Kevin Hagan White (born September 25, 1929) is an American politician best known as the Mayor of Boston, a position he held from 1968 to 1984.

Early years

White was educated at Tabor Academy, Williams College (AB, 1952), Boston College Law School (LLB, 1955) and the Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration (now known as the John F. Kennedy School of Government). Prior to his term as Mayor of Boston, he served as Secretary of the Commonwealth from 1961–1967.

Mayor of Boston

White successfully ran for mayor in 1967 on a populist platform that included support for rent control. One of his slogans was "When landlords raise rents, Kevin White raises hell." Rent control became the law in Boston in 1970. White narrowly defeated Boston School Board member Louise Day Hicks, who had taken a strong anti-desegregation position as a member of the Boston School Committee. Hicks' slogan was the coded "You know where I stand." White won by approximately 12,000 votes after he was endorsed by the Boston Globe, the paper's first political endorsement in decades. Mayor White defeated Hicks by a larger margin in his bid for a second term.

Learning of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mayor White pressed WGBH-TV to televise the James Brown concert held that evening at the Boston Arena. While many cities including Washington DC, were met with rioting and numerous fires, the city of Boston was spared these, as people throughout the Metro-Boston region, tuned in to the concert.

In 1972, White made news when he was able to convince Rhode Island State Police to release members of The Rolling Stones from custody so that they could make their scheduled concert appearance in Boston before the waiting fans became violent. As word of this action came out, Mayor White won overwhelming favor among young first time voters in his re-election.

Other political races

In 1970, White unsuccessfully ran for Governor of Massachusetts against Republican Frank Sargent. White's running mate was Michael Dukakis, who later challenged and defeated Sargent for the Governor's office in 1974. White's campaign for governor was interrupted for several days when he underwent emergency stomach surgery.

In 1972, he was on the verge of the Democratic Party's vice-presidential nomination. After a number of better known politicians, including Senators Ted Kennedy and Gaylord Nelson, and Governor Reubin Askew, turned down the position, White briefly became the front-runner for the post. However, when Kennedy, famed economist John Kenneth Galbraith and others in the Massachusetts delegation voiced their opposition to White's nomination, Presidential nominee Senator George McGovern decided to turn elsewhere and selected Senator Thomas Eagleton, who was later embroiled in a controversy over his failure to disclose having received electric shock therapy for depression. Ultimately, the vice presidential nominee as former Chicago School Board President and later Ambassador R. Sargent Shriver, who had married into the Kennedy family.

On November 1, 2006, a statue of White was unveiled at Boston's Faneuil Hall. The statue portrays White walking down the side walk. Behind the statue are several metal footprints along the sidewalk. With these are several quotes from White which were made during his inauguration speeches.

Boston in the 1970s

The 1970s were a turbulent time for Boston. In 1974, Judge W. Arthur Garrity found that the Boston School Committee had followed a practice of segregating the city's public schools by race, including building new schools in districts tailored to white constituents. As a remedy, Garrity ordered the city's schools desegregated, leading to a system of desegregation busing. The desegregation did not go peacefully, and violence was not uncommon. In one famous incident in 1976 during a demonstration outside Boston City Hall, a black businessman was attacked with an American flag.

White also worked for the revitalization of Boston's downtown. In 1976, he achieved perhaps his biggest success in that area with the re-opening of Quincy Market.

In the 1975 and 1979 Mayoral elections, Mayor White defeated State Senator Joe Timilty. He retired in 1983 and was succeeded by Ray Flynn.

Health

In 1970, during his campaign for governor, White underwent surgery that removed two-thirds of his stomach. In 2001, the since-retired White suffered a heart attack which left him with a pacemaker. In his advanced age, he has lost hearing in his right ear and is suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Quote

White made this statement in light of Boston's finances:

Throughout the 1970s, Cleveland was the long-standing butt of jokes and by the early 1980s, city residents were getting fed up. Former Cleveland Mayor and current U.S. Senator from Ohio George Voinovich complained about White's controversial statement. He responded by saying that Boston had survived facetious remarks from a wide range of jokesters, from Mark Twain to Johnny Carson. "I am sure Cleveland will also," he said.