When a first-grade seat opened up for Nita Holder’s son seven years ago in Melrose through Metco, a public school integration program, it seemed like an opportunity too good to pass up, a chance for a better education than the one she had in Boston, where she shared tattered, outdated textbooks with her classmates. But instead of her son coming home enthusiastic about what he was learning, Holder found herself consoling him after school as he questioned who he was as a young Black man. “Why do they treat me this way?” he’d ask.
The pattern has continued in recent years, she said. In April 2023, she said, a white classmate called her son the N-word in the cafeteria at Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School; another white student directed the racial slur at him last September outside the library before he and another student attacked her son; and in January, a white student lobbed the N-word at him in a group chat before attacking him two days later. Holder said administrators and staff didn’t take their concerns about racism seriously.
Advertisement “I reassured him every single time, be proud of who you are ...
your skin is beautiful, your hair is beautiful, you are and you always will be a good person,” she said. For decades, many Metco parents have sent their children to predominantly white suburbs with trepidation, knowing their children would likely encounter racial discrimination, a reluctant trade-off they felt compelled to make in an effort to avoid subs.