Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 24, 2026

Ted Landsmark

Theodore "Ted" Carlisle Landsmark is an American educator and lawyer. Landsmark is a distinguished public policy and urban affairs professor and director of the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University. His research interests include diversity in design, environmental design, design education, higher education administration, community-based economic development, public policy, historic preservation, and African American art and artisanry.

Last revised
Jun 24, 2026
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≈ 3 min
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Wikipedia ↗
Ted Landsmark
Landsmark in 2024
Born
Theodore Augustus Burrell

(1946-05-17) May 17, 1946
Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
Alma materYale University (BA, MED, JD)
Boston University (PhD)
OccupationsEducator
Attorney

Theodore "Ted" Carlisle Landsmark (born May 17, 1946) is an American educator and lawyer. Landsmark is a distinguished public policy and urban affairs professor and director of the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University. His research interests include diversity in design, environmental design, design education, higher education administration, community-based economic development, public policy, historic preservation, and African American art and artisanry.

Career

Landsmark in 1979 source ↗

Born in Kansas City, Landsmark moved to East Harlem, New York, before beginning his schooling.1 He attended Stuyvesant High School in New York and St. Paul's School in New Hampshire and earned his Bachelor of Arts, Master of Environmental Design, and Juris Doctor, all from Yale University. He was a political editor for the Yale Daily News and was part of the Aurelian Honor Society.2 He then received his Doctor of Philosophy from Boston University in American and New England Studies.3 Landsmark has received fellowships from the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts and the National Science Foundation.

Landsmark served as president of Boston Architectural College from 1997 to 2014 and as chief academic officer at the American College of the Building Arts from 2015 to 2017. He has also been a faculty member at the Massachusetts College of Art, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Landsmark has also served as a trustee for numerous arts-related organizations in Boston, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the New England Foundation for the Arts, Historic New England, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (whose board he chaired), the Design Futures Council, and the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center. In 2014, Mayor Marty Walsh named him to the Boston Planning and Development Agency board of directors.4

The Soiling of Old Glory

Landsmark is widely known for being the subject of the famed photograph The Soiling of Old Glory, which was taken by photojournalist Stanley Forman and won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography. On Landsmark's way to a meeting in Boston City Hall, he was met by young demonstrators against the Boston Desegregation Busing Crisis. It depicts a young white teenager, Joseph Rakes, assaulting Landsmark with a flagpole holding the American flag.5

In the 1970s, Landsmark worked as a civil rights attorney and advocate in Boston. Initially, he worked primarily to assist minority contractors in gaining opportunities in the construction industry.6 It was not until his assault that he began to focus his efforts on the city's busing crisis.

Following the incident, Landsmark received widespread attention from locals and the media.7 He parlayed the attention to increase awareness of the racial unrest in Boston. Mayor Raymond Flynn later hired him to improve youth and workforce development in the city.

Personal life

Landsmark had polio as a child.8

Awards

See also

See also

References

References

  1. "Theodore C. Landsmark's Biography". The HistoryMakers. Archived from the original on July 6, 2019. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  2. "Home". Archived from the original on December 31, 2012.
  3. "Theodore C. Landsmark". cssh.northeastern.edu. Archived from the original on July 6, 2019. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  4. "Ted Landsmark Becomes Newest Member of the BRA/EDIC Board of Directors | Boston Planning & Development Agency". Archived from the original on September 5, 2016. Retrieved September 19, 2016.
  5. "A Flag, a Busing Fight, and a Famous Photograph". www.usnews.com. Archived from the original on March 2, 2018. Retrieved September 15, 2017.
  6. "Life After Iconic 1976 Photo: The American Flag's Role In Racial Protest". NPR.org. Archived from the original on April 7, 2018. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  7. "Stars and Strife". Smithsonian. Archived from the original on February 27, 2018. Retrieved February 27, 2018.
  8. BAILEY, STEVE (April 29, 2016). "Charleston and Boston, then and now". Post and Courier. Archived from the original on July 6, 2019. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  9. "BSA Award of Honor". www.architects.org. Archived from the original on December 21, 2018. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  10. "Whitney M. Young Jr. Award Recipients". Archived from the original on June 12, 2012. Retrieved August 11, 2011.
External links