Orthopedic Surgeon-in-Chief

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Orthopedic Surgeon-in-Chief

In 1978 when Dr. Augustus A. White II became Orthopedic Surgeon-in-Chief at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital, which is affiliated with Harvard Medical School, he became the first African-American to serve as chairman of a clinical department in a major teaching hospital. He is the senior co-author ofClinical Biomechanics of the Spine, the first text of its kind on this topic.

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Black Population by 1890

In 1820 the Black population of Boston was 1,690; in 1890 it was 8,125.

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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

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

Patrick School of Pharmacy

Dr. Thomas W. Patrick, pharmacist, founded the Patrick School of Pharmacy in Boston in 1893. Until 1936 he operated the school, where some 5,000 Bostonians, mostly first- and second-generation Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants, were trained to become certified pharmacists.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Licensed Attorney

Macon B. Allen, who was the first licensed African-American attorney in the United States (he passed the bar exam in Maine in 1844), was the first to practice law in Boston, having been admitted to the Suffolk County, Massachusetts bar in May 1845. He became a Justice of the Peace in 1848 and

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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

Church in Faneuil Hall

While Black people in Boston attended white churches after the American Revolution, increasing incidents of racial discrimination moved them to request the use of Fanueil Hall for religious meetings. Permission was granted in 1789 and the non-denominational prayer services led to the establishment

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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

Dimock Community Health Center

Dimock Community Health Center in the Roxbury section of Boston is the oldest health facility in the city oriented to the care of Black and low income people. Founded in 1863 as the New England Hospital for Woman and Children to provide medical training for white women, the hospital also included

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Early Black Reporter

Bob Teanoh was perhaps the first African-American reporter for a white newspaper in Boston, having obtained a staff position in 1890 withThe Boston Daily Globe. He was elected to the state legislature in 1894.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Action for Boston Community Development, Inc.

Since 1962, Action for Boston Community Development, Inc. ( ABCD) has fostered community development in the city. For over 20 years Robert M. Coard has served as director, one of the longest continuous tenures for a community agency leader in the city of Boston. On the human side of urban

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Bolling Family: Political Phenomenon

The Bolling family represented a phenomenon unprecedented in Boston politics in the early 1980s, when three members held elective office at the same time - Royal Bolling, Sr., served as state senator, while his son Royal Bolling, Jr., served as state representative, and his son Bruce Bolling served

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

African Society for Mutual Aid and Charity

In 1796 a group of Boston Blacks founded the African Society for Mutual Aid and Charity. The Society provided social-welfare services, financial relief, and job placement to its members and their families.

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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

New England Anti-Slavery Society

The New England Anti-Slavery Society, successor to the Massachusetts General Colored Association, was founded at Boston's African Meeting House in 1832, becoming the leading, most eloquent, most effective voice in the battle against slavery. (Note: The Caution poster in the other panel was not

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

'Birth of a Nation' Protest

In 1915 all of Boston's Black institutions, agencies, and community leaders united to protest the showing of the film, 'Birth of a Nation,' at the Tremont Theater because the film portrayed southern Blacks as depraved and glorified the Ku Klux Klan. Despite the collective protest, the city allowed

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Since 1949 Freedom House in Roxbury, founded by Muriel and Otto Snowden, has worked through bi-racial efforts to reduce barriers to education, employment, and housing opportunities for African-Americans in Boston. Growing from the ' Upper Roxbury Community Project,' started in the

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Gretchen Jackson was the first African-American woman to have a sponsored and sustained daytime radio program in Boston from 1953 to 1961. As a disc jockey and talk-show interviewer, she was heard first on WBOS and later on WBMS.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

NAACP President for 20 Years

Butler Wilson presided over the Boston Branch of the NAACP from 1916 to 1936, the longest presidential tenure in its history.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Leading Tennis Player

Titus Sparrow was a leading tennis player in Boston and New England in the 1930s and 1940s. He was a tennis official of the old Boston Tennis Club and its offspring, the Roxbury Sportsmen. He was the winner of numerous trophies, including the New England Gardner Clase Bowl, awarded annually by the

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Early Black Neighborhood

Between 1800 and 1900 most of Boston's African American residents lived in the West End, between Pinckney and Cambridge Streets and between Joy and Charles Streets - a neighborhood now called the north slope of Beacon Hill.

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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.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Harriet Tubman House

In 1904 the Harriet Tubman House was founded in Boston's South End neighborhood by six Black women who donated their time, resources, and even their property to establish a settlement house to 'assist working girls (from the South) in charitable ways.' Julia O. Henson (a personal friend of

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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

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 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.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Three Firsts for Black Physician

Dr. Kenneth C. Edelin was the first African-American physician to direct a major clinical department at Boston City Hospital when he was named Director of Obstetrics and Gynecology in 1978, a position he held until 1989. Also, as Chairman and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Boston

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Bay State Golf Association

The Bay State Golf Association was founded in 1938 by Black golfers from Medford and Boston. In these early years they played at Sagamore Springs in Lynnfield, one of the few golf courses open to Blacks. Bay State's first annual tournament was held in 1940 at Ponkapoag Golf Club in Canton. This

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Plymouth Hospital - 1st Picture

Plymouth Hospital and Nurses' Training School, founded and operated by Dr. Cornelius Garland, a Black doctor, from 1908 to 1928, contributed to the health care needs of Blacks and to Black community development during the first quarter of the 1900s. The hospital building still stands on East

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Brighton High Valedictorian

In 1911 an African-American girl, F. Marion Reed, was valedictorian of her class at Brighton High School. With an overall average of 95 for her four years of high school study, she was in the top ten of academically achieving students out of 1,291 graduates from Boston high schools in 1911.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

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