What is Ray Flynn’s legacy in light of the Charles Stuart case?

When Charles Stuart lied and said a Black man killed his pregnant wife in October 1989, Ray Flynn believed him. So did virtually every white person in Greater Boston.

That was a mistake. What happened next on Flynn’s watch as Boston mayor was an even bigger mistake. Boston police unleashed a furious manhunt that essentially turned every young Black man into a potential suspect and ended with the arrest of Willie voice in the HBO documentary, told me. “I just think it needs to find its place within the larger story of Ray Flynn as a transitional and, I would argue, transformational mayor of Boston, particularly when it comes to race.” The Rev. Eugene Rivers, a Black minister who has long been on the front lines of matters involving race in Boston and isn’t known for his conciliatory ways, doesn’t disagree. “Ray Flynn is a complicated story in a complicated city,” he said. “On balance, he is a decent man, coming up in a tough town.” Of Flynn’s In 1976, a photo of the

Black, Yale-educated lawyer being assaulted on City Hall Plaza by a young white man wielding an American flag came to illustrate the ugliness of racial discord in Boston. With Flynn as mayor, Landsmark headed the city’s neighborhood services program. While he considers the Stuart case “a huge embarrassment for the city in that moment,” he also believes lessons were learned and Flynn led the way in implementing them.

The Stuart hoax reinforced some of the original doubt about Flynn in the Black community. “Folks knew his antibusing history and viewed him warily and with some trepidation,” said Joyce Ferriabough Bolling, a longtime political activist. When it comes to judging him today, she said, “While I do agree the Stuart debacle will always be a blot, as will busing … Flynn did a fair turnaround on racial dynamics.”

Others are less generous. To Kay Gibbs, a longtime community activist and friend of King’s, “The narrative that Flynn brought the city together was a media invention in the first place. It made certain white people feel better even as they observed Boston from the comfort of the suburbs. Those of us living in Boston knew better then and everybody knows better now.”

Maybe. But in 1991, after the Stuart fiasco, Flynn was reelected with nearly 75 percent of the vote and broad, citywide support. Before leaving office in 1993 to become US ambassador to the Vatican, he also started to implement a policy of community policing under a new commissioner. That was the beginning of the next positive turning point on race for Boston, Rivers said of Flynn. Still, with the Stuart case, Rivers said, there were “real political mistakes” that Flynn never publicly acknowledged. He issued a private apology to the Bennett family, which was not well received. Last month, Mayor Michelle Wu formally apologized on the city’s behalf, but Flynn never did, although he did address the matter in public forums.

Flynn shouldn’t be the fall guy for what happened 34 years ago. But there’s still time to be a stand-up guy on matters of race in Boston.