Swampscott Author's Book Recalls Rhythm and Injustice

Forty years later The Rhythm Boys were still on Steve Marantz's mind.

The time was right for the Swampscott author and former Boston Globe reporter to tell their story, to tell his story.

It's a story about a dominant player and team. Dwaine Dillard and the Omaha (Neb.) Central High School basketball team.

It's a story about an all-black starting five and their run for the Nebraska state basketball title in1968.

It's also a story about racial politics, and its influence on the city, the school, the team and the author.

The Rhythm Boys, a nickname that suited the players' smooth and flowing style on the court, come up against outside forces in the form of George Wallace just as they are closing in on a state championship.

Wallace, a former Alabama governor who stood for separation of black and white students and citizens, arrived in Omaha as part of his campaign for president in 1968.

His visit sparked racial tension, bloodshed and tears, and Marantz was witness to the events as a high school student.

The events have played in his mind for years, provoking thoughts about the hurt they registered on his classmates' faces, the tensions they gave rise to in the school cafeteria.

Marantz loved basketball and was foursquare behind his high school team.

The turmoil that unfolded around him got him thinking about what caused the conflict. Those thoughts and impression continued to mold his view of the world, even many years later.

2008 was the right time for Marantz to write about it.

Freed several years earlier from the constraints of daily journalism, having moved on to a position that gave him more time for personal projects, he had the opportunity to tell the tale.

He had one book under his belt, having written Sorcery at Caesars, about the Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Marvin Hagler boxing match.

Plus, 2008 was the year that America would elect its first black president.

Thoughts about the distance the country had traveled in 40 years put Marantz on the path to writing The Rhythm Boys, a two-year journey, he said.

"It was a good story that no one had written," he said. 

Marantz, who has lived in Swampscott since 1979, traveled twice to Omaha and reconnected with classmates.

The visits and his thinking about the times transported him to a place where he was able to recreate the world in which The Rhythm Boys moved.

For all the time, distance and changes since 1968, Marantz says the story has relevance for today — for someone reading it in a Massachusetts coastal town outside of Boston.

Issues related to race and those related to class, regardless of skin color, remain.

Even more relevant, he said, is an individual's response to them.

"Injustice is the issue," he said.

The Rhythm Boys considers the different ways to respond to injustice.

Individuals in the book protest, riot, watch passively, reason, and take other tacks.

The same is always true when injustice creeps into the world, breaking its rhythm, he said. 

It was true in Nebraska in 1968 and it is true in Massachusetts in 2011, Marantz said.

No place is insulated from the affects of injustice, he said.

Ultimately, the book considers ways to respond to injustice by seeing how people responded to it 40 years ago.

About the book: The Rhythm Boys of Omaha Central, is available at Univ. of Nebraska Press or Amazon.com 

About the author: Steve Marantz's two kids, Nora, 29, and Alex, 25, went through Swampscott schools. His wife is Alison Arnett.