Late last year, I wrote about Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s apology on behalf of the city to two Black men falsely accused of murdering a white woman named Carol Stuart in 1989.
In reality, the two men — Alan Swanson and Willie Bennett — had essentially been framed. Stuart’s husband, Charles Stuart, was found to have committed the murder after he died by suicide. But not before he sent news media, police and officials as high-ranking as Boston’s mayor on a wild-goose chase for the purported killer, who he claimed was a Black man.
Adrian Walker was a stellar writer for The Boston Globe at the time (still is, in fact) and was deeply skeptical of Charles Stuart’s story. His reporting has provided the framework for a hit docuseries on Max and an accompanying podcast, produced in collaboration with the Globe, called “Murder in Boston: Roots, Rampage & Reckoning.”
Walker and I recently sat for an interview, in which we discussed how one man’s racist lie snowballed into a citywide crusade and what that frenzy says about Boston and the United States more broadly.
Watch the conversation below. And if you’d like to read it instead, a transcript of our convo, edited for length and clarity, follows:
JJ: Can you talk to me about what that transition from working in Miami to working in Boston was like? What kinds of things were you expecting going to Boston? Because the docuseries talks about the racial history, the busing and integration. What were you expecting as a journalist heading to Boston?
AW: I met an editor — the first Black metro editor at “The Globe,” Greg Moore — and I knew I wanted to come work for him. Eventually he decide to hire me. I remember that when I told people I was moving to Boston, the immediate reaction was, “Black people don’t move to Boston, Black people move out of Boston.” So right away, I was told about the racism here. I had known about busing somewhat, you know. I was a kid in Miami when it was going on, I would see it on the nightly…
Read the full article here