beer Hall ([link removed]) , the passing of a beloved tarantula ([link removed]) , and Rhode Island cheap eats ([link removed]) . But first, I'm handing over Today's Starting Point to my newsletter partner, Jazmin Aguilera.

She hosted and produced a special podcast ([link removed]) about Boston's traumatic busing effort to desegregate schools 50 years ago that features a conversation with one of the Black parents who sued the School Committee for equal treatment.
TODAY'S STARTING POINT
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Earline Pruitt (left) is one of the plaintiffs who sued the Boston School Committee in 1972 to improve public education for Black students, including her daughter, Denise Garrow-Pruitt (right). JONATHAN WIGGS/GLOBE STAFF
Fifty years ago yesterday, yellow school buses rumbled across the city of Boston, for the first time carrying Black students to mostly white public schools and white students to schools that had a majority of Black students. In response to a lawsuit by Black parents and the NAACP, federal Judge Arthur Garrity had ruled that the city of Boston was deliberately ignoring state racial segregation laws, and the School Committee was discriminating against majority Black schools by withholding funding for supplies, letting school buildings deteriorate, and preventing Black students from attending better-funded white-majority schools.

His remedy was to force desegregation via cross-neighborhood busing.

On that first day of classes, most students stayed home. But when buses carrying Black students arrived in the predominantly white neighborhood of South Boston, angry white protesters crowded around the buses, hurling rocks, bottles, and eggs and yelling racial slurs. It was the start of what came to be known as Boston's busing crisis, a period marked by violence and racial tension.

Fifty years later, Boston Globe reporters, editors, audio producers, videographers, and photographers, as well as an independent team of graphic novel illustrators, joined forces and reached out to the community to tell the stories of the original plaintiffs of that remarkable court case.

"While a lot of the stories in this project are looking at the state of [our schools] at present and where we have to go from here, we did want one historical story, looking back at the original 'Freedom Fighters,' so to speak," reporter Ivy Scott told me. "And what motivated them to do something this bold."

One of the elements of the comprehensive reporting package is our new occasional podcast series that will feature premium audio journalism from the Globe. In this episode, we hear Earline Pruitt, who lived in Dorchester, describe her decision to sue the School Committee, and the toll that decision took on her daughter, Denise Garrow-Pruitt, then a 14-year-old high school freshman who was bused through an angry mob of protesters on her way to Hyde Park High. Reporter Ivy Scott interviewed the women; I hosted and produced the episode, which you can hear here ([link removed]) .

“We didn't really, you know, think about the danger or the trauma it will cause us,” Denise said. She remembers feeling a responsibility to see it through, even though in the back of her mind she thought about what she had seen happen at civil rights marches just a few years before. “I was hoping nobody was going to hose me down.”

“The fight was there,” her mother Earline remembered. She was torn between the drive to improve Boston schools and the maternal instinct to protect her children. They all sat down as a family before agreeing to take part in the busing order. But seeing the reality of the crisis plagued Earline.

“It was doing a job on me psychologically,” she remembered. “I wanted to hurt somebody the way, you know, they were hurting my children.”
– Jazmin Aguilera
Links to the special Globe project:
BUSING AT 50: Broken Promises, Unfulfilled Hope ([link removed])

They sued Boston’s public schools for better education for Black children. Instead, they got busing ([link removed])

Meet the families whose lawsuit forced BPS to integrate ([link removed])

An illustrated history of the busing crisis in Boston ([link removed])

In the order to integrate Boston schools, Latinos were an afterthought. They’re still fighting for equal education today ([link removed]) .
POINTS OF INTEREST
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With beer, pizza, lawn games, live music, and jumbo screens for watching the game, the Great American Beer Hall in Medford aims to offer something for everyone. MATTHEW J. LEE/GLOBE STAFF

MEDFORD, Mass. Craft beer. Crab pizza. Jumbo screens. Live music. Inside the 17,000-square-foot Great American Beer Hall that just opened up in Medford — an area not well known as an entertainment hotspot. But everyone is rallying ([link removed]) . (The Boston Globe)

WARWICK, R.I. Beezus, the 20-year-old pet spider of the Warwick Public Library’s Children’s Room, has passed away. During her long life, she molted five times, ate more than 2,000 crickets, educated countless kids, and made their parents squirm. Beezus was buried in the library’s garden ([link removed]) . (The Boston Globe)

CAMBRIDGE City officials here liked Boston’s move to hire a chief climate officer so much that they decided to get one of those for themselves. Julie Wormser starts the job Oct. 1 ([link removed]) . (WBUR)

ON THE PLAYING FIELD If your teen plays sports, this could be the first year she or he is cut from the team, a traumatic and embarrassing event that could upend their social life and shake their confidence. Parents are deeply affected, too. But it's okay to grieve. ([link removed])

VIETNAM Speaking of climate change, extreme weather — from super typhoons to frequent flooding to brutal heat waves — is making life dangerous for delivery riders even as the gig economy here explodes. Many hope to eventually find a less perilous job ([link removed]) . (Rest of World)

OUTER SPACE The first-ever commercial spacewalk by two private astronauts on one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX spacecraft could mean more opportunities to run experiments and fix scientific equipment like the Hubble telescope in space. We could even test the bounds of human space travel ([link removed]) . (Nature)

WASHINGTON, D.C. Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre was a no-show at a Senate hearing yesterday about the struggles of the hospital chain, infuriating lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont scheduled a vote to hold de la Torre in contempt of Congress. Louisiana Representative Michael Charles Echols had a quicker solution: “Put him in jail.” ([link removed]) (The Boston Globe)

RHODE ISLAND It may be foliage season up north, but Little Rhody is also lovely this time of year. Globe RI reporter Alexa Gagosz compiled a list of 30 restaurants, cafes, pubs, pizzerias, bodegas, delis, taquerías, and more where you (and cash-strapped college students) can get delicious food for $15 or less. They’re the best cheap eats near every campus in the state ([link removed]) . (The Boston Globe)

ON THE ROAD Federal highway safety officials worried about skyrocketing pedestrian deaths have a message for the auto industry: Stop making such massive vehicles. If a proposed rule takes effect, carmakers will likely have to redesign their big trucks and SUVs. But even these changes will save just 67 lives a year ([link removed]) . (The Verge)

LOUISIANA Francine has been downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical depression, but not before it lashed Louisiana, dumping more than a month’s worth of rain on New Orleans in a matter of hours. Now it’s moving around the South, where more than 10 million people are under flood alerts ([link removed]) . (CNN)

EAST OF THE QUABBIN There’s more than just pretty leaves in central Massachusetts this time of year. You can also eat your way through farm country during a beautiful, 60-mile, north-south drive between the reservoir and urban Worcester. Soak in stunning foliage as you drive the back roads from one tasty stop to another ([link removed]) . (The Boston Globe)
ELECTION INSIGHTS | 52 days until the presidential election

Donald Trump won’t debate Kamala Harris ([link removed]) a second time, even though she’s itching to face him one-on-one again. Meanwhile, they’re both off campaigning in swing states ([link removed]) : The vice president held a rally in North Carolina yesterday while the former president visited Arizona; today, Harris heads back to Pennsylvania while Trump heads to the Trump National Golf Course in LA.

Meanwhile, the day after the debate, the Associated Press talked with voters in purple Pennsylvania ([link removed]) , a critical swing state, and found a couple of Republicans now intrigued by Harris, a first-time voter and a longtime voter who are both sticking with Trump, a Democrat still bewildered by some of Trump’s statements, and a resident who is fed up with politics and won’t vote at all.

Another debate fallout: Trump’s unclear message on abortion ([link removed]) . As my DC colleagues Jim Puzzanghera ([link removed]) and Tal Kopan ([link removed]) write, Trump has zig-zagged and waffled on the issue throughout his career. But his contortions during Tuesday night’s debate when he refused to say whether he would sign a national abortion ban, “have some Republicans concerned about his ability to deliver a clear message on a pivotal issue in the final weeks of the campaign.”

In North Dakota, a state judge struck down that state’s abortion ban ([link removed]) on two main grounds: That there is a fundamental right to abortion before a fetus is viable in the state constitution, and that the law itself violated the state constitution because it was too vague. The North Dakota state government may appeal the ruling, and the Republican-controlled legislature could make another attempt at a different abortion ban.

To stay updated, follow the Globe’s election live blog here ([link removed]) .
TEXT PROMPTS | For the lazy but social

Copy and paste these text messages so that making plans with friends is easier.

How do you feel about baskets?? This exhibit ends Sunday
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Are you + your kids doing anything Saturday? There’s a free balloon magic show at the High Street Place Food Hall!
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Ugh, I want to see Baelani so badly. Want to go??
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POLAROID DIARIES
Where we share our adventures around New England and rate them for Starting Point readers.
Rating: Bagged (💰) | Tagged (🏷️) | Dragged (❌)
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Covered Bridge Shoppe ([link removed]) | Bartlett, N.H.
The Granite State has a few dozen covered bridges left, many of them on the National Register of Historic Places. This one isn’t on the registry, but it’s an interesting spot to check out souvenirs, shake out your legs during a road trip, and take cute pictures.
Rating: Bagged 8.5/10 (💰)

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Shanghai Fresh ([link removed]) | Cambridge, Mass.

Okay, yes. Hot and sour soup isn’t a Shanghainese dish. And it somehow managed to taste more like water than soup. But soup dumplings are Shanghainese, yet they lacked soup, while tasting similar in quality to the frozen ones I get from grocery stores.

Rating: Dragged 3/10 (❌)

HEADLINES IN THE CLOUDS
Guess the headline from three choices based on the words that appear in the story.
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Play Now ([link removed])
Thanks for reading Starting Point. We're back Monday with my colleague Jazmin Aguilera at the helm. – Diamond Naga Siu

This email was written by Diamond Naga Siu ([link removed]) + Jazmin Aguilera ([link removed]) and edited by Teresa Hanafin ([link removed]) .

Have a question for the team? Email us at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]?subject=Question%2Fsuggestion) .

Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up for your own copy ([link removed]) . Delivered Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

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