Podcast puts its focus on tenant grit in ’60s,’70s at Columbia Point project

A new podcast from Jacobin magazine and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project focuses on the Columbia Point public housing project and how its tenants struggled with, and organized against, horrific living conditions and the busing crisis in the 1960s and 1970s. 

The podcast, “A People’s History,” is adapted from the book written by the historian and political scientist Howard Zinn and sets its sights on “important events in working class history” told from the perspective of organizers and working-class people.

The first chapter, “The Point: Rebellion and Resistance in Boston Public Housing,” which will debut with Episode 1 on Nov. 14, tells “the untold story of the tenant struggles in and around Boston public housing.” 

The podcast, which producer Rosie Gillies calls “a great oral history project of Dorchester,” features interviews from dozens of Boston residents and activists, including longtime community organizer Mel King and former city councillor Chuck Turner.

“It’s a story about regular people—mainly black mothers—standing up to the mayor’s office, organizing sit-ins to get the services they were owed, fighting evictions, and creating their own power,” said Gillies.

The podcast will be available to stream with a Patreon account at peopleshistorypod.net beginning Thurs., Nov. 14.


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