Parting Ways Settlement

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Parting Ways Settlement

Four Black men - Cato Howe, Plato Turner, Quamany Quash, and Prince Goodwin - founded a small community ( Parting Ways) in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1790. While they had only Anglo-American materials in their environment, they brought their West African culture to the community. All had been slaves and had gained their freedom for their military performance in the American Revolution.

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Beacon Hill Barbershops

In 19th-century Black Boston, centered on the north slope of Beacon Hill, the local barbershop was an important forum for the discussion of political ideas, the exchange of community information, and the posting of job openings. Peter Howard's shop and John J. Smith's barbershop, both at the foot

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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

Elma Lewis School

The Elma Lewis School was established in 1950 to give expert training in the arts to children, youth, and adults. Its students have performed on Broadway and in symphony orchestras. During its 40 years of existence, the School has been producing professional artists and changing the quality of life

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leads Rally

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

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

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

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

Juvenile Garrison Independent Society

In the 1830s and 1840s Black Bostonians were providing for the education and intellectual stimulation of their youth. The Juvenile Garrison Independent Society, mostly teenagers, provided Black history education for themselves and services for the community - sponsoring lectures, community fix-up

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Master Brick Mason

When it comes to using bricks and mortar for the development and beautification of the community, the brothers Percy and John Gray have contributed their skills as master brick masons to the buildings of Roxbury and the city for more than 50 years.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Hattie B. Cooper Community Center

The Hattie B. Cooper Community Center, started in the early 1920s by Union Methodist Church (now Union United Methodist Church) as a settlement house, is still 'in business.' Described in church conference minutes of 1922 as 'a bee-hive of helpful activities among colored people of the South

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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

First Federal Judge

David S. Nelson became the first Black federal judge in Massachusetts in 1979.

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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

Two All-Black Fighting Units

There were two all-Black units, the Massasoit Guards and the Liberty Guards in Boston in the 1850s, but they were not attached to the militia of the State because there was opposition 'to there being any Colored men belonging to the State Militia.' Many of these men eventually joined the

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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

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

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

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

Knights of Pythias

The Knights of Pythias was a fraternal and benevolent order in Boston's small and growing Black community in lower Roxbury that provided effective health insurance and death benefits to widows and orphans. Anchored in its own building at the corner of Ruggles and Washington Streets, it helped

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Slave Sued Master

In 1773 slave Caesar Hendricks took his master to court 'for detaining him in slavery'; the all-white jury freed Hendricks and awarded him damages.

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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

Black Neighborhoods 1920-1960

For the first half of the 20th century the entire South End and lower Roxbury community became the traditional and historic Black section of Boston. Until 1950 most Blacks resided in narrow geographic strip bounded by Columbus Avenue and Washington Street and Dartmouth Street and what is now New

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Head of Massachusetts Commandery

In 1906 James H. Wolff, a lawyer and Civil War veteran, was elected head of the Massachusetts Commandery of the Grand Army of the Republic, a largely white organization.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

The Kuumba Singers

The Kuumba Singers of Harvard and Radcliffe have become a prominent fixture in the local musical world during the past 20 years. Established in 1970 to give Black students at the Ivy League schools an opportunity to celebrate their culture, the Kuumba Singers offer a unique form of African-American

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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

First Black Landowner

Bostian Ken of Dorchester was perhaps the first Black landowner in Massachusetts. In 1656 he owned a house and lot in Dorchester, as well as more than 'four acres of land planted in wheat.'

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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

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Boston's Underground Railroad

In the decades prior to the Civil War, Blacks in Boston were prominent in developing and operating one of the principal stations of the 'Underground Railroad' that helped escaped slaves from the South find refuge in the North or in Canada. From his home at 66 Phillips Street on Beacon Hill (now

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Racial Imbalance Act

The Massachusetts Racial Imbalance Act, spearheaded by Boston's African-American community, was passed in 1965, making Massachusetts the first state in the nation to outlawde facto segregation in a school district.

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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

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