Restore Our Alienated Rights

Restore Our Alienated Rights (ROAR) was an organization formed in Boston, Massachusetts by Louise Day Hicks in 1974. Opposed to desegregation busing of Boston's public school students, the group protested the federally-mandated order to integrate Boston Public Schools by staging formal, sometimes violent protests and remained active from 1974 until 1976.

ROAR was originally organized by Louise Day Hicks as the "Save Boston Committee. The committee was organized to oppose the Racial Imbalance Act and first met in February 1974. Thomas O' Connell, a father from the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston was appointed its first chair. By June of 1974, the committee had changed its name to ROAR.

The group's purpose was to fight off U.S. Federal Judge W. Arthur Garrity's court order requiring the city of Boston to implement desegregation busing — an order intended to eliminate de facto racial segregation in its public schools. To supporters, ROAR's purpose was its namesake; i.e., to protect the "vanishing rights" of white citizens. To its many opponents, however, ROAR was a symbol of mass racism coalesced into a single organization. ROAR was composed primarily of women, and its leaders argued that "the issue of forced busing is a women's issue."

On April 3, 1974, the committee organized a 20,000 person march from Boston City Hall Plaza to the State House. On March 19, 1975, 1,200 ROAR members marched in Washington DC to generate national support for their cause.

...
Wikipedia