Tallulah Morgan
main plaintiff in the historical case Morgan v. Hennigan

Tallulah Morgan (born 1948) was the main plaintiff in the historical case Morgan v. Hennigan, which led to the desegregation of the Boston school system in the 1970s.
Early life
Her background seems somewhat unclear as she is occasionally identified as a Boston Public Schools student. However, in-depth sources, like journalist Anthony Lukacs's book Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade on the Lives of Three American Families, identify Morgan as "a twenty-four-year-old mother of three school-age children."
That seems to be verified by the initial complaint filed in Morgan v. Hennigan, which lists a Mrs. Tallulah Morgan and her three children: Petri, Kimberly, and Kirsten.
Morgan was a black, working-class Boston resident, and the complaint reflects her frustration with Boston Public Schools' policy of racial segregation and underfunding of black-majority schools.
Morgan v. Hennigan
She headed the list of plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit against the Boston School Committee. The School Committee, whose director, James Hennigan, was named the main defendant, was accused of intentionally bringing about and maintaining racial segregation in the Boston School District.
The public source identifies “Tallulah Morgan” as main plaintiff in the historical case Morgan v. Hennigan. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Tallulah, Morgan and main.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Tallulah Morgan”, the useful work is to connect “main plaintiff in the historical case Morgan v. Hennigan” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 19, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q29453252. VIAF identifies the subject as 50542921. The Library of Congress control number is n81036146. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1948.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Tallulah Morgan”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Tallulah Morgan primary sources, Tallulah Morgan archive and Tallulah research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Tallulah Morgan”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Tallulah Morgan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.