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Home > My Ancestors >
African American > Timeline: 1850-1949
- 1850: Benjamin Roberts sues the City of Boston in 1849 on behalf
of his five year old daughter, so that she might attend the white
school closest to their home instead of the black school over a mile
away. In January 1850 Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court
decides in the case Roberts v. City of Boston that separate schools
for black children are legal. Charles Sumner is assisted by Robert
Morris as council for the plaintiff. Research the Supreme
Judicial Court Historical Society.
- 1850: June 27, Robert Morris (b. 1829) becomes the first black
lawyer to pass the bar in Boston.
- 1854: Anthony
Burns, a fugitive slave, is captured by out-of-state slave hunters
touching off protests and violence in Boston.
- 1854: August 24, John V. DeGrasse was admitted in due form a
member of the Massachusetts Medical Society. He was the first black
doctor admitted into the Society. A graduate of the Medical School
at Bowdoin College in 1849, Dr. DeGrasse worked for a time as the
assistant surgeon for the United States Colored Troops during the
Civil War.
- 1855: April, A law is passed calling for the integration of all
public schools in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In September
the schools open without incident, and in December a celebration is
held to commemorate the tireless work of community leaders in their
efforts to integrate the schools.
- 1859: Former slave and community activist Lewis
Hayden becomes the first black political appointee in Boston.
He is made the Messenger to the Massachusetts Secretary of State.
- 1860: Census results show 2,261 blacks in Boston, accounting
for only 1.3% of the total population. 61% of black Bostonians are
born outside the state.
- 1863: February 9, Recruiting begins in Boston to raise a black
regiment for the Union Army. By May, over 800 black men would be a
part of the 54th
Regiment. In all, more than 4000 blacks from Massachusetts would
take up arms for the North in the Civil War.
- 1864-68: The Freedman's
Bureau sponsors a program that relocates blacks from the Tidewater
region of Virginia to Boston. During the program 1083 blacks move
to Boston and Cambridge.
- 1870: The official number of blacks in Boston reaches 3445.
- 1880: Boston's black population rises to 5854 and by 1890 it
reaches 8000.
- 1890: June 25, W.E.B. DuBois graduates cum laude from Harvard
University and delivers one of the commencement speeches. He is the
first Black person to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard.
- 1900: Turn of the century black population in Boston reported
to be 11,591.
- 1903: July 30, The Boston "Riot" at the Columbia Street African
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. What began as an attempt by William
Monroe Trotter to disrupt a speech being given by Booker T. Washington,
breaks out in fighting between supporters of the two men. The next
day the local newspapers call it a "riot."
- 1930: Over 12,500 blacks are living in Boston, most live in the
South End and Roxbury.
In fact, the area located between Northampton Street on the North
and Ruggles Street on the South, Washington Street on the East and
Tremont Street on the West was populated by approximately five thousand
black people, or 40% of the entire black population of Boston proper.
- 1938: Malcolm Little moves to Boston and attends the eighth grade.
He would stay in the Boston area for the next eight years.
- 1940: Official statistics show over 23,000 blacks living in Boston.
- 1949: Otto and Muriel Snowden found Freedom House in Roxbury.
See 1750-1849 | See 1950-present
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