Until 1950, African Americans were a small but historically important minority in Boston, where the population was majority white. Since then, Boston's demographics have changed due to factors such as
immigration,
white flight, and
gentrification. According to census information for 2010–2014, an estimated 180,657 people in Boston (28.2% of Boston's population) are Black/African American, either alone or in combination with another race. Despite being in the minority, and despite having faced housing, educational, and other discrimination, African Americans in Boston have made significant contributions in the arts, politics, and business since
colonial times.[2]
There is also a
Cape Verdean American community in Boston.[3] There is also a black Caribbean community in the city.[4]
In 1638, a number of African Americans arrived in Boston as slaves on the ship Desiré from
New Providence Island in
the Bahamas. They were the first black people in Boston on record; others may have arrived earlier.[6]
The first black landowner in Boston was a man named Bostian Ken, who purchased a house and four acres in
Dorchester in 1656. (Dorchester was annexed to Boston in 1870).[7] A former slave, Ken bought his own freedom, but was not necessarily a
freeman with the right to vote. For humanitarian reasons he mortgaged his house and land to free another slave, making him technically the first African American to "purchase" a slave.[8]Zipporah Potter Atkins bought land in 1670, on the edge of what is now the
North End.
A small community of free African Americans lived at the base of Copp's Hill from the 17th to the 19th century. Members of this community were buried in the
Copp's Hill Burying Ground, where a few remaining headstones can still be seen today. The community was served by the
First Baptist Church.[9] In 1720, an estimated 2,000 African Americans lived in Boston.[10]
The first casualty of the
American Revolutionary War was a man of African and Wampanoag descent,
Crispus Attucks, who was killed in the
Boston Massacre in 1770. Historians disagree on whether Attucks was a free man or an escaped slave. Slavery was abolished in Massachusetts in 1781,[12] mostly out of gratitude for
black participation in the Revolutionary War. Subsequently, a sizable community of free blacks and escaped slaves developed in Boston.
Several slave rescue riots took place in Boston.[15] In 1836, Eliza Small and Polly Ann Bates, two escaped slaves from Baltimore, were arrested in Boston and brought before Chief Justice
Lemuel Shaw. The judge ordered them freed because of a problem with the arrest warrant. When the agent for the slaveholder requested a new warrant, a group of spectators
rioted in the courtroom and rescued Small and Bates.[16][note 1] Controversy over the fate of
George Latimer led to the passage of the 1843 Liberty Act, which prohibited the arrest of fugitive slaves in Massachusetts. Abolitionists rose to the defense of
Ellen and William Craft in 1850,
Shadrach Minkins in 1851, and
Anthony Burns in 1854. An attempt to rescue
Thomas Sims in 1852 was unsuccessful.[15]
Several white Bostonians, such as
William Lloyd Garrison (founder of the Liberator and a member of the
Boston Vigilance Committee), were active in the abolitionist movement.
Charles Sumner, the Massachusetts senator who in 1856 was nearly beaten to death on the Senate floor by a Southerner for condemning slavery, was from Boston.
After the Civil War, the West End continued to be an important center of African-American culture. It was one of the few locations in the United States at the time where African Americans had a political voice. At least one black resident from the West End sat on Boston's community council during every year between 1876 and 1895.[20]
The
Boston Police Department appointed
Horatio J. Homer, its first African-American officer, in 1878. Sgt. Homer spent 40 years on the police force. A plaque in his honor hangs at the Area B-2 police precinct in
Roxbury.[21]
According to historian Daniel M. Scott III, "Boston played a major role in black cultural expression before, during, and after" the
Harlem Renaissance.[22]
In theater, Ralf Coleman's Negro Repertory Theater earned him the unofficial title of "Dean of Boston Black Theater". In dance, Stanley E. Brown,
Mildred Davenport, and
Jimmy Slyde earned national acclaim. In the visual arts,
Allan Crite was one of the most influential painters in Boston.[22]
In literature, the Colored American, one of the first magazines aimed at African Americans, was originally published in Boston before moving to New York in 1904; Cambridge-born
Pauline Hopkins wrote for the magazine and was its editor from 1902 to 1904.
William Stanley Braithwaite's annual Anthology of Magazine Verse, which ran from 1913 to 1929, influenced American taste in poetry.[22]
In 1900,
Booker T. Washington founded the
National Negro Business League in Boston. Its mission was "to bring the colored people who are engaged in business together for consultation, and to secure information and inspiration from each other". In 1910, David E. Crawford opened the Eureka Co-Operative Bank in Boston; it was referred to as "the only bank in the East owned and operated by 'Colored People'."[26]
In the first half of the 20th century, Boston's black community diversified considerably due to an influx of immigrants from the West Indies and Cape Verde as well as the American South and West (including
Malcolm X). In the 1920s the community began expanding from the South End into Roxbury.[22] Social workers
Otto P. Snowden and
Muriel S. Snowden founded
Freedom House in Roxbury in 1949.[27]
"Although popular and scholarly attention has been paid to the struggle for equality in other parts of the country during the twentieth century, Boston's civil rights history has largely been ignored", according to organizers of a symposium at the Kennedy Library in 2006.[28] Although Boston's civil rights movement is usually associated with the busing controversy of the 1970s and 1980s, Bostonians such as
Melnea Cass and James Breeden were active in the civil rights movement before then.[29][30] In 1963, 8,000 people marched through
Roxbury to protest "de facto segregation" in Boston's public schools.[31] In April 1965,
Martin Luther King Jr. led a march from Roxbury to Boston Common to protest school segregation. That June, after the 114 day Freedom Vigil of Rev. Vernon Carter of All Saints Lutheran Church in the South End, which began two weeks after Martin Luther king's Boston march, the Massachusetts legislature passed the Racial Imbalance Act signed by Governor Volpe, which ordered the state's public schools to desegregate.[32]
On April 5, 1968, hoping to ease racial tensions following King's assassination, Mayor
Kevin White asked
James Brown not to cancel a scheduled concert at
Boston Garden. He persuaded
WGBH-TV to televise the concert so that people would stay home to watch it. The next day, nearly 5,000 people attended a rally organized by the
Black United Front in
White Stadium. Protesters presented a list of demands that included "the transfer of the ownership of ... [white-owned] businesses to the black community, ... every school in the black community shall have all-black staff ... [and] control of all public, private, and municipal agencies that affect the lives of the people in this community."[33]
After
Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated,
Mel King, then the executive director of the New Urban League, wrote:
We may voice our outrage at certain kinds of violence. We may implement some type of gun-control legislation, but until we confront ourselves, examine and readjust our priorities, make a firm commitment to change, and act on that commitment, we are deceiving ourselves and perpetuating a system which will lead to the ultimate form of violence—the destruction of society.[34]
That September, 500 African-American students walked out of school after a student was sent home from
English High School for wearing a
dashiki. Later that year, Mel King and the New Urban League protested at a
United Way luncheon, charging that Boston's African-American community was receiving only "crumbs".[35]
The desegregation of Boston public schools (1974–1988) was a period in which the
Boston Public Schools were under court control to desegregate through a system of busing students. The call for desegregation and the first years of its implementation led to a series of racial protests and riots that brought national attention, particularly from 1974 to 1976. In response to the Massachusetts legislature's enactment of the 1965 Racial Imbalance Act, which ordered the state's public schools to desegregate,
W. Arthur Garrity Jr. of the
United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts laid out a plan for
compulsory busing of students between predominantly white and black areas of the city. The court control of the desegregation plan lasted for over a decade. It influenced Boston politics and contributed to demographic shifts of Boston's school-age population, leading to a decline of public-school enrollment and
white flight to the suburbs. Full control of the desegregation plan was transferred to the Boston School Committee in 1988; in 2013 the busing system was replaced by one with dramatically reduced busing.[36]
Late 20th century
In 1968,
WGBH-TV began airing Say Brother (later renamed Basic Black), Boston's longest running public affairs program produced by, for and about African Americans. In 1972, Sheridan Broadcasting purchased the
WILD (AM) radio station, making it the only urban, contemporary music radio station in the country owned and operated by a black-owned company.[37]
Rabbi Gerald Zelermyer of
Mattapan was attacked on June 27, 1969, by two black youths who came to his door, handed him a note telling him to "lead the Jewish racists out of Mattapan" and threw acid in his face. He was severely burned but not permanently disfigured. Two Mattapan synagogues were burned down by arsonists in 1970. By 1980, nearly all of the Jews who had lived on Blue Hill Avenue had relocated.[38][39]
In 1972, the Museum of African American History purchased the
African Meeting House, in Boston's Beacon Hill.[42]
From 1974 to 1980, the
Combahee River Collective, a political organizing group largely composed of Black lesbian socialists, met in Boston and nearby suburbs.[43] The Collective is perhaps best remembered for developing the Combahee River Collective Statement,[44] a foundational text for
identity politics and an important Black feminist text.[45][46]
In 1978, the Boston branch of the
NAACP successfully sued the
United States Department of Housing and Urban Development for allowing the
Boston Housing Authority to discriminate based on race.[47] Housing discrimination in Boston remained an issue; in 1989 the
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston reported that residents of Boston's black neighborhoods were less likely to receive home mortgages than residents of white neighborhoods, "even after taking into account economic and nonracial characteristics that could be responsible for differences between these neighborhoods".[48]
As a gesture of protest over inadequate city services, a group of activists obtained enough signatures to put a non-binding
referendum on the November 1986 ballot, proposing that the predominantly black neighborhoods of Boston secede and create a new city called
Mandela. Voters in those neighborhoods rejected the proposal by a 3-to-1 margin.[49][50]
In 1989,
Charles Stuart murdered his pregnant wife to collect life insurance and told Boston police she had been killed by a black gunman. The case exacerbated racial tensions in Boston for a time.[51]
Many black Boston natives have moved to the suburbs or to Southern cities such as Atlanta, Birmingham, Dallas, Houston, Memphis, San Antonio and Jacksonville.[54][55]
21st century
In 2009,
Ayanna Pressley became the first Black woman, and first woman of color, elected to the
Boston City Council, in its 140 year history.[56][57] She won a city-wide At-Large seat.[58] In 2018, she was elected to the House of Representatives, and became the first woman of color to represent Massachusetts in Congress.[59][60] In 2021,
Kim Janey became the first African-American
mayor of Boston, having succeeded
Marty Walsh following his confirmation as the
United States secretary of labor.[61]
According to census information for 2010–2014, an estimated 180,657 people in Boston (28.2% of Boston's population) are Black/African American, either alone or in combination with another race. 160,342 (25.1% of Boston's population) are Black/African American alone. 14,763 (2.3% of Boston's population) are White and Black/African American. 943 (.1% of Boston's population) are Black/African American and American Indian/Alaska Native.[62]
Number
% of Boston population
Black/African American
180,657
28.2%
Black/African American alone
160,342
25.1%
Black/African American and White
14,763
2.3%
Black/African American and American Indian/Alaska Native
943
.1%
According to the same report, an estimated 145,112 people in Boston are Black/African American and not Hispanic.[62]
Notable African Americans
1600-1900
Macon Bolling Allen (1816–1894), the first African American licensed to practice law and to hold a judicial position in the United States
Zipporah Potter Atkins (mid-1600s), the first African American to own land in the city of Boston
Leonard Black (March 8, 1820 - April 28, 1883), minister, slave memoirist
William Wells Brown (1814–1884), escaped slave, abolitionist, playwright, historian; author of Clotel (1853), considered the first novel written by an African American
Anthony Burns (1834–1862), fugitive slave who fled to Boston
John Stewart Rock (1825–1866), dentist, doctor, lawyer, abolitionist
George Lewis Ruffin (1834–1886), the first African-American graduate of Harvard Law School, the first African American elected to the Boston City Council, and the first black judge in the United States
Mildred Davenport (1900–1990), nationally acclaimed dancer, dance instructor, and founder of two dance schools, the Davenport School of Dance and the Silver Box Studio[22][66]
William H. Ferris (1874–1941), author, minister, scholar, and activist
George Washington Forbes (1864–1927), civil rights activist, journalist, co-founder of the Boston Guardian, and one of the first African-American librarians; served at the West End branch of the Boston Public Library for over 30 years[67][68]
Angelina Weld Grimké (1880–1958), journalist, teacher, playwright and poet of the
Harlem Renaissance; one of the first African-American women to have a play publicly performed
Roland Hayes (1887–1977), lyric tenor and composer
Pauline Hopkins (1859–1930), author from Cambridge; member of the Saturday Evening Quill Club, a Boston literary group; edited the
Colored American, one of the first magazines aimed at African Americans[22]
Clement G. Morgan (1859-1929), Harvard-educated attorney, activist, and city official; born into slavery
Florida Ruffin Ridley (1861–1943), civil rights activist, suffragist, teacher, writer, and editor
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin (1842–1924), civil rights activist, founder of the Woman's Era Club (the first black women's club in Boston) and editor of the Woman's Era, the first newspaper published by and for black women
Bessie Stringfield (1911–1993), the first African-American woman motorcyclist to ride solo across the United States; one of the few motorcycle
despatch riders for the U.S. military during WWII
Doris Bunte (b. 1933), in 1972, became the first African-American woman elected to the Massachusetts state legislature; appointed
Boston Housing Authority administrator in 1984
William Henry Lewis (1868–1949), pioneer in athletics, law, and politics; the first African American to be appointed as an Assistant United States Attorney
Paul Parks (1923–2009), the first African-American Secretary of Education for the state of Massachusetts; also a civil rights activist, and president of the Boston NAACP
Deval Patrick (born 1956), 71st governor of Massachusetts (was educated in Boston, worked in Boston)
^Different historians describe the rioters differently. According to Jim Vrabel (2004), it was a group of "African-American and white women". In "The 'Abolition Riot': Boston's First Slave Rescue" (1952),
Leonard Levy describes them as "Men and women, both white and colored". Other sources refer to a group of "black women". According to Jack Tager, most slave rescue riots were initiated by African Americans prior to 1850, and by white abolitionists after 1850.
^Emilio, Luis F. (1891).
"Readville Camp". History of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1863-1865. Boston: The Boston Book Co. pp. 19–34.
Beshara, Christopher J. (October 9, 2009). "The Hidden History of Black Militant Abolitionism in Antebellum Boston". University of Sydney.
doi:
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