After the births of her two children, Hicks returned to school and completed a Bachelor of Science degree at Boston University in 1952.

In 1955, she received a JD from Boston University Law School, attained admission to the bar, and entered into partnership with her brother as the firm of Hicks and Day.

In 1960, Hicks won election to Boston's school board, where she served until 1970, including holding the position of chairwoman from 1963 to 1965.

In addition, for 114 days in the summer of 1965, the Reverend Vernon Carter, pastor of All Saints Lutheran Church in the Southend of Boston protested in front of the school committee building in which Hicks entered and exited frequently.

After leaving Congress, Hicks was the head of an anti-busing group, "Restore Our Alienated Rights" (ROAR), which remained active until a 1976 federal court decision mandated busing to achieve integration in public schools.

Day was admired by Boston's Irish community; as a banker he provided assistance to families struggling to make mortgage payments and as a judge he was particularly lenient towards juvenile defendants.

[6] He disappeared in 1978, while he was facing more than 20 charges related to a 1977 incident in which he threatened harm to several customers inside a restaurant and then attempted to run over several of them in the parking lot.

[8] Hicks earned a Bachelor of Science degree from BU in 1952, and a JD from Boston University Law School in 1955.

Hicks formed close friendships with two other female students, one Jewish and one black, and she studied for exams with a group made up of mostly minorities.

Hicks was recognized as the holdout; within months she became Boston's most popular politician and the most controversial, requiring police bodyguards 24 hours a day.

[13] On April 1, 1965, a special committee appointed by Massachusetts Education Commissioner Owen Kiernan released its final report finding that more than half of black students enrolled in Boston Public Schools (BPS) attended institutions with enrollments that were at least 80% black and that housing segregation in the city had caused the racial imbalance.

"Boston schools are a scapegoat for those who have failed to solve the housing, economic, and social problems of the black citizen", Hicks said.

[25] She sought reelection to Congress in 1972, but was narrowly defeated in the general election by City Councilman Joe Moakley, a more liberal Democrat who was running as an Independent.

On May 25, 1971, the Massachusetts State Board of Education voted unanimously to withhold state aid from the Boston Public Schools due to the School Committee's refusal to use the district's open enrollment policy to relieve the city's racial imbalance in enrollments, instead routinely granting white students transfers while doing nothing to assist black students attempting to transfer.

Her most notable campaign took place in autumn 1975, after a federal judge ordered Boston schools to expand their busing programs to comply with the 1971 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education decision.

To counter the trend, Hicks started an organization called Restore Our Alienated Rights (ROAR) which actively engaged in incidents of massive resistance to school desegregation.

In 1976, Hicks was elected the first woman president of the Boston City Council, largely on the strength of ROAR, which was then at its peak.

The columnist Joseph Alsop called her "Joe McCarthy dressed up as Pollyanna"; civil rights leaders likened her to Adolf Hitler or Bull Connor of Birmingham, Alabama.

Newsweek published a satirical article ridiculing the Irish culture of South Boston, a matter which prompted Hicks to reply with a full-page newspaper ad.

She declared that "white women can no longer walk the streets [of Boston] in safety" and that "justice [had come] to mean special privileges for the black man and the criminal."

[39][40] On October 15, an interracial stabbing at Hyde Park High School led to a riot that injured 8, and at South Boston High on December 11, a non-fatal interracial stabbing led to a riotous crowd of 1,800 to 2,500 whites hurling projectiles at police while white students fled the facility and black students remained.

[45] On December 9, Judge Garrity ruled that instead of closing South Boston High at the request of the plaintiffs in Morgan v. Hennigan, the school would be put into federal receivership.

[46] On June 14, 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Warren E. Burger (1969–1986) unanimously declined to review the School Committee's appeal of the Phase II plan.

[54] In May 1990, Judge Garrity delivered his final judgment in Morgan v. Hennigan, formally closing the original case.