In 1966, Hartford Connecticut’s Project Concern launched, becoming one of the first voluntary busing programs in the United States. The program was managed by the Hartford Board of Education and initially bused 260 black students from Hartford to five neighboring towns in hopes of raising achievement of inner city students. Suburban families resisted allowing their children to be bused to Hartford, so Project Concern continued as a one-way program for many years.
In 1998-99, Project Concern was replaced by the Open Choice program, which provides for two-way movement of urban and suburban students in the regions surrounding Connecticut’s three largest cities.
Photo caption: ”PROJECT CONCERN youngsters, 20 of them from Hartford, arrive at Spaulding School, Suffield, greeted by Principal Edwin Humphrey, on the first day of a new venture.”
Bill Huebner, Photographer
