Bay State a bounty of Black history & heroes
As Black History Month comes to a close, I am humbled by our city and state’s contributions to the nation’s Black history and by a people who made their mark despite the considerable odds against them.
Boston is a mecca for Black history — a status deserving of a bigger place in the spotlight. The seeds of America’s Black history were planted here, where many found fertile ground for freedom to bear fruit. Massachusetts was among the first states to outlaw slavery. But abolition was just as hard fought as equality is today. Black abolitionists partnered with white counterparts like William Lloyd Garrison, even as many could not be out front in the movement, yet they were actively invested in it. The great Frederick Douglass lent his eloquence and passion to the cause of freedom. David Walker, a free Black man drafted the Appeal, a radical document against slavery; Elizabeth “Mum Bett” Freeman was the first African American woman to successfully sue for her freedom in Massachusetts; Crispus Attucks, a fugitive slave, was the first Black patriot; and the glorious 54th Regiment were Civil War heroes.
Abolitionist Prince Hall, the first Black Mason and champion of equality, whose name adorns the grand lodge in Dorchester, is interred at Copp’s Hill Burying Ground in the North End. Malcolm X lived here as Malcolm Little. Martin Luther King Jr. met his wife Coretta here, and preached at the city’s historic 12th Baptist Church. He returned to Boston, the city he called his second home, to lead hundreds against inequality. Years later, we are still fighting the good fight. I can’t wait for the unveiling of “The Embrace” a memorial dedicated to Martin and Coretta and the movement.
Beacon Hill, once home to a thriving Black business community, boasted prosperous merchants who invested in their people’s freedom and progress. Along its brick streets many former slaves found their way to freedom through the Underground Railroad. John J. Smith, a barber who lived on Pinckney Street, subsidized the freedom of his people. Later he became the first Black elected to the city’s Common Council.
Businessman, newspaper editor and activist William Monroe Trotter founded The Guardian, a precursor to our Bay State Banner — a publication vital to telling our stories. And as the oldest branch of the NAACP, we have the brilliant W.E.B. Du Bois of Great Barrington to thank for their work.
And no mention of the Black church in America would be complete without acknowledging the majestic African Meeting House, aka the Museum of African American History, the nation’s oldest standing Black church paid for by Black freed men who pooled their money. It housed the Abiel Smith School, which provided a decent education for Black children in Boston.
I revel in the spirit of Black women who came to Boston and preached at the Meeting House, fought for both racial and gender equality, among them Maria Stewart, my all-time hero Harriet Tubman and Josephine Pierre Ruffin to name just a few. Kudos always to our first Black woman elected to Congress, Ayanna Pressley, who follows in the footsteps of Sen. Edward Brooke, the first African American popularly elected to the Senate since Reconstruction.
I revel in telling my son Bruce Bolling Jr., who hails from a family of history makers, that ours is not just a history of slavery. It is a history of striving and achieving, that we come from a proud and accomplished people upon whose shoulders we stand as we continue to break barriers to make history.