Firefighters Association

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Firefighters Association

The Vulcans, Boston's African-American firefighters' association, was formed in 1972. At that time there had been only 17 Black and Hispanic firemen in the history of the city's fire department. When the Vulcans filed a court suit against the city of Boston for discrimination in hiring practices, the city admitted to the charges. Today there are more than 400 African-American firefighters in the force of 2,000.

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

'Finest Boxer to Wear Gloves'

Sam Langford of Boston and Cambridge had by his own count 650 boxing bouts between 1902 and 1926; 250 of his fights were officially recorded. Standing just 5 feet 7 inches, and weighing 165 pounds - the size of a middleweight - Langford fought as a heavyweight and held the so-called Negro and

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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

First School Principal

The first African-American to be appointed as a school principal in the Boston Public Schools was Gladys Wood. Appointed in 1966 to administer the Dearborn district (composed of three elementary schools), she then moved into the Tileston district and to the Chittick School, serving for 15 years as

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black Episcopal Bishop

The Rev. John M. Burgess of Boston became the first African-American diocesan Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States in 1968.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Dr. Benjamin Quarles, Historian

Dr. Benjamin Quarles, born in Boston in 1904 and a graduate of English High School, became an eminent 20th-century African-American historian. He is the author ofThe Negro in the Making of America, Black Abolitionists, Lincoln and the Negro, The Negro in the American Revolution, and a definitive

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Black Businesses in 1900

Of the 197 Boston businesses operated by Blacks in 1900, 70 were in wholesale and retail trade, 107 were in personal service, and 20 were in other lines (for example, printing, newspaper publishing, cigar manufacturing, banking, and real estate rental). Those with personal services included

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Patrick School of Pharmacy

Dr. Thomas W. Patrick, pharmacist, founded the Patrick School of Pharmacy in Boston in 1893. Until 1936 he operated the school, where some 5,000 Bostonians, mostly first- and second-generation Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants, were trained to become certified pharmacists.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Microwave Associates

Microwave Associates, Inc. (now called M/A-COM) was founded in 1950 in Boston by two African-American engineers, Louis W. Roberts and Richard M. Walker, and Vess Chigas (a Greek American). In 1956 the company offered public stock and many of Boston's African-Americans invested. Microwave Associates

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Veteran School Committeman

In 1977 John O'Bryant was elected to Boston School Committee, becoming the first African-American elected to serve on the Committee in the 20th century. In 1989 he was elected to his seventh two-year term, and in 1991 he became president of the body for the second time.

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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

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

Valiant Navy Admiral

Gerald E. Thomas of Natick and Boston rose to become Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy. His first command was in 1962 aboard the USS Impervious, an ocean minesweeper operating in the western Pacific. He also commanded the Destroyer Squandron NINE and the Cruiser-Destroyer Group FIVE. Thomas's medals

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

19th-Century Statesman

Julius C. Chappelle had one of the most successful careers in Boston electoral politics of the late 19th century. He was elected to the Republican State Central Committee, the Boston City Council, and the state legislature. He served in the state House of Representatives from 1883 to 1886, the

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Malcolm X, formerly Malcolm Little (1925-1965), was one of the most fiery, controversial leaders of his time and one of the major Black leaders of the 20th century. Growing up in Boston during the 1940s, he became involved in criminal activities which landed him a ten-year prison sentence. While in

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Federal Position

William C. Nell (1816-1874) was appointed a postal clerk in the U.S. Postal System in 1860, becoming the first African-American to hold a federal civilian job in the city.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Published Novelist

William Wells Brown, a novelist, playwright, historian, essayist, lecturer, physician, and abolitionist, spent most of his life and published most of his work in Boston. He is especially noted forClotel: or The President's Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States (1853), the first

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Rear Admiral in U.S. Navy

Wendell Norman Johnson of Boston rose to the rank of Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy in 1983 and was Commander (1987-1989) of the U.S. Naval Base in Charleston, South Carolina, the third largest naval base in the United States.

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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

First Female Journalist

Lillian Lewis was the first African-American woman journalist in Boston. In the 1880s, she wrote for The Advocate, a Black community newspaper. She then went toThe Boston Herald, writing under the name of Bert Islew, scrambling the letters of her last name to disguise the fact that she was

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

All-American Football Star

William H. Lewis, an All-American football star at Harvard, is credited with inventing the 'roving center' defense strategy. He went on to a distinguished legal and political career in Boston.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Two Firsts for Margaret Burnham

Margaret Burnham, the first Black female lawyer to practice in Boston Municipal Court, was also the first African-American woman appointed associate justice in 1977, a position she held until 1983.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Preacher at Tremont Temple

Rev. John Sella Martin, who served as pastor of the Joy Street Baptist Church ( African Meeting House) around 1859, often served as guest preacher at the Tremont Temple, a mostly white congregation. He addressed worshippers at the Temple on January 1, 1863, when news of

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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

Underground Railroad Leader

Lewis Hayden, a leading 19th-century Black abolitionist who harbored over two-thirds of Boston's fugitive slaves in his Beacon Hill house prior to the Civil War, was elected to the Massachusetts General Court in 1873.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Famous Restaurants

Small lunchrooms and restaurants were plentiful during the early 1900s in Boston's Black neighborhoods. One was the Southern Dining Room operated by Thomas E. Lucas, who advertised his place as 'cool, clean and commodious. . . . . Good food and prompt attentive service have made this a most

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Remarkable Lawyer and Dentist

In remarkable achievements in widely different fields, Hamilton S. Smith not only became the first African-American to receive a law degree from Boston University in 1879, but in 1889 he also received a doctor of dentistry from Howard University.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Legendary Community Politicians

From the mid-1920s through the 1950s, brothers Silas F. and Balcom S. Taylor, Registered Pharmacists, championed voter registration, jobs, housing, and political participation for Blacks in Boston, when there were no elected Black officials in city or state government. Their drugstore on Tremont

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Ward 9 Politicians

From Boston's 'old' Ward 9 in the Beacon Hill area, Boston's Black citizens were able to elect 20 Black persons to public office - to the city council, the state legislature, and school committee - during the second half of the 19th century.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Leader in Government and Education

Paul Parks served as Director of Model Cities under Boston Mayor Kevin White, first Massachusetts Secretary of Education under Governor Frank Sargent, a member of the Board of Appeals in Boston, and president of the Board of Trustees, Boston Public Library.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black Printing Business

In 1838 Benjamin Roberts established Boston's first Black-owned and operated printing business.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

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