First African-American Dean at B.U.

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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.'

Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Boston Afro-American Artists, Inc.

The Boston Afro-American Artists, Inc. ( BAAA) - (formerly the Boston Negro Artists Association) - was organized in 1963 by J. Marcus Mitchell and Calvin Burnett to stimulate the development of and appreciation for the visual arts within the Black community. Incorporated in 1966, the BAAA developed

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

M.D. Degree for Black Woman

The first African-American female graduate of a medical school was Rebecca Lee, who received an M.D. degree from the New England Female Medical College in Boston in 1864.

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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

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

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.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Longest Tenure for a Black Minister

In 1980, Rev. Richard M. Owens completed 43 years of pastoring the historic Peoples Baptist Church, giving him the longest tenure for a Black minister in Boston's history. He was the first Black elected President of the American Baptist Convention of Massachusetts in 1969.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley, a slave in Boston who gained her freedom in 1772, became the first African-American to publish a book of poetry,Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.

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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.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Goode Trust Company

The Goode Trust Company, or Jesse Goode Associates, was a group of some 20 Boston Blacks, most of them waiters, who pooled their weekly savings to invest in real estate in the first decade of this century. Its president was Jesse Goode, head of the large retail and wholesale grocery firm of

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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

Bay State Banner

The Bay State Banner, Boston's African-American newspaper founded in 1965 and published by Melvin Miller, celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1990.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Red Sox Lawyer and Manager

In January 1990 Attorney Elaine Weddington was appointed assistant general manager for the Boston Red Sox baseball team, a first in the nation for an African-American woman, but not a first for Weddington. In August 1988 she was also appointed associate counsel for the team.

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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

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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

Early Black Newspapers

The Afro-American Pressand Its Editors, the Boston Co-Operator, The Boston Leader, The Advocate, the Courant, and The Boston Observer were early Black newspapers in Boston during the 1880s and 1890s.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Sergeant William E. Carter (1858-1918), for whom the Carter Playground in Boston's South End is named, served in the Spanish-American War, the Massachusetts National Guard from 1899 to 1917, and in World War I, where he was killed in action in October 1918.

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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

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.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Pioneer Activist Doctor

Dr. Louis T. Wright (1891-1952), a Harvard Medical School graduate in 1915 and a leading 20th century Black physician, pioneered in the struggle of adequate health care and medical facilities until his death in 1952. His first struggle was in Boston when he was denied the opportunity to attend

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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

Crispus Attucks

Crispus Attucks, an ex-slave from Framingham was the first to die in the Boston Massacre (1770), which some historians mark as the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. Attucks led a small group of colonists to a British garrison on King Street in Boston. One of the British soldiers panicked

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Leading City Official

Clarence 'Jeep' Jones was the first African-American to serve as a Deputy Mayor of Boston in 1976, where he served until 1981 under Mayor Kevin H. White. In 1989 Jones was appointed by Mayor Raymond L. Flynn as Chairman of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, another first for an African-American.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

All-American Football Star

William H. Lewis, an All-American football star at Harvard, is credited with inventing the 'roving center' defense strategy. He went on to a distinguished legal and political career in Boston.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Oldest Funeral Home

The J. B. Johnson Funeral Home, established in 1932, and the Davis Funeral Home, established in 1935 - both still in business - are two of the oldest continuously performing establishments providing services to Black families in Boston.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Inventor of Bread Crumb Machine

Joseph Lee of Boston received a U.S. patent in 1895 for a machine that made bread crumbs for the food industry. Several years later he received a second patent for the first machine to make bread dough.

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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

Gretchen Jackson was the first African-American woman to have a sponsored and sustained daytime radio program in Boston from 1953 to 1961. As a disc jockey and talk-show interviewer, she was heard first on WBOS and later on WBMS.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

Wig Manufacturer

The largest wig manufacturer in Boston in the early 1900s was Gilbert C. Harris. By 1910 his mail-order business was the largest of its kind in New England, supplying theatrical stock companies throughout the country.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First on Boston Common Coucil

John J. Smith, whose barber shop was an abolitionist rendezvous prior to the Civil War, was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1868 and 1869, and then re-elected in 1872. He was also the first Black to serve on the Boston Common Council in 1878.

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

First Licensed Attorney

Macon B. Allen, who was the first licensed African-American attorney in the United States (he passed the bar exam in Maine in 1844), was the first to practice law in Boston, having been admitted to the Suffolk County, Massachusetts bar in May 1845. He became a Justice of the Peace in 1848 and

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Source: African Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years

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