Newspaper/Radio/TV Pioneer

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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 reporter, transferring to WHDH-radio in 1972. In 1975 he moved to public affairs with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Boston. This pioneering Black journalist was born in Roxbury, graduated from English High School, and received his degree in journalism from Boston University after serving in World War II.

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Slave Introduces Smallpox Vaccination

The ravages of smallpox were lessened in the 1700s because Onesimus, a slave to Cotton Mather in Boston, introduced an African vaccination practice that had made his body immune to the smallpox virus. Dr. Zabdiel Boylston of Boston inoculated some 240 people, following Onesimus's description of

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Eminent Foreign Correspondent

William Worthy, Jr., born in Boston in 1921 and educated in its public schools, served as an eminent and significant foreign correspondent and columnist for the Baltimore Afro-American from 1951 to 1980; as a special CBS News correspondent in China, Africa, and the Soviet Union between 1955-57; and

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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

M.D. Degree for Black Woman

The first African-American female graduate of a medical school was Rebecca Lee, who received an M.D. degree from the New England Female Medical College in Boston in 1864.

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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

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

Long-Running TV Programs

'Say Brother,' produced by WGBH-TV (Channel 2) for the past 20 years, is the longest running television show targeted to the African-American and minority communities in Boston. 'Urban Update' (formerly 'Black News') on WHDH (Channel 7) is a close second with a nearly 18-year on-air history.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Grimes Oil Company

Calvin M. Grimes, Sr., founded Grimes Oil Company in Boston in 1940. Now operated by Calvin M. Grimes, Jr., this 50-year-old business started with one delivery truck, once serviced more than 3,000 residential customers, and now delivers gasoline, fuel oil, diesel fuel, and residual oil to

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black Episcopal Priest

In 1894, at the Church of St. Augustine, Oscar Lieber Mitchell was the first African-American ordained into the priesthood of the Episcopal Church in Boston.

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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

20th-Century Novelist

Dorothy West, born in 1910 and raised in Boston, became a leading novelist, short-story writer, editor, and columnist. Her novelThe Living Is Easy (about growing up Black in Boston) was published in 1948; currently she writes a column for theVineyard Gazette on Martha's Vineyard Island.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Early Career Officer

Colonel Frank M. Snowden (1885-1947) of Boston joined the U.S. Army in 1907 and rose through the ranks, in an era when few Blacks became officers, to become a colonel. After leaving the service in 1945 he served as civilian executive of the First Service Command (U.S. Army) in Boston.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Robert Gould Shaw House

From 1907 to the early 1970s the Robert Gould Shaw House served as a major social agency for Black people in Boston.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Roxbury Action Program

The Roxbury Action Program (RAP), led by George Morrison and Lloyd King, was established in 1969 in the Highland Park section of Roxbury to renew a severely blighted neighborhood. During the past 20 years RAP has rehabilitated 260 units of housing for nearly 800 people and brought major physical

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Aswalos House, a satellite of Boston's YWCA at the corner of Maple and Seaver Streets in upper Roxbury, was opened in the Black community in 1968 and has continuously provided educational, social, and recreational services for young girls and women for over 20 years.

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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

First Black Lawyer before Supreme Court

John Sweat Rock (1825-1866), a noted Boston lawyer, became in 1865 the first African-American to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and the first Black person to speak before the U.S. House of Representatives.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Congressional Medal of Honor Winner

Sergeant William Carney of New Bedford, a member of the famed 54th Massachusetts Regiment during the Civil War, was the first African-American awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery at the battle of Fort Wagner in July 1863. The U.S. flag he saved during the battle still hangs in the

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Harvard Medical Graduate

In 1951 Dr. Mildred Jefferson became the first African-American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School.

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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

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Inventor of Light Bulb Filament

Lewis Latimer (1848-1928), born the son of a fugitive slave ( George Latimer) in Boston, became a significant inventor with his development of an improved process for manufacturing the electric light bulb filament. He received a U.S. patent for his filament and became a member of Thomas

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Negro Business and Professional Women's Club

A vital force in Boston's business development for more than 30 years, the Boston Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs was organized in 1957 'to create and develop opportunities for African-American women in business and the professions and to protect their interests.'

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Prosperous Dressmaker

Eliza Ann Gardner conducted a prosperous dress-making business in Boston before the Civil War and did the delicate needlework for the first banner made for the Plymouth Rock Chapter of Odd Fellows.

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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

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Museum of Afro-American History

The Museum of Afro-American History was established in Boston in 1964. Its leading founders were Dean Howard Thurman of Boston University and his wife Sue Bailey Thurman. The Museum was established 'to advance knowledge, through historic examination,' about the African-American presence in Boston

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Stull and Lee, Inc.

The architectural and planning firm of Stull and Lee, Inc., established by Donald L. Stull in 1966, has made a profound impact on the physical environment and landscape of Boston. With co-partner David Less and a staff of 40 design professionals - architects, planners, and urban designers - Stull

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Former Owners of Channel 7

WNEV-TV (now WHDH-TV, Channel 7) in Boston was the first major television station in the country to have Black people as majority owners when, between 1981 and 1986, Bertram Lee, Ruth Batson, Thomas Brown, Henry Hampton, Joyce Fredkin, Melvin Miller, and Barron Martin were major stockholders.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Legendary Baseball Great

Will 'Cannonball' Jackman of Boston is a legendary baseball great of the old Colored Baseball League during the early 1900s. For seventeen years Jackman pitched the baseball like his nickname. He played with the Philadelphia Colored Giants during the 1920s and 1930s and was a stellar attraction on

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

In 1787 Prince Hall founded Boston's African Lodge Number 459, the first African Masonic Lodge in the country and the beginning of Black Masonry in the United States. The Lodge, currently located at 18 Washington Street in the Grove Hall section of Dorchester, is one of the few Masonic lodges

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Top Black Businesses

In Black Enterprise magazine's listings of the top 100 Black companies and the 100 largest Black auto dealers in the United States during the late 1980s, a number of Boston area-based businesses made the lists: B.M.L. Associates (telecommunications); Grimes Oil Company (petroleum products

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

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