In 1964, Wendell Arthur Garrity was the United States’ attorney for the District of Massachusetts, not yet a judge on the District Court of Massachusetts. Ruth Batson was a frustrated parent and civil rights activist, not yet director of Boston’s Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, or METCO, the voluntary desegregation program. And Louise Day Hicks was a member of Boston’s School Board, not yet the leader of ROAR: Restore Our Alienated Rights or the face of white opposition to the integration of Boston Public Schools.