Builder of the Twelfth Baptist Church

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Builder of the Twelfth Baptist Church

Rev. Leonard Grimes, who became the minister of Twelfth Baptist Church in 1848, led this historic church through the turbulent years of anti-slavery (1850-1865), serving the church until his death in 1873. Established in 1840, Twelfth Baptist is 150 years old.

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Early Childhood Educator

Lucy M. Mitchell became the first African-American elected to the Board of Directors of the Boston YWCA in 1941, where she served for seven years. Previously, in the mid-1930s she pioneered the development of a model nursery school at the Robert Gould Shaw House and led efforts to improve 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

Peoples Baptist Church

Over $130,000 for missionary and educational programs was raised by Rev. David S. Klugh of Peoples Baptist Church between 1918 and 1930.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Black Judge

George L. Ruffin of Boston became the first African-American judge in Massachusetts with his appointment in 1883 to the District Court of Charlestown. He served in this position until his death in 1886. In 1869 he was the first African-American to earn a law degree from Harvard University. In 1984

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Pioneer Historian and Minister

George Washington William (1849-1891) was a graduate of Newton Theological Seminary (1874) and the Pastor of Boston's Twelfth Baptist Church from 1874-1876. After seven years of research he authoredA History of the Negro Race in American from 1619 to 1880: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers and as

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

William Monroe Trotter's Equal Rights League

In 1901 William Monroe Trotter (1873-1934) founded the Boston Equal Rights League to push for civil and human rights for Black people. The league operated nine years before the establishment of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).

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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

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

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

Nation of Islam Leader

Minister Louis Farrakhan, raised in Roxbury and a 1950 graduate of English High School, has been the national leader of the Nation of Islam since 1977, following the death of the founder of the Nation, Elijah Muhammad. While viewed by some as controversial, Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Preacher at Tremont Temple

Rev. John Sella Martin, who served as pastor of the Joy Street Baptist Church ( African Meeting House) around 1859, often served as guest preacher at the Tremont Temple, a mostly white congregation. He addressed worshippers at the Temple on January 1, 1863, when news of

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Drop-A-Dime/Report-A-Crime, Inc.

This anti-drug program, Drop-A-Dime/Report-A-Crime, Inc., was founded in 1983 by Georgette Watson and Rev. Bruce Wall to combat the rampant drug trade, especially in the African-American communities. As an executive director, Watson used a telephone hot-line approach for anonymous callers to inform

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Aswalos House, a satellite of Boston's YWCA at the corner of Maple and Seaver Streets in upper Roxbury, was opened in the Black community in 1968 and has continuously provided educational, social, and recreational services for young girls and women for over 20 years.

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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.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Newspaper Professional

Dexter D. Eure, Sr., completed 25 years of service atThe Boston Globe in 1989. He had started as an assistant to the manager of circulation in 1963 and five years later became an assistant to the editor for urban affairs. For two years he was the only Black American in Boston with a weekly

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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

African Meeting House

In 1806 free Blacks in Boston, led by Cato Gardner, raised $7,700 to enable Black craftsmen and laborers to build the African Meeting House. The Meeting House served as an anchor for the Black settlement on Beacon Hill throughout the 1800s. Until 1898 the Meeting House served as the home of the

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Jazz Concert in Boston Church

A jazz concert of sacred music by the legendary Duke Ellington and his orchestra was performed at Union Methodist Church in July, 1966, the first time a jazz performance had been held in a Boston church.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

NAACP Educational Counseling Committee

The Boston Branch of the NAACP founded its Educational Counseling Committee in 1948 to provide higher education information and guidance to Black young people in Boston high schools. Twenty years later in 1968 the Committee counseled over 340 students and awarded $20,000 in direct college aid to 60

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

National Federation of Afro-American Women

The National Federation of Afro-American Women was founded at Boston's Charles Street African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1895. The following year it united with the Washington National League to form the National Association of Colored Women.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Urban League of Boston

The Urban League of Boston was established in May 1919 and has been dedicated to the economic and social development of Boston's African-American people and neighborhoods for 70 years. In the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s especially, the Boston affiliate of the National Urban League was a significant

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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

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

League of Women for Community Service

The League of Women for Community Service was founded in 1918 as a 'comfort home' for World War I Black soldiers in Boston. Still operating today at 558 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, this Black women's group has consistently provided charitable, cultural, and educational services. For more than

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Grimes Oil Company

Calvin M. Grimes, Sr., founded Grimes Oil Company in Boston in 1940. Now operated by Calvin M. Grimes, Jr., this 50-year-old business started with one delivery truck, once serviced more than 3,000 residential customers, and now delivers gasoline, fuel oil, diesel fuel, and residual oil to

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Master Brick Mason

When it comes to using bricks and mortar for the development and beautification of the community, the brothers Percy and John Gray have contributed their skills as master brick masons to the buildings of Roxbury and the city for more than 50 years.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Served General Washington

Barzillai Lew of Cambridge, who had been a member of the Massachusetts fighting unit during the French and Indian War of 1760, was one of the full seven-year veterans of the American Revolution. He directly served General George Washington and later headed an all-Black unit in Rhode Island during

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Elma Lewis School

The Elma Lewis School was established in 1950 to give expert training in the arts to children, youth, and adults. Its students have performed on Broadway and in symphony orchestras. During its 40 years of existence, the School has been producing professional artists and changing the quality of life

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Eyes on the Prize

Eyes on the Prize - America's Civil Rights Years 1954 - 1965, a television mini-series produced by Henry Hampton, President of Blackside, Inc., a film production company in Boston, was seen by over 20 million national viewers in 1987. This story of the modern civil rights movement won several

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

54th Massachusetts Regiment - 3rd 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

Juvenile Garrison Independent Society

In the 1830s and 1840s Black Bostonians were providing for the education and intellectual stimulation of their youth. The Juvenile Garrison Independent Society, mostly teenagers, provided Black history education for themselves and services for the community - sponsoring lectures, community fix-up

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

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