The 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, he was reelected mayor in 1971, again defeating Hicks. He won again narrowly in 1975 and 1979.
After U.S. District Judge W. Arthur Garrity ordered busing to desegregate public schools in 1974, Mayor White protected schoolchildren from ensuing violence with federal and state assistance during the period of crisis and in 1976 led a march of 30,000 to protest racial violence.
Mayor White was never totally comfortable with busing, however, and called Garrity's plan "too severe."
A liberal reformer, Mayor White appealed to a cross section of society, including the young.
Once, when the Rolling Stones were arrested on the way to Boston, the mayor released them into his own custody. "The Stones have been busted, but I have sprung them!" he told an audience at Boston Garden.
Mayor White's father and maternal grandfather had been Boston City Council presidents. In 1956, he married Kathryn Galvin, the daughter of another City Council president. He was educated at Tabor Academy, Williams College, Boston College Law School, and the Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration.
After leaving office in 1984, Mayor White accepted a position at Boston University as a professor of communications and public management. - AP
