Voting Rights for Blacks

BlackFacts Details

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.

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Massachusetts Legislators

The first Blacks elected to the Massachusetts legislature in the 20th century were William H. Lewis (from Cambridge in 1909) and Lincoln Pope (from Boston in 1956), with Pope being the first Black Democrat to represent Boston in the legislature.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Racial Imbalance in Schools

In July 1964 an advisory committee to the State Board of Education, chaired by Dr. Owen B. Kiernan, reported that segregation existed in 78 percent of the schools in Massachusetts and that racial imbalance was detrimental to sound education in six specific ways, including 'serious conflict with the

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Engineer/Bridge Designer

Harold B. Frye (1902-1989), a civil engineer with the Massachusetts Department of Public Works for over 40 years, was responsible for the design of many bridges throughout the state during his career. Born in Boston, he graduated in 1925 with a degree in engineering from Northeastern University and

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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

Successful Housing Development

The Lower Roxbury Community Corporation under the leadership of Ralph D. Smith, between 1972 and 1980, developed housing for the elderly and low-income residents and townhouses with 570 housing units. Organized 1966, LRCC was the first neighborhood group to initiate and develop housing in the

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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

Colored American Magazine

The Colored American Magazine, the first significant Black periodical to appear in Boston in the 20th century, was started in Boston in May 1900 by the Colored Cooperative Publishing Company. It was 'devoted to Literature, Science, Music, Art, Religion, Facts, Fiction, and Traditions of the Negro

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Boston Guardian

The Boston Guardian newspaper, a major 20th-century civil rights publication, was founded in Boston in 1901 by William Monroe Trotter, who published the newspaper until his death in 1934. For the next 23 years (1934 - 1957), Trotter's sister, Maude Trotter Steward, and her husband, Dr. Charles

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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

Tennis Champion

Isabel Bland of Medford was appointed Field Secretary of the American Tennis Association of New England in 1931. Mrs. Bland was a member of the Boston Tennis Club from early 1920s to early 1940s. She was the leading woman titlest in the Colored New England Amateur and Open Tournament.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

'Mother of the Year'

In 1952 Madeline Kountze Dugger Kelly of Medford became the first Black woman to be named Massachusetts Mother of the Year.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Lucy Terry Prince (c. 1733-1821), sometimes referred to as America's first Black poet, was a Massachusetts storyteller whose poem 'The Bar's Fight' was written in 1746 while she was still a slave.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Eureka Co-Operative Bank

David E. Crawford opened Eureka Co-Operative Bank in Boston in 1910, 'the only bank in the East owned and operated by â€˜Colored People.'' He was appointed a master in the Chancery by the Governor of Massachusetts in 1915, and in 1916 the citizens of Boston elected him as a delegate to the National

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Female Bishop

The Reverend Barbara C. Harris was elected Sufragan Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts in September, 1988 and was consecrated bishop in February, 1989. She was the first woman, Black or white, to be elected a bishop in the Anglican Communion.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Scene of 'Boston Riot'

In 1988 Columbus Avenue A.M.E. Zion Church celebrated its 150th anniversary. Moving to its present site on Columbus Avenue in 1903, it was the scene of the famous 'Boston Riot' in July, 1903, when Boston's militant equal rights leader William Monroe Trotter and Booker T. Washington, the

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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

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

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

Black Veterinarian

Dr. Henry Lewis of Chelsea was appointed to the Massachusetts Board of Veterinary Physicians in 1908.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

The Fight for School Equality

In 1787 Primus Hall and other Black leaders petitioned the Massachusetts legislature for equal school facilities for Black children.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Housing Authority Director

Doris Bunte, a tenants' rights activist during the 1960s and 1970s, and a former Housing Development tenant, became director of the Boston Housing Authority in 1984.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Attorney to Pass Massachusetts Exam

Robert Morris was the first attorney in Massachusetts to pass the Massachusetts bar examination in 1847.

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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

Freedom Electronics and Engineering

Now more than 20 years old, Freedom Electronics and Engineering was founded by lawyer and businessman Archie Williams during the height of the civil rights movement in Boston in the 1960s. The firm presently supplies products and services for giant high-tech industries such as Digital Equipment

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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

First Black Judge - Juvenile Court

In 1948 Bruce Robinson became the first Black appointed to the bench in Massachusetts. He was named Associate Justice of the Boston Juvenile Court by Governor Robert Bradford.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Massachusetts Legislative Black Caucus

In 1972 the Massachusetts Legislative Black Caucus was founded in an effort to coordinate the efforts of Black elected officials and make them more accountable to the Black community.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

19th-Century Sculptor

Edmonia Lewis (1845-1890) was America's first Black artist recognized for her reliefs and busts of great anti-slavery leaders and forForever Free, a composition of marble (completed in 1867) showing a man and woman overcome with emotion on hearing news of the emancipation from slavery. Lewis began

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Greatest Cyclist

Marshall W. 'Major' Taylor of Worcester, Massachusetts, was the greatest cyclist in the country in the 1890s and early 1900s. He was World Professional Bicycle Champion between 1908 and 1910.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Black Newspaper Publisher

In 1838 Benjamin Roberts (who worked for The Liberator under William Lloyd Garrison) established the Anti-Slavery Herald, intended to be an anti-slavery journal by and for Blacks in Boston. Only a few issues were printed. In 1853 Roberts tried again establishing a Black paper called Self Elevator.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

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