South End Electric Company

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South End Electric Company

In 1923 Leon G. Lomax founded the South End Electric Company in Roxbury, a firm which stayed in business until the early 1970s. Lomax also organized and became president of the Greater Boston Negro Business and Trade Association in 1938.

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black Female Dentist

Dr. Jessie G. Garnett (1897-1976) was the first Black woman dentist in Boston. A 1919 graduate of Tufts Dental School and the first Black woman to graduate from Tufts Dental, she practiced for 50 years until 1970. Dr. Garnett once recalled, 'When I first started, patients came to the office and saw

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Black Businesses in 1846

Nearly 200 of Boston's 800 black residents operated businesses in 1846.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Prime Time First

In 1982, Liz Walker became the first African-American in Boston's TV history to anchor a prime time weekly newscast. She co-hosts the 6:00 and 11:00 p.m. newscasts on WBZ-TV (Channel 4).

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First with Boston Symphony

The first African-American to play with the Boston Symphony Orchestra was bass player Ortiz Walton in the late 1950s.

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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

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

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Champion High Jumper

John Thomas of Cambridge, while an undergraduate at Boston University, was the first high jumper to clear the seven-foot height. In January 1959 at the Milrose Gardens in Madison Square Garden he set a world record of 7 feet and Â¼ inch. He went on to win a bronze medal for the high jump in the

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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

Air Hero in Vietnam

David L. Ramsay, born and raised in Boston, a graduate of English High School and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, rose to become a captain in the U.S. Air Force. The recipient of many military honors, including the Air Force's highest award, the Distinguished Flying Cross, he died in

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black Celtics Star

Chuck Cooper was the first Black player on the Boston Celtics basketball team, appearing with them in the 1940s.

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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

Catholic Bishop

Bishop James A. Healy, born of mixed parentage on a Georgia plantation, served as a priest in Boston's Irish immigrant neighborhoods in the 1850s. He was named Chancellor of the Boston Archdiocese in 1855 and Bishop of the Portland (Maine) Diocese in 1875.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Boston born and raised, Jimmy Slyde has gained national and international fame as a tap dancer in films and concerts. Studying dance with Stanley Brown and Mildred Davenport in Boston, he started his early career in the city's vaudeville, theaters, and nightclubs - the RKO, the Old Howard, and the

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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

Founder of Resthaven Nursing Home

Edgar P. Benjamin, an 1894 graduate of Boston University's Law School, established a private practice in civil and criminal law of which he said, 'I am sole counsel for many large firms and corporations, and businesses, many of which are white. . . .' In 1927 Benjamin founded

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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

In 1854 J. V. De Grasse (1825-1868) became the first Black physician admitted to the Massachusetts Medical Association.

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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

Theodore Drury, who had earlier produced operas with Black casts in New York City, organized and trained a Black company in Boston in the early years of the 20th century. In 1907 'Aida' and a scene from 'Carmen' were produced, and 'Faust' and 'Cavalleria Rusticana' in the following year.

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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

First Black Female Law Firm

Attorneys Margaret Burnham, Geraldine Hines, and Judith Dilday established the first Black female law firm in New England in 1989. Located in Boston, Burnham, Hines and Dilday specialize in family law, divorce, wills, custody, and civil and criminal litigation.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Renowned Voice and Piano Teacher

For over 60 years Rebecca Ellastine Lee Broadnax (1893-1987) was a renowned voice and piano teacher in greater Boston. For teenagers she founded the Cantemus Club in 1934, a group of 24 students who presented concerts and recitals in Boston and throughout New England until 1952. She organized the

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Leading Theologian

Dr. Howard Thurman, appointed Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, became the first African-American in the country to serve as an administrative dean and spiritual leader at a predominantly white university. He served in this position from 1955 to 1965. A distinguished preacher and religious

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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

Chancellor of Higher Education

Dr. Franklyn Jenifer was appointed Chancellor of Higher Education in Massachusetts in 1986 by Governor Michael Dukakis, becoming the first African-American to hold this position. In 1990 he became president of Howard University in Washington, D.C.

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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

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

20 Years or More in Journalism

An impressive roster of journalists have 'made news' on the Boston scene for more than 20 years. Among them: Robert (Bob) Jordan, columnist and editorial writer with the Boston Globe and the first African-American elected to head theGlobe's 1,200 member employees' union in 1989; Sarah Ann Shaw and

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Legendary NAACP Leader

From her arrival in Boston in 1927 until her death at age 94, E. Alice Taylor (1892-1986) served as a business woman, church leader, and Boston NAACP official, leaving a legend of 58 continuous years of community service. For 50 years she served as an officer and board member of the Boston branch

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

William Stanley Brathwaite (1878-1962) of Boston was a significant force in the development of creative American literature from 1906 to 1936. He was a poet, journalist, essayist, and pioneering anthologist of American poetry, writing some 31 books of poetry and prose. In 1918 he received the

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

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