When David C. Scheper, former Harvard center turned attorney, was in Boston recently, he told me Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas, was one of his favorite books, and asked me to
describe how the Boston neighborhoods depicted in that book geographically
relate to the parts of Boston with which he is more familiar. Common Ground, a Turbulent Decade in theLives of Three American Families, won the Pulitzer in 1986 for its memorable
depiction of three Boston families from very different backgrounds experiencing
Boston school desegregation in the 1960s and 1970s. My father, having worked with legendary
judge W. Arthur Garrity in the U.S. Attorney’s Office (who later issued the
decision that mandated school busing), was one of the first people Tony Lukas
interviewed for the book, and I am very familiar with it.
