MLK Day In Brookline: New Film Highlights Brookline Residents

BROOKLINE, MA — If you ever wondered what it was like in town during the Civil Rights movement, you might consider heading to Coolidge Corner Monday to check out the special MLK Day program "Reflections on Race, Brookline Then and Now."

"It's hard to exaggerate the amount of racism and anti-Semitism that was part of our lives in those days," Michael Dukakis says of Brookline in a film to be screened for the first time at the event.

Dukakis was one of seven Brookline residents to share first-hand accounts of the racism they experienced or saw in Brookline during the 1960s, and the barriers they had to overcome in the white-only community. It's an overlooked period in their community's history, says the film's producer Harvey Bravman.

"I got quite the education," the filmmaker added.

The Office of Diversity and Inclusion and Community Relations commissioned Bravman, who has also put together other short films to do seek out and interview a number of Brookline residents who lived through the Civil Rights era in town.

But as he sat down with them and heard their stories, he realized there was power and perspective in them that deserved to be in a film. With help from an additional grant he set to highlighting the stories.

Among them is Ruth Ellen Fitch, the first Brookline METCO director and the first black female partner in a Boston Law Firm. She and her husband ran into roadblock after roadblock finding a home to buy.

"Her husband was the first black lawyer at a Boston law firm, and even for them some non-profit has to buy a little three-decker, or they wouldn't have been able to live in town," said Bravman.

Bobbie Knable, who many may know as a Town Meeting Member, came to town with her husband who was a nuclear physisist, and they, too, had difficulty finding a place to live. Knable ultimately stopped touring homes with her husband, who was not black, and only then did homes suddenly become available. Knable, who went on to become the dean of students at Tufts for two decades, didn't see the house until the papers were signed.

Bravman talks with Diana McClure whose husband Ed was a mediator for the U.S. Dept of Justice during the Boston busing crises, and Julia Wilson the wife of the renowned artist, John Wilson and Mark Gray who was general counsel of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs, during the Dukakis Administration. The 65th Governor of Massachusetts also talks about his days as a "housing tester" in Brookline.

Bravman directed and produced "Brookline, Facing Civil Rights" as well as "Soul Witness, The Brookline Holocaust Witness Project." He is behind the Brookline Youth Awards, aimed at leveling the playing field for all students through the power and intimacy of video interviews.

Photo by Jenna Fisher / Patch Staff