Bay State Medical Association

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Bay State Medical Association

African-American doctors, dentists, and pharmacists organized the Bay State Medical Association in 1930 to further their professional development and to provide charitable services to their community. The membership included more than 50 medical practitioners and was in existence until 1942.

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Richard Earle Pioneer Club

The Richard Earle Pioneer Club served the Black railway workers in Boston during the first quarter of the century. Providing sleeping quarters, meals, and a place to relax for the Pullman porters, dining car waiters, and chefs during 'off hours,' The Pioneer Club was an important community

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Black Educator's Alliance of Massachusetts

The Black Educators Alliance of Massachusetts ( BEAM), originally called the Massachusetts Negro Educators Association, was founded in 1965. Led by the late Rollins Griffith, and including John D. O'Bryant, Gerry Hill, Barbara Jackson, and Jean McGuire, it was the first professional association of

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Early Civil Rights Leader

Archibald H. Grimke (1849-1930) was the second African-American to graduate from Harvard Law School (1874). While struggling to establish a law practice in Boston, he started the first Black newspaper in New England, the Hub, in 1883. The paper, a voice of protest for Blacks in New England, lasted

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Top Black Businesses

In Black Enterprise magazine's listings of the top 100 Black companies and the 100 largest Black auto dealers in the United States during the late 1980s, a number of Boston area-based businesses made the lists: B.M.L. Associates (telecommunications); Grimes Oil Company (petroleum products

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Yancey Makes State Ballot

In 1986 Boston City Councilor Charles Yancey was the first African-American representing the Democratic Party to secure a position on a statewide ballot in his bid to become State Auditor.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Distinguished Female Dentist

Dr. Mary Crutchfield Wright was the only woman to pass the Massachusetts Civil Service examination for dentists in state institutions in 1932.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Edward L. Cooper, Sr.

In 1933 Edward L. Cooper, Sr., was the first African-American to be hired to manage a major food chain in Boston, the First National Store on Shawmut Avenue. From 1942-48 he was Deputy Secretary of the Urban League and served as Executive Secretary from 1948-54. From 1954-62 he served as the first

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black Woman in Legislature

Doris Bunte was the first African-American woman to serve in the Massachusetts legislature. Elected in 1972, she served as state representative until 1985.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Library Commissioners

The first African-American Library Commissioner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was Dr. Adelaide Cromwell Gulliver, who was appointed in 1974. The second to serve on the Commission was Robert C. Hayden from 1978 to 1980.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Theological School President

Rev. David T. Shannon became the first African-American to head the 184-year old Andover Newton Theological School in Newton in 1991. This school is the nation's oldest Protestant graduate school of theology.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Pioneering Teacher of Reading

Wilhelmina Crosson, one of the first African-American teachers in the Boston Public Schools (1923-1949), started her career at the Hancock School in the North End. Working in the Italian-American community with first-generation Italian children, she instituted the first remedial reading program in

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Black Heritage Trail

The Black Heritage Trail on Beacon Hill in Boston is a walking tour which explores the history of the city's 19th-century African-American community. The tour was started in 1963 as an informal walking tour of some 10 sites by J. Marcus Mitchell, the first curator of the Museum of Negro History

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Pioneering Black Historian

William C. Nell of Boston, an early writer-reporter for the Liberator, was also a pioneering Black historian, havingwritten Services of the Colored Americans in the Wars 1776 and 1812 (1852) andThe Colored Patriots of the American Revolution with Sketches of Several Distinguished Colored Persons to

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

South End Electric Company

In 1923 Leon G. Lomax founded the South End Electric Company in Roxbury, a firm which stayed in business until the early 1970s. Lomax also organized and became president of the Greater Boston Negro Business and Trade Association in 1938.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Boston Common 'Out of Bounds'

In 1742, when whites feared uprisings against oppression from the heavy concentration of slaves in Boston, the Boston Common was 'out of bounds' for Blacks and American Indians. The Black community of the city fought this restriction, but it was not until July 4, 1836 that they were allowed to use

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Early Political Writer

Hailed as America's first Black political writer, Maria W. Stewart, an early Boston activist, championed women's rights and Black self-improvement in a series of speeches and essays written between 1831 and 1833. She was probably the first Black American to lecture publicly in defense of

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

New England Slave Trade

The year 1644 was a momentous date in the history of the New England slave trade. Before that time Massachusetts merchants had occasionally brought in Black Africans from the West Indies; but in that year Boston traders imported slaves directly from Africa, when an association of businessmen sent

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Melnea Cass (1896-1978), who fought vigorously and successfully for the improvement of services and resources for Boston's Black community for over 60 years, had a new thoroughfare named in her honor in 1981, Melnea Cass Boulevard in the lower Roxbury neighborhood of Boston.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Bolling Family: Political Phenomenon

The Bolling family represented a phenomenon unprecedented in Boston politics in the early 1980s, when three members held elective office at the same time - Royal Bolling, Sr., served as state senator, while his son Royal Bolling, Jr., served as state representative, and his son Bruce Bolling served

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Women's Bar Association President

In March 1990 Judith Dilday became the first African-American president of the prestigious Women's Bar Association. Just the year before she had helped establish the first Black female law firm in New England, Burnham, Hines and Dilday.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

President of Boston Bar Association

In 1989 Rudolph F. Pierce became the first African-American to be elected President of the Boston Bar Association, the oldest local bar association in the nation, founded in 1761 by John Adams.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Newspaper/Radio/TV Pioneer

In 1954 George Forsyth became the first African-American reporter to be hired by theBoston Traveler, the afternoon paper owned by theBoston Herald. Beginning as a street reporter, he became a feature writer and drama and entertainment critic. In 1968 he joined the staff of WHDH-TV as an on-air

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Talk Show Host

Janet Langhart was the first African-American woman to host a daytime TV talk and variety show in Boston. Between 1973 and 1978 she co-hosted the Good Morning Show, later named the Good Day Show, with Jack Willis on WCVB-TV, Channel 5.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Oldest Funeral Home

The J. B. Johnson Funeral Home, established in 1932, and the Davis Funeral Home, established in 1935 - both still in business - are two of the oldest continuously performing establishments providing services to Black families in Boston.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Labor unions for Blacks in Boston came into existence in the late 1800s with the establishment of the Boston Colored Waiter's Alliance or Local 183 of the American Federation of Labor. Members were so-called public waiters not regularly employed, but hired for catering and temporary hotel and

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Graduate, New England Conservatory of Music

Rachel M. Washington was the first African-American to graduate from the New England Conservatory of Music in the year 1876. She served as organist and choir director at Twelfth Baptist Church in the latter half of the 19th century and was a leading music teacher in Boston's Black community.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Action for Boston Community Development, Inc.

Since 1962, Action for Boston Community Development, Inc. ( ABCD) has fostered community development in the city. For over 20 years Robert M. Coard has served as director, one of the longest continuous tenures for a community agency leader in the city of Boston. On the human side of urban

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Stable/Livery Business

African-American businessman Henry C. Turner (1852-1919) owned a boarding stable and garage (1890-1919) and operated a large livery business in Boston, servicing a mostly white clientele. Constructed in 1900, his stable and garage, always ready with horses, buggies, and carriages for hire, still

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Brighton High Valedictorian

In 1911 an African-American girl, F. Marion Reed, was valedictorian of her class at Brighton High School. With an overall average of 95 for her four years of high school study, she was in the top ten of academically achieving students out of 1,291 graduates from Boston high schools in 1911.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First with Boston Symphony

The first African-American to play with the Boston Symphony Orchestra was bass player Ortiz Walton in the late 1950s.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

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