Veteran School Committeman

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Veteran School Committeman

In 1977 John O'Bryant was elected to Boston School Committee, becoming the first African-American elected to serve on the Committee in the 20th century. In 1989 he was elected to his seventh two-year term, and in 1991 he became president of the body for the second time.

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black Church

In December 1806, Rev. Thomas Paul (who had been and 'exhorter' of scripture passages since age sixteen) formally organized and became the first minister of the first Black church in Boston at the African Meeting House on Beacon Hill.

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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

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

World War I Lieutenants

When the 17th Provisional Training Regiment at Des Moines, Iowa, graduated 278 Blacks as Army lieutenants at the beginning of World War I, eleven of the graduates were from Massachusetts and two of them, Oliver Lewis and Edward Dugger, were African-American from Roxbury. Edward Dugger helped to

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Female Journalist

Lillian Lewis was the first African-American woman journalist in Boston. In the 1880s, she wrote for The Advocate, a Black community newspaper. She then went toThe Boston Herald, writing under the name of Bert Islew, scrambling the letters of her last name to disguise the fact that she was

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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

Legendary Community Politicians

From the mid-1920s through the 1950s, brothers Silas F. and Balcom S. Taylor, Registered Pharmacists, championed voter registration, jobs, housing, and political participation for Blacks in Boston, when there were no elected Black officials in city or state government. Their drugstore on Tremont

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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

Early Boston City Councilors

The 19th-century African-American members of the Boston City Council were: George L. Ruffin 1876-77 James W. Pope, 1881 William O. Armstrong, 1885-86 Andrew B. Leattimore, 1887-88 Charles E. Harris, 1889-90 Nelson Gaskins, 1891 Walden Banks, 1892-93 Stanley Ruffin, 1894-95 J. Henderson

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Distinguished Black Judge

Harry J. Elam became the first Black to serve as a Justice in the more than 300-year history of the Boston Municipal Court when he was appointed in 1971 as an Associate Justice. In 1978 he was the unanimous choice of the full bench of the Supreme Judicial Court to serve a five-year term as Chief

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

90 Black Churches

The number of Black churches in Boston grew from two in 1830 to five by 1850. One was the Free Church, later named Tremont Temple, established in 1836 as an integrated church protesting segregated seating in Boston's white churches. Today there are over 90 churches that 'identify with the

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Federal Position

William C. Nell (1816-1874) was appointed a postal clerk in the U.S. Postal System in 1860, becoming the first African-American to hold a federal civilian job in the city.

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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

54th Massachusetts Regiment - 2nd Picture

The 54th Massachusetts Regiment was the first Black unit organized in the North during the Civil War. Led by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, member of a prominent white abolitionist family, this unit displayed heroism unsurpassed by any fighting group, North or South, most notably during the assault of

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Public Welfare Overseer

In 1950 Beulah H. Hester became the first Black appointed to the Boston Board of Overseers of Public Welfare.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Early Episcopalians

The Church of St. Augustine and St. Martin, located in lower Roxbury, was founded by Black Episcopalians in 1908. In 1981, after 73 years as a mission church of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, it became an independent church within the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black Printing Business

In 1838 Benjamin Roberts established Boston's first Black-owned and operated printing business.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First African-American Superintendent

In 1985 Dr. Laval S. Wilson became the first African-American to hold the position of Superintendent of the Boston Public Schools in the history of the 354-year-old school system. He served as superintendent for five years, one of the longest tenures for an urban school superintendent.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Cambridge Office Holder

Clement G. Morgan, a graduate of Harvard Law School, was elected to the Cambridge Common Council in 1895. He was later elected a Cambridge Alderman and appointed to the Highway Commission.

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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

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

Bucks of America

During the American Revolutionary War, the Bucks of America, commanded by George Middleton, a fiery Black resident of Boston, was one of two all-Black units. The Bucks of America were hailed throughout the Commonwealth for their bravery and performance at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black State Senator

In 1975 Bill Owens became the first African-American elected to the Massachusetts Senate, representing the Second Suffolk District. He served from 1976 to 1982. He was elected to the same seat in 1988 and remains the only African-American in the State Senate. He and Shirley Owens-Hicks also have

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Secretary of Transportation

Real estate entrepreneur Richard Taylor was appointed in 1988 to the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; and in 1990 he became Deputy Chairman, both first appointments for an African-American in Boston. The Federal Reserve is 'the banker's bank,' controlling the money supply

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Pioneering Public Servant

Clarence Richard Elam (1923-1985) performed as a pioneering public servant as Assistant Director of Civil Defense for the City of Boston form 1950-52, Executive Secretary of the Governor's Council (1952-56), Chairman of the Boston Licensing Board (1956-74), and Special Assistant to Attorney General

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Early Cambridge City Councilors

Four African-Americans served on the Cambridge City Council in the 1800s: J. Milton Clark, 1873; William Stevenson, 1882-83; W. C. Lane, 1883-84; Louis E. Baldwin, 1891-95.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Nurses at City Hospital

In 1929 two African-American women, Frances Harris and Letitia Campfield, became the first Blacks to be admitted to the School of Nursing at Boston City Hospital.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Trailblazing Dancer

Born in Roxbury in 1900, Mildred Davenport became a trailblazing dancer and renowned dance instructor. Her first career was in show business. In 1938 she danced her interpretation of the African-American spirituals with the Boston Pops. She appeared on Broadway with such reviews as 'Blackbirds' and

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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

Two Firsts for Margaret Burnham

Margaret Burnham, the first Black female lawyer to practice in Boston Municipal Court, was also the first African-American woman appointed associate justice in 1977, a position she held until 1983.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

55th Massachusetts Regiment

The 55th Massachusetts Regiment commanded by Colonel Hallowell of Boston acquitted itself valiantly during many Civil War battles, particularly in the battle of Honey Hill in South Carolina, where its determined resistance to advancing southern forces saved the lives of numerous Federal troops. In

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Literature Facts

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