Word: mattapan
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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DORCHESTER-MATTAPAN, MASS...
...Mattapan section of Boston, once predominantly Jewish, has turned steadily black in recent years, as blacks have been crowded out of Roxbury to the north. Now Blue Hill Avenue is a mixture of synagogues and soul shops, kosher butchers and real estate offices...
What was for decades a Jewish wedding hall is now Elijah Muhammad's Mosque No. 1. Mattapan is peopled by whites too old or too poor to run, by blacks having nowhere else to go. Fear of black teen-age crime has envenomed Mattapan and Dorchester. New FOR SALE signs sprout daily on ragged lawns, and window posters bear the legend
...butchers illustrate diverging white explanations of what lies behind the pervasive fear of black crime in Dorchester-Mattapan. Nathan Epstein thinks Supreme Court decisions have made policemen powerless. "Blame the fact that they changed our Constitution," he says. "At one time, if anyone would do something wrong, he would be punished. It isn't a question of the blacks. The police can't do anything." His colleague, Joseph Schaer, objects heatedly: "They gave you 45 stitches. They took my pants, for Christ's sake. It's a good thing they didn't murder...
...Roxbury, Mattapan and South Boston all border on Dorchester, and all four of those councillors depend heavily on the Dorchester vote in a city-wide election. Neponset, which sits between South Boston, Mattapan and Quincy, is an influential section of Dorchester, and one which Atkins, Timility. O'Leary and, yes, even Hicks, could ill afford to alienate...