4/02/01 -- An Anniversary Story That Works: Journalists (or, sometimes, journalists who happen to be assignment editors) love anniversary stories. They can be routine, or they can be interesting. See what you think of The Boston Globe's 25th anniversary two-part series on one of the most painful episodes in recent Boston history. At the request of Poynter.org, Globe reporter Tom Farragher tells the story behind the story:

The ignition point for The Boston Globe's two-part series about the defining image of the city's violent struggle to integrate its schools 25 years ago occurred by happenstance. I was reviewing microfilm in the Globe's library for another project, when I came across the Globe's photograph of the incident in City Hall Plaza.

Twenty-five years ago this week, a black businessman, Ted Landsmark, was running late for a meeting at City Hall when he wandered unwittingly into the middle of a busing protest being waged by white students from South Boston and Charlestown, who were infuriated by a federal judge's decision to order forced busing.

One of those white students, Joseph Rakes, used the American flag as a weapon to assault Landsmark. The image was captured by Herald American photographer Stanley Forman. The symbolism of the assault, occurring on America's bicentennial in the cradle of the American Revolution, was unmistakable. It won Forman his second consecutive Pulitzer Prize.

I was a second-year journalism student at the University of Rhode Island when that picture was taken. But I've never forgotten it. And I've always wondered about what happened to the men in the photo.

I pitched the idea to my editor, Ben Bradlee who directs special projects for The Globe, and he immediately approved the assignment.

Fellow reporters who know Landsmark warned me that he rarely talks about an incident he clearly wants to forget. A colleague, Globe columnist Adrian Walker, made an introductory call to Landsmark for me and he agreed to two extensive interviews. He was candid, eloquent, and introspective about how the attack occurred, what it meant for himself and his city, and how he has tried to move beyond it.

The greater challenge was to try to convince Joe Rakes to talk to me. I located him with the help of Autotrack in Maine. But, perhaps because he has caller ID, his phone went incessantly unanswered. I had spoken to two of his brothers, who told me he worked at a construction site from 6 to 3:30, so I staked him out in Maine three times. But he never showed up (my car died during one of these sojourns but that's another story).

I was prepared to report around Rakes, figuring he would not cooperate. I spoke to his family, his friends, former counselors, teachers, and read his entire court file, stemming from a 1983 incident in which he was arrested, but never prosecuted for murder.

In a last-ditch appeal, Bradlee contacted Rakes's brother-in-law, who was politically involved in Boston when Bradlee was covering Michael Dukakis's presidential campaign. When we talked, he was not hopeful. He said Rakes was the only person who figured to be hurt by renewed publicity about the assault. But he said he would make a pitch for me to Rakes.

I think because Rakes knew I had spoken to his brothers, with whom he has not spoken in years, he was eager to tell his story in his own words, not theirs. He agreed to a 30-minute interview during his lunchtime from his job as a laborer helping to bury a highway under downtown Boston. He was polite but hardly introspective. He did not want to be sitting across from me and made that abundantly clear. But, in retrospect, it's hard to imagine us pulling off a two-part series if he had refused to talk to us.

We originally conceived the series as a tale that would weave the stories of both men's lives sort of chronologically, ending part one at the point of the assault, and using part two to discuss its aftermath. But after a rough outline, it was clear the series would work better as two distinct pieces, one telling Landsmark's story, the other focusing solely on Rakes.

The Globe gave me five weeks to report and write the series, a luxury that I greatly appreciated. I spoke to many ancillary figures who were not quoted, but gave me wonderful context about the raw emotions that existed here 25 years ago.

Stanley Forman provided us with prints from everything he shot that day, so we were able to illustrate the series not only with the Pulitzer Prize-winning shot on both days, but with other never-seen-before images that dramatically depicted the fear and violence of that era. However, The Boston Globe only received permission to re-print those pictures in print, not on its web site.

While anniversary stories, hung on an arbitrary point in time, are sometimes a flat journalistic staple, I think this one was special because Stanley Forman's image is so compelling and because the participants were willing, ultimately, to sketch a rich portrait of how that moment has shaped their lives.

-- Tom Farragher