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 legislature passed a bill closing the all-Black Smith School. The action came after a long boycott of Black-only schools led by William C. Nell. This represented a victory in the struggle for equal school access waged by Boston's Black community beginning in 1834.