First Black Psychiatrist

BlackFacts Details

First Black Psychiatrist

Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller (1872-1953), acknowledged as the first Black to practice psychiatry in America, graduated from Boston University's Medical School in 1897 and practiced psychiatry in Boston and Framingham until 1937.

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Prosperous Hat Maker

Stephen Jackson was a prosperous hat maker in Boston in the 1730s, when 'a man would as soon go without his head as go without a hat.'

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black Celtics Star

Chuck Cooper was the first Black player on the Boston Celtics basketball team, appearing with them in the 1940s.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

National Federation of Afro-American Women

The National Federation of Afro-American Women was founded at Boston's Charles Street African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1895. The following year it united with the Washington National League to form the National Association of Colored Women.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Nationally Known Dancer

Stanley E. Brown (1902-1977) was a nationally known dancer and dance instructor in Boston from 1929 to 1977. Founder of the Stanley Brown Dance Studio, he trained and coached hundreds of professionals. 'Sugar Ray' Robinson took tap lessons from Brown as did Cab Calloway, Diana Ross, and Lola

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Benjamin and Sarah Roberts Lawsuit

Benjamin Roberts sued the Boston School Committee in 1849 for denying his daughter Sarah admission to an all-white Boston school. His action rallied school integration forces in the early 1850s, leading to the first official school desegregation in Boston in 1855. At that time the Massachusetts

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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

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

School Desegregation in 1855

In September 1855, after a long boycott of Black-only schools led by William C. Nell and a petition to the legislature that schools in Boston be desegregated, Blacks in Boston were free to attend previously all-white schools.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First City Appointment

The first appointment of an African-American to a city position in Boston appears to have been that of W. W. Bryant, who in 1885 was made deputy sealer of weights and measures.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Leading Businesswoman

A leading African-American businesswoman in Boston for more than 20 years, Estella V. Crosby owned and operated a dry goods store on Tremont Street. She chaired the annual convention of the National Business League in Boston in 1955, organized the Housewives League, and was active in the League of

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Africans in Boston Before 1638?

In 1638, eight years after the original settlement of Boston, a ship named Desire arrived in Boston with the first American slaves. Built in Marblehead, the merchant vessel brought its cargo of cotton, tobacco, and slaves from Providence Island in the Bahamas. There is reason to believe that Black

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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

Black Newspaper Publisher

In 1838 Benjamin Roberts (who worked for The Liberator under William Lloyd Garrison) established the Anti-Slavery Herald, intended to be an anti-slavery journal by and for Blacks in Boston. Only a few issues were printed. In 1853 Roberts tried again establishing a Black paper called Self Elevator.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Oldest NAACP Branch

The Boston Branch of the NAACP, the first official and now the oldest branch of the NAACP, developed out of the Boston Committee to Advance the Cause of the Negro, established in 1910. Gathering in 1912 at the Park Street Church, 56 Bostonians (Black and white) received the official Branch charter

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Housing Discrimination Victories

In 1989 the Boston branch of the NAACP won two major lawsuits for housing discrimination . Both cases were unique because they were the 'first of their kind' in the country to award individuals monetary compensation, according to Attorney Dianne Wilkerson, the NAACP Housing Committee

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Henry Owens Movers

Henry Owens Movers was founded in 1927 in Cambridge, becoming one of the major moving and rigging companies in New England still in business today. Henry Owens, Sr., founded his business with a horse and buggy, peddling ice to his neighbors and carting baggage to and from Boston's piers for the

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Memories of Great Black Athletes

Fifty Sports Years Along Memory Lane: Afro-American Sports History - Hometown, Local and National by Mabray 'Doc' Kountze of West Medford was published in 1981. Kountze's book chronicles hundreds of sports figures, teams and events in greater Boston's African-American history.

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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 Neighborhoods 1920-1960

For the first half of the 20th century the entire South End and lower Roxbury community became the traditional and historic Black section of Boston. Until 1950 most Blacks resided in narrow geographic strip bounded by Columbus Avenue and Washington Street and Dartmouth Street and what is now New

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Female Anti-Slavery Leader

Susan Paul of Boston, daughter of Rev. Thomas Paul, served as vice president of the Second Annual Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in Philadelphia in 1839.

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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

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

Writer of Race Politics

During the first quarter of the 20th century George W. Forbes (1864-1927) was an important journalist for national race politics. From 1893 to 1903, he edited the Boston Courant, one of Boston's early Black newspapers. He helped start the Boston Guardian, founded and published by William M. Trotter

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley, a slave in Boston who gained her freedom in 1772, became the first African-American to publish a book of poetry,Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Academy of Musical Arts

The Academy of Musical Arts, founded by Anna Bobbit Gardner, has been providing music lessons in Boston for over 65 years. The Academy (originally called Pinaforte Studio) was started in the basement of her home on Claremont Park. When the school moved to its present site on Columbus Avenue, it

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

'Dean' of Black Lawyers

Henry E. Quarles, Sr., born in Boston in 1906, and a graduate of Suffolk Law School in 1928, is considered 'The Dean' of Black lawyers in Boston. He holds the distinction of having the longest legal career - 61 years of practice as an attorney - in Boston. He received an Honorary Doctor of Law from

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

African-Americans in 1790

There were 766 African-Americans (4 percent of the population) counted in Boston in the first United State Census in 1790.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Wig Manufacturer

The largest wig manufacturer in Boston in the early 1900s was Gilbert C. Harris. By 1910 his mail-order business was the largest of its kind in New England, supplying theatrical stock companies throughout the country.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Black Population 1910-1980

By 1910 Boston's Black population was 13,500, and in 1940 it was only 23,000. Between 1940 and 1960 the Black population of Boston jumped to 63,000, and by 1980 it was approximately 120,000.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Racist Song Removed

In 1915 the Boston Branch NAACP won a victory when it persuaded the Boston School Committee to withdraw from the schools the bookForty Best Songs. The local NAACP objected to the words 'darky', 'nigger,' and 'massa' in the songs, and said in its petition to the committee that 'our [Black] children

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Facts About Women

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