First Poet

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First Poet

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.

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Female Federal Magistrate

Joyce London Alexander became the first Black woman in the country appointed as a federal magistrate in Boston when she was named to that post by President Jimmy Carter in 1979.

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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

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

Charles Street A.M.E. Church

In 1983, Charles Street A.M.E. Church celebrated its 150th anniversary. Founded in 1833 by Boston's 19th-century Black community on Beacon Hill, it moved to its present site in upper Roxbury in 1939, the last Black church to move out of the Beacon Hill area.

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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

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

First Court Child Care Center

The Roxbury District Court Child Care Center was the first court-affiliated drop-in care center in New England for families who must bring their children with them when they have court business. Roxbury District Court Judge Julian T. Houston, now a Superior Court judge, worked for four years to

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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

Harvard Law Review President

With his election in 1990, Barack H. Obama became the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review in its 103-year history. The Review is managed and edited by 78 student editors selected from Harvard's 1,600 law students. In its first 85 years, The Review has had three Black editors: Charles

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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

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

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

In June 1968 Unity Bank, the first full-service Black bank in Boston, opened its doors for business. Approximately 70 percent of the $1.2 million in bank assets was raised by subscription in the Black community.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Commander at Pearl Harbor

Edward O. Gourdin commanded the 372nd Regiment during World War II and was commander of ground defense at Pearl Harbor. After the war he served as a member of the Secretary of War's Discharge Review and later as Acting Judge Advocate of the Massachusetts National Guard. He later became a judge in

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Secretary of Governor's Council

William L. Reed was the first Executive Secretary of the Massachusetts Governor's Council, serving from 1924 to 1942.

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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

Engineer/Bridge Designer

Harold B. Frye (1902-1989), a civil engineer with the Massachusetts Department of Public Works for over 40 years, was responsible for the design of many bridges throughout the state during his career. Born in Boston, he graduated in 1925 with a degree in engineering from Northeastern University and

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Black Population in 1970

In 1970, 51 percent of Boston's African-Americans had been born outside of Massachusetts and had migrated to the state, and most of the newcomers (29 percent of the entire Black population) were of southern origin.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Dual Political Roles

Two African-American women have held simultaneously two elected political offices. Sandra Graham of Cambridge served as City Councilor in her city from 1971 to 1989 and served as a state representative in the Massachusetts legislature from 1977 to 1988. Shirley Owens-Hicks, while serving on the

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

20th-Century First

Lawrence Banks, a Republican, became the first African-American from Boston to serve in the Massachusetts legislature in the 20th century, when he was elected from Ward 9 in 1946. Banks also won election to the Boston City Council in 1949.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black Pharmacist

Robert H. Carter of New Bedford (and great-grandfather of author/historian Robert C. Hayden) was the first Black to practice pharmacy in Massachusetts, receiving his certification from the Commonwealth in 1886. He owned two drugstores in Boston between 1895 and 1905.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

NAACP Educational Counseling Committee

The Boston Branch of the NAACP founded its Educational Counseling Committee in 1948 to provide higher education information and guidance to Black young people in Boston high schools. Twenty years later in 1968 the Committee counseled over 340 students and awarded $20,000 in direct college aid to 60

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black Church

In December 1806, Rev. Thomas Paul (who had been and 'exhorter' of scripture passages since age sixteen) formally organized and became the first minister of the first Black church in Boston at the African Meeting House on Beacon Hill.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Distinguished Chemical Engineer

In 1979 chemical engineer James Porter (Ph.D.) founded his own firm, Energy and Environmental Engineering, Inc., in Cambridge, which became the first minority-owned firm in the nation to receive U.S. Environmental Agency laboratory contracts. Before founding his own firm, he established the

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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

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

First Black Newspaper

Boston's first Black newspaper of record before the Civil War was the Emancipator and Free American, founded in 1842 and closed in 1844.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare

Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, formerly president of Morehouse College of Medicine, was appointed by President George Bush in 1989 as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. Dr. Sullivan graduated from Boston University's School of Medicine and spent the early years of his career as a medical

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Creating Political Opportunities

In 1986 the Black Political Task Force joined forces with the Rainbow Coalition, the Massachusetts Latino Democratic Committee, and the Asian Political Caucus to challenge the redistricting plan put forth by the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Redistricting is the process by which

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Distinguished Black Judge

Harry J. Elam became the first Black to serve as a Justice in the more than 300-year history of the Boston Municipal Court when he was appointed in 1971 as an Associate Justice. In 1978 he was the unanimous choice of the full bench of the Supreme Judicial Court to serve a five-year term as Chief

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Literature Facts

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