Chancellor of Higher Education

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Chancellor of Higher Education

Dr. Franklyn Jenifer was appointed Chancellor of Higher Education in Massachusetts in 1986 by Governor Michael Dukakis, becoming the first African-American to hold this position. In 1990 he became president of Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Principal Harpist in BSO

Ann Hobson Pilot is the principal harpist in the Boston Symphony Orchestra ( BSO). As the only African-American in the BSO for over 20 years, she started as a second harpist in 1969, moved to associate harpist and then to principal harpist in 1980. Nationally she is the only principal

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Knights of Pythias

The Knights of Pythias was a fraternal and benevolent order in Boston's small and growing Black community in lower Roxbury that provided effective health insurance and death benefits to widows and orphans. Anchored in its own building at the corner of Ruggles and Washington Streets, it helped

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black Judge

George L. Ruffin of Boston became the first African-American judge in Massachusetts with his appointment in 1883 to the District Court of Charlestown. He served in this position until his death in 1886. In 1869 he was the first African-American to earn a law degree from Harvard University. In 1984

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Lucy Terry Prince (c. 1733-1821), sometimes referred to as America's first Black poet, was a Massachusetts storyteller whose poem 'The Bar's Fight' was written in 1746 while she was still a slave.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

20th-Century Statesman

Herbert L. Jackson became one of the most successful Black politicians in the history of Massachusetts, serving some 30 years in public office from the 1940s to the 1970s. He was first elected in 1945 to a seat on the Malden City Council, where he served until 1950, when he won his first of two

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Orthopedic Surgeon-in-Chief

In 1978 when Dr. Augustus A. White II became Orthopedic Surgeon-in-Chief at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital, which is affiliated with Harvard Medical School, he became the first African-American to serve as chairman of a clinical department in a major teaching hospital. He is the senior co-author

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Pharmacist Doctor Jackson

For 50 years, from 1938-1988, Clarence Noel Jackson (1911-1988), Reg. Ph., owned and operated the Douglass Square Pharmacy in lower Roxbury. 'Dr. Jackson,' as he was called, a graduate of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy in 1937, provided a community institution for health care throughout

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Renowned Chemist

Dr. Henry A. Hill (1915-1979) was a distinguished chemist locally and nationally from 1942 until 1979. He was the first African-American to become Chairman of the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society and later became President of the American Chemical Society. In 1961 he

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

M.D. Degree for Black Woman

The first African-American female graduate of a medical school was Rebecca Lee, who received an M.D. degree from the New England Female Medical College in Boston in 1864.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Early Black Reporter

Bob Teanoh was perhaps the first African-American reporter for a white newspaper in Boston, having obtained a staff position in 1890 withThe Boston Daily Globe. He was elected to the state legislature in 1894.

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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

First Black on Board of Education

Judge Richard Banks was the first African-American to serve on the State Board of Education in Massachusetts from 1966 to 1973.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Slavery Abolished in Massachusetts

The year 1773 saw increasing agitation among Blacks in Boston and Massachusetts for an end to slavery. On January 6, then in April, and again in May, they sent petitions first to royal General Thomas Gage and next to the Massachusetts legislature, denouncing slavery as destructive of natural rights

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Early Entrepreneur

By 1855 J. H. Lewis, one of the best known clothiers of the period, developed a thriving business making fashionable 'bell trouser' in a large shop on Washington Street in Boston's downtown business district.

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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

Commissioners of Public Health

The first African-American to hold the position of Commissioner of Public Health in Massachusetts was Dr. Bailus Walker, appointed in 1984. He was followed by another African-American, Dr. Deborah Prothow-Smith, Commissioner from 1987 to 1989, the first woman to hold this position.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Chairman of National Democratic Party

Ronald H. Brown, who spent his early childhood in Roxbury and attended the David A. Ellis School, became Chairman of the National Democratic Party in 1989, a historic first for an African-American.

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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

Early Childhood Educator

Lucy M. Mitchell became the first African-American elected to the Board of Directors of the Boston YWCA in 1941, where she served for seven years. Previously, in the mid-1930s she pioneered the development of a model nursery school at the Robert Gould Shaw House and led efforts to improve and

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black Harvard College Graduate

Richard Theodore Greener, class of 1870, was the first Black to graduate from Harvard College. He became a professor of mental and moral philosophy at the University of South Carolina and U.S. Consul at Vladivostok during the Russo-Japanese War.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Long-Running TV Programs

'Say Brother,' produced by WGBH-TV (Channel 2) for the past 20 years, is the longest running television show targeted to the African-American and minority communities in Boston. 'Urban Update' (formerly 'Black News') on WHDH (Channel 7) is a close second with a nearly 18-year on-air history.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Founder of Resthaven Nursing Home

Edgar P. Benjamin, an 1894 graduate of Boston University's Law School, established a private practice in civil and criminal law of which he said, 'I am sole counsel for many large firms and corporations, and businesses, many of which are white. . . .' In 1927 Benjamin founded

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Museum of Afro-American History

The Museum of Afro-American History was established in Boston in 1964. Its leading founders were Dean Howard Thurman of Boston University and his wife Sue Bailey Thurman. The Museum was established 'to advance knowledge, through historic examination,' about the African-American presence in Boston

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Secretary of Transportation

Real estate entrepreneur Richard Taylor was appointed in 1988 to the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; and in 1990 he became Deputy Chairman, both first appointments for an African-American in Boston. The Federal Reserve is 'the banker's bank,' controlling the money supply

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Female President of NAACP Branch

In 1948, when Florence LeSuerer was elected president of Boston's branch of the NAACP, she became the first woman in the country to head a local NAACP chapter. She served as branch president from 1948 to 1951.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Deputy Tax Collector

Stewart E. Hoyt, who started as a clerk in the Boston tax collector's office, rose to the position of Deputy Tax Collector for the City in the 1920s, retiring in 1931.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Top Position for 'Colored Man'

Attorney E. E. Brown was appointed Assistant Health Commisioner for the city of Boston in 1907 by Mayor Fitzgerald, a Democrat. The Guardian newspaper called Brown's appointment the 'best position any colored man ever had in Boston.' The newspaper went on to say, 'The appointment of a colored man

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

New England Anti-Slavery Society

The New England Anti-Slavery Society, successor to the Massachusetts General Colored Association, was founded at Boston's African Meeting House in 1832, becoming the leading, most eloquent, most effective voice in the battle against slavery. (Note: The Caution poster in the other panel was not

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black Lawyer before Supreme Court

John Sweat Rock (1825-1866), a noted Boston lawyer, became in 1865 the first African-American to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and the first Black person to speak before the U.S. House of Representatives.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Gretchen Jackson was the first African-American woman to have a sponsored and sustained daytime radio program in Boston from 1953 to 1961. As a disc jockey and talk-show interviewer, she was heard first on WBOS and later on WBMS.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Literature Facts

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