Former Boston Mayor Kevin White has died at 82 on Astini News
BOSTON (AP) — Former Boston Mayor Kevin H. White has died. He was mayor for 16 years, including racially turbulent years in the 1970s.
His family announced his death Friday night through a spokesman, George Regan. White was 82.
Regan says White died peacefully at his Boston home surrounded by his family. White had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2003.
White suffered a heart attack in 2001 while at a Florida restaurant and spent several days in the hospital when he had a pacemaker implanted.
While mayor in 1970, he had major surgery to remove two-thirds of his stomach.
White, an Irish Catholic from a family of politicians, is credited with revitalizing Boston's downtown and seeing the city through court-ordered busing, but he ended his four-term tenure in 1983 under a cloud of ethics suspicions.
White, a Democrat, was elected Massachusetts secretary of state three times before running for mayor for the first time in 1967 against antibusing activist Louise Day Hicks. He defeated her with support from the black community and liberals.
After losing a 1970 bid for governor, White was re-elected mayor in 1971, again defeating Hicks. He won again narrowly in 1975 and 1979.
White was considered as a vice presidential running mate to Sen. George McGovern in 1972 but was passed over for Missouri Sen. Thomas Eagleton, who was later shunted aside for R. Sargent Shriver Jr.
After U.S. District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity ordered busing to desegregate public schools in 1974, White protected schoolchildren from violence with federal and state assistance during the period of crisis and in 1976 led a march of 30,000 to protest racial violence.
White was never totally comfortable with busing, however, and called Garrity's plan "too severe."
"I wish I knew a way to have taught Garrity or convinced Garrity to be more generous ... or softer in his implementation of that order," White said after his time as mayor.
