By Cary Shuman
Returning to his Boston roots, Dr. Zebulon Miletsky was the guest speaker at the 19th Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Breakfast Jan. 20 at the Edward G. Connolly Center in Everett.
Dr. Miletsky, who grew up in Jamaica Plain, is an associate professor in the Department of Africana Studies at Stony Brook University (New York) specializing in recent African American history. He is the author of the book, “Before Busing: A History of Boston’s Long Black Freedom Struggle” that was published in 2022.
At the breakfast, which was sponsored by the Zion Church Ministries, Miletsky delivered an inspiring speech about Dr. King, the outstanding civil rights leader, statesman, and orator. A charismatic educator and highly regarded writer and public speaker, Miletsky drew a warm and sustained ovation for his address to the gathering of area residents, state and city officials, and students.
Following his remarks, Dr. Miletsky recalled his early days in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
“I grew up in the Day Street/Hyde Square neighborhood – we were there since the early 1980s,” said Miletsky. “My parents are Marc Miletsky (who is deceased) and Veronica Anne Miletsky, whose maiden name was Deare and grew up in the South End. My father was from Brooklyn, New York. My mother is African American and my father’s Jewish.”
Miletsky attended Roxbury schools, the William Monroe Trotter Elementary School and the Phyllis Wheatley Middle School.
“The Wheatley School is no longer there but the Trotter is still there, and I have very good memories of the Trotter, especially, because that was a special school,” related Miletsky. “My book is about the period leading up to busing, so it tells the history, and the book ends in 1974. That story continued at the Trotter because that was a special, experimental school to implement a lot of the ideas about of desegregation. I didn’t know that when I was a student there.”
Miletsky has fond memories of the Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
“It’s a very diverse neighborhood, and I had the benefit of having two cultures because there was a Spanish-speaking community there,” said Miletsky. “It was a very close-knit community, and I enjoyed growing up in JP.”
A graduate of Boston Technical High School, Miletsky holds an undergraduate degree from Boston College and a Ph.D from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Miletsky said he keeps in touch with his friends from Boston and he still has family living in the neighborhood. “A lot of my friends have done some great stuff in the Boston area,” said Miletsky. “In fact, I’m staying with one of them who now lives in Hyde Park.”
Miletsky, his wife, and their children reside in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City.
Miletsky’s book about the Boston busing desegregation crisis has drawn acclaim from longtime Boston residents and book reviewers. Miletsky received the Civil Rights and Humanitarian Award for his book and social justice work at the Black Authors Festival in Sag Harbor, New York, in August, 2024.