National Political Delegates

BlackFacts Details

National Political Delegates

On April 28, 1936 Julian Rainey was elected an alternate delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Helen Whiteman was elected an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention the same year.

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

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black Trained Nurse

Mary Eliza Mahoney (1845-1926), acknowledged to be the first Black trained nurse in America, graduated from the New England Hospital for Women and Children, now the Dimock Community Health Center, in 1879. While she was one of the few early Black members of The American Nurses Association, she

fave

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.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Largest Negro Weekly Newspaper

The Boston Chronicle, from 1920 to 1967, was 'New England's largest Negro Weekly Newspaper.' Published and edited by Alfred Haughton with William Harrison as Associate Editor, this Black community newspaper covered local, statewide, regional, national, and international news of people, places, and

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Inventor of Electronic Devices

Louis Roberts became the Director of Transportation Systems Center at the U.S. Department of Transportation headquarters in Cambridge in 1985 where he served until 1989. From 1967-1970 he was Chief of the Optics and Microwave Laboratory of the Electronic Research Center for the National Aeronautics

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Legendary Celtic

Bill Russell was both player and coach of the legendary Boston Celtics basketball team for three season, from 1966 through 1969. In two of these seasons (1967-68 and 1968-69) he led the Celtics to the National Basketball Association national championship. As a Celtic from 1956 to 1969, he averaged

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First City Lawyer

In the 1930s Julian Rainey became the first Assistant Corporation Counsel for the city of Boston.

fave

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

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Boston Negro Arts Club

The Boston Negro Arts Club was formed in 1907 and its first exhibition was held the same year.

fave

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

fave

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

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Black Minutemen

Peter Salem of Framingham, Job Potomea and Isaiah Barjonah of Stoneham, Cuff Whitemore of Cambridge, Prince of Brookline, and Pompey of Braintree were among the Blacks in greater Boston who joined the Minutemen before the battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775. Salem is remembered for fatally shooting

fave

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

fave

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

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Government Administrator

On his way to an affirmative action meeting with the Boston Redevelopment Authority on April 5, 1976, African-American attorney Theodore Landsmark was physically assaulted by anti-busing demonstrators on City Hall plaza. One of the demonstrators swung an American flag at him. Landsmark's flag

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Nation of Islam Leader

Minister Louis Farrakhan, raised in Roxbury and a 1950 graduate of English High School, has been the national leader of the Nation of Islam since 1977, following the death of the founder of the Nation, Elijah Muhammad. While viewed by some as controversial, Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Edward L. Cooper, Sr.

In 1933 Edward L. Cooper, Sr., was the first African-American to be hired to manage a major food chain in Boston, the First National Store on Shawmut Avenue. From 1942-48 he was Deputy Secretary of the Urban League and served as Executive Secretary from 1948-54. From 1954-62 he served as the first

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Owner of Pro Team

Peter C. B. Bynoe, a native of Boston, and Bertram Lee, a Boston businessman, became the first African-Americans to own a major professional sports franchise when they purchased the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association in 1989.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

National Negro Business League

The National Business League was founded in Boston in 1900 by Booker T. Washington 'to bring the colored people who are engaged in business together for consultation, and to secure information and inspiration from each other.' More than 400 business people from 34 states attended the convention in

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Urban League of Boston

The Urban League of Boston was established in May 1919 and has been dedicated to the economic and social development of Boston's African-American people and neighborhoods for 70 years. In the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s especially, the Boston affiliate of the National Urban League was a significant

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First U.S. Senator since Reconstruction

In 1962 Edward W. Brooke, a Boston attorney, became the first African-American to be elected Attorney General for the Commonwealth. Two year later, in 1964, he became the first African-American elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Art historian Edmund B. Gaither, curator and director of the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, has been a leading spokesman for the Black artist in Boston for over 25 years. He is internationally known as an advocate of African-American visual artists and as a contributor to

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Graduate, New England Conservatory of Music

Rachel M. Washington was the first African-American to graduate from the New England Conservatory of Music in the year 1876. She served as organist and choir director at Twelfth Baptist Church in the latter half of the 19th century and was a leading music teacher in Boston's Black community.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Charles Lenox Remond

Charles Lenox Remond (1810-1873) was perhaps the boldest agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and possibly the most eloquent of the Black abolitionists of antebellum Boston. He had a national and international reputation as an anti-slavery leader, and was appointed as an American

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

William Monroe Trotter's Equal Rights League

In 1901 William Monroe Trotter (1873-1934) founded the Boston Equal Rights League to push for civil and human rights for Black people. The league operated nine years before the establishment of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

NAACP Youth Council

Organized with 58 members from 25 different community youth groups and churches in 1936, the Boston Youth Council of NAACP held a mass meeting a year later protesting educational inequality in the Boston schools.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Eureka Co-Operative Bank

David E. Crawford opened Eureka Co-Operative Bank in Boston in 1910, 'the only bank in the East owned and operated by â€˜Colored People.'' He was appointed a master in the Chancery by the Governor of Massachusetts in 1915, and in 1916 the citizens of Boston elected him as a delegate to the National

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Sportsman's Tennis Club

Since 1961 Sportsman's Tennis Club, through the vision and guidance of the club's founder, James A. Smith, has achieved local, regional and national fame by developing and promoting junior tennis programs that have elevated young Black players to noteworthy competitive levels of tennis playing in

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Female Olympic Star

During the early 1930s Louise Stokes of Medford was among the finest female track stars in the country. She was a member of the U.S. Olympic Team in 1932 and won the Women's National A.A.U. 50-yard dash championship in Chicago in 1933.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Boston Bank of Commerce

Incorporated on June 30, 1982, with Juan M. Cofield as its leading founder and president from 1982-1983, Boston Bank of Commerce is the only fully insured Black-owned and operated bank in Boston and New England. A successor to Unity Bank and Trust, Boston's first Black-owned Bank, the Boston Bank

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Politics Facts

Blackfacts BETA RELEASE 11.5.3
(Production Environment)