First Elected Black Woman

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First Elected Black Woman

In 1952 Madeline D. Andrews was elected to the Medford School Committee. She was apparently the first Black woman elected to public office in Massachusetts.

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

High Hurdles Champ

Eddie Dugger of Medford was National Collegiate Athletic Association high hurdles champion in 1940.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Attorney to Pass Massachusetts Exam

Robert Morris was the first attorney in Massachusetts to pass the Massachusetts bar examination in 1847.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Pioneering Public Servant

Clarence Richard Elam (1923-1985) performed as a pioneering public servant as Assistant Director of Civil Defense for the City of Boston form 1950-52, Executive Secretary of the Governor's Council (1952-56), Chairman of the Boston Licensing Board (1956-74), and Special Assistant to Attorney General

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

St. Cyprian's Episcopal Church

St. Cyprian's Episcopal Church was the first church built in Roxbury by Black people. Serving as a haven for immigrants from the West Indian islands in the early 1900s, St. Cyprian's was established in 1913. The cornerstone of its present building on Tremont Street was laid in 1923 and the church

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Roland Hayes, Vocal Artist

Roland Hayes, who gained national and international fame as a classical concert artist, launched his career in Boston's Symphony Hall in 1917. He lived, studied, and worked in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts, from 1912 until his death in 1977. In 1921 the noted tenor gave a command performance

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

In the 1940s and 1950s, at the corner of Massachusetts and Columbus Avenues, stood a landmark in the history of jazz, the Hi-Hat Club. (The new Harriet Tubman House now occupies the site). Originally it was a supper club patronized by whites listening to 'white' music, but the music became

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Leading Dentist

Dr. W. Alexander Cox had a large dental practice among Black and white patients in Cambridge during the early 1900s. He was the founder and president of the dental section of the National Medical Association. In the late 1800s Dr. Cox was owner and publisher of the Advocate, the only newspaper

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Printing Business Pioneer

Established in 1952, Lester Benn's printing business has served the needs of the Black community for nearly 40 years. Enamored of the art of the printing trade, Lester Benn struggled throughout the 1940s to become and independent printer, acquiring the 'bits and pieces' of used machinery and doing

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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

Black Population 1708-1752

Throughout the colonial era Boston contained the largest number of Blacks in Massachusetts. The flourishing slave trade and increased birthrate expanded the Black population from 400 in 1708 to 1,374 in 1742. In 1708 there were 33 free Blacks in Boston. In 1742 one-third of all Blacks in

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

James Monroe Trotter

In 1885 James Monroe Trotter published a widely acclaimed book, Music and Some Highly Musical People, a tribute to some 200 Black groups and individuals for their musical achievement in Boston and the United States during the 1800s.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Boston Guardian

The Boston Guardian newspaper, a major 20th-century civil rights publication, was founded in Boston in 1901 by William Monroe Trotter, who published the newspaper until his death in 1934. For the next 23 years (1934 - 1957), Trotter's sister, Maude Trotter Steward, and her husband, Dr. Charles

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Progressive Musical Union

The Progressive Musical Union, an organization of Black musicians, sponsored its first public concert on March 9, 1875.

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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

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

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

First Female Bishop

The Reverend Barbara C. Harris was elected Sufragan Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts in September, 1988 and was consecrated bishop in February, 1989. She was the first woman, Black or white, to be elected a bishop in the Anglican Communion.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

In 1967 Thomas Atkins became the first Black Bostonian to win a city-wide election to the Boston City Council. He served two two-year terms before losing a campaign for mayor in 1971.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Leads Rally - Part 2

In April 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a graduate of Boston University School of Theology, led a march from Roxbury to a rally on Boston Common to protest the evils of school segregation in Boston. Dr. King spoke at the State House where he appealed to the Massachusetts legislature to end

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Public Welfare Overseer

In 1950 Beulah H. Hester became the first Black appointed to the Boston Board of Overseers of Public Welfare.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black School Principal

Maria L. Baldwin of Cambridge became the first Black school principal in Massachusetts when she was appointed to head the Agassiz School in Cambridge in 1899. She remained in the position until 1922.

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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

Women's Anti-Slavery Organizer

Born in Salem, Sara Remond (1826-1894) was a leading organizer of women for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in the 1840s and 1850s. Protesting segregation in churches, theatres, and other public places, she won a civil court suit after being ejected from the Howard Athenaeum in Boston, which

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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

55th Massachusetts Regiment

The 55th Massachusetts Regiment commanded by Colonel Hallowell of Boston acquitted itself valiantly during many Civil War battles, particularly in the battle of Honey Hill in South Carolina, where its determined resistance to advancing southern forces saved the lives of numerous Federal troops. In

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Voting Rights for Blacks

Prominent businessman Paul Cuffe used his influence to petition the Massachusetts legislature for voting rights for Blacks and American Indians, which were later granted through court action in 1783.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Martha's Vineyard

For more than 100 years the island of Martha's Vineyard (seven miles off the southeast coast of Massachusetts) has been an important summertime haven for Black Bostonians. In the late 1800s Blacks first came to the island to work for whites and some earned enough money to gain small summer vacation

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Theatre Pioneer

Ralf Coleman, actor, writer, director, manager, and producer of numerous stage hits, was a major Black theater pioneer in New England between the two world wars. He held many important theater posts, including director of the Negro Federal Theatre of Massachusetts from 1934 to 1939 and Executive

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

In 1854 J. V. De Grasse (1825-1868) became the first Black physician admitted to the Massachusetts Medical Association.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Boston Afro-American Artists, Inc.

The Boston Afro-American Artists, Inc. ( BAAA) - (formerly the Boston Negro Artists Association) - was organized in 1963 by J. Marcus Mitchell and Calvin Burnett to stimulate the development of and appreciation for the visual arts within the Black community. Incorporated in 1966, the BAAA developed

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Science Facts

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