Wayne A. Budd, U.S. Attorney

BlackFacts Details

Wayne A. Budd, U.S. Attorney

Wayne A. Budd was nominated for U.S. Attorney by President George Bush in March 1989 and confirmed for the position by the U.S. Senate in September 1989. A native of Springfield, Massachusetts, he was the first African-American president of the Massachusetts Bar Association (1979-80) and headed New England's largest Black-owned law firm before his historic appointment as the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts.

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Boston Bank of Commerce

Incorporated on June 30, 1982, with Juan M. Cofield as its leading founder and president from 1982-1983, Boston Bank of Commerce is the only fully insured Black-owned and operated bank in Boston and New England. A successor to Unity Bank and Trust, Boston's first Black-owned Bank, the Boston Bank

fave

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

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Women's Bar Association President

In March 1990 Judith Dilday became the first African-American president of the prestigious Women's Bar Association. Just the year before she had helped establish the first Black female law firm in New England, Burnham, Hines and Dilday.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Rev. Vernon Carter's Vigil

In 1965 Rev. Vernon Carter, minister of the All Saints Lutheran Church in Boston's South End in the 1950s and 1960s, conducted a personal 114-day vigil/march in front of the Boston School Committee Headquarters to protest racial imbalance in the Boston schools.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Memories of Great Black Athletes

Fifty Sports Years Along Memory Lane: Afro-American Sports History - Hometown, Local and National by Mabray 'Doc' Kountze of West Medford was published in 1981. Kountze's book chronicles hundreds of sports figures, teams and events in greater Boston's African-American history.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Celebrant at Holy Cross Cathedral

Rev. John H. Dorsey, the second African-American priest in the American Catholic Church, celebrated Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston's South End on August 17, 1902. The Pilot said of his stay in Boston: 'This young priest's visit to Boston has benefitted all classes.' The Guardian

fave

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.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Art historian Edmund B. Gaither, curator and director of the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, has been a leading spokesman for the Black artist in Boston for over 25 years. He is internationally known as an advocate of African-American visual artists and as a contributor to

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Successful Tailor Shop

Advertising that clothing could be 'cleaned, dyed, pressed and repaired,' Andrew Bush owned a successful merchant tailor shop in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in the late 1800s.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First African-American Dean at B.U.

Hubert (Hubie) Jones became the first African-American dean at Boston University when he was appointed to head the School of Social Work in 1977. Since 1980 he has served also as a distinguished social commentator on public affairs every Sunday morning on the Channel 5 TV program, 'Five on Five.'

fave

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

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Internationally Recognized Sculptor

Meta Warwick Fuller, who lived in Framingham, Massachusetts, from 1909 until her death in 1968, was widely acclaimed for her sculpture. Her sculptures of human figures were exhibited both locally and nationally.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

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

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Correction Department First

John Boone served as Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Correction from 1972 to August 1973. He was the first (and only) African-American to hold this position in the 74-year history of the Department.

fave

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.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

State Housing Board First

In 1959 Frank Morris became the first African-American senior manager of a state agency in the history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts when he was appointed to the position of director of the State Housing Board. Starting as a junior planner with the Board in 1948, Frank Morris had one of the

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Government Administrator

On his way to an affirmative action meeting with the Boston Redevelopment Authority on April 5, 1976, African-American attorney Theodore Landsmark was physically assaulted by anti-busing demonstrators on City Hall plaza. One of the demonstrators swung an American flag at him. Landsmark's flag

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Distinguished Athletes

Matthew Bullock, a graduate of Everett High, and John Shelburne, a Boston English graduate, both became All-American football players at Dartmouth College in the early 20th century. Bullock later returned to coach at Everett High, becoming the first African-American to serve as a head coach of

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Prominent New Bedford Lawyer

Emmanuel Sullavou was a prominent lawyer in New Bedford in the late 1800s. Having graduated from Harvard in 1871, he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1875. He served on the New Bedford City Council and as a clerk of the district court.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Medical Breakthrough

Dr. William A. Hinton (1883-1959) directed the Wasserman Laboratory of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at Harvard Medical School from 1915 to 1949 and developed the famous Hinton test for syphilis, which was used to diagnose this venereal disease for over 40 years.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Harvard Medical Graduate

In 1951 Dr. Mildred Jefferson became the first African-American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

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.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Commissioners of Public Health

The first African-American to hold the position of Commissioner of Public Health in Massachusetts was Dr. Bailus Walker, appointed in 1984. He was followed by another African-American, Dr. Deborah Prothow-Smith, Commissioner from 1987 to 1989, the first woman to hold this position.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First City Appointment

The first appointment of an African-American to a city position in Boston appears to have been that of W. W. Bryant, who in 1885 was made deputy sealer of weights and measures.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Opening Doors of Opportunity

Several organizations have strong track records of service to the African-American community. Three such organizations have worked for more than 20 years to open doors of opportunity for Blacks: the Contractors Association of Boston (CAB); the Black Patrolmen's Association, currently known as

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Dual Political Roles

Two African-American women have held simultaneously two elected political offices. Sandra Graham of Cambridge served as City Councilor in her city from 1971 to 1989 and served as a state representative in the Massachusetts legislature from 1977 to 1988. Shirley Owens-Hicks, while serving on the

fave

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

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

African-Americans first served as jurors in Massachusetts in 1860.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Female President of NAACP Branch

In 1948, when Florence LeSuerer was elected president of Boston's branch of the NAACP, she became the first woman in the country to head a local NAACP chapter. She served as branch president from 1948 to 1951.

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

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

fave

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Blackfacts BETA RELEASE 11.5.3
(Production Environment)