Researching Black History at the BPL
Introduction
While Boston is recognized as a formative place for the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Audre Lorde, much of the civil rights activism in Boston remains underappreciated. Civil rights organizing flourished through both national and local organizations. Most famously, the fight for civil rights came to a head during the Boston busing crisis, where white Bostonians violently fought desegregation efforts. The crisis made national news and exposed the racial and socioeconomic tensions in Boston.
On This Page:
- A timeline of Civil Rights era Black activism in Boston
- Related primary sources and research projects
- Related nonfiction books
- Documentaries and videos
Note: For Information on community-based activism and/or the Boston busing crisis, please see the dedicated sections.
Image Right: The Emergency Committee for a National Mobilization Against Racism issues a call to march in Boston Dec. 14, 1974 after white mobs hurled racial epithets and attacked school buses carrying Black children at the South Boston High School. Four buses left Washington, D.C. carrying about 180 people while dozens more made the drive up the east coast to join an estimated 15,000 demonstrators who ranged from pacifists to Marxist poet Amiri Baraka. Comedian and activist Dick Gregory told the crowd, “Let’s not fool ourselves, the schools in South Boston are just as bad as the schools in Roxbury. What we really want is an end to bad schooling.” Text and image courtesy of Washington Area Spark.
1949 - Otto P. and Muriel S. Snowden found Freedom House in Roxbury, a center of civil rights and advocacy for Boston’s African American community
1960 - Ruth Batson and the Boston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) establish education subcommittee
1961 - Concerned Higginson Parents Association formed (CHPA)
1962 - Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD) founded, Melnea Cass is the only woman charter member appointed
1963 - STOP Day-Black work stoppage and march
1963 - Mothers for Adequate Welfare formed
1963 - First school “Stay out for Freedom” and Freedom Schools
1963 - NAACP present 14 demands to Boston School Committee and stage “March on Roxbury”
1964 - Second school “Stay Out” and Freedom Schools
1964 - Roxbury Multi-Service Center (RMSC) founded
1964 - NAACP & CORE help Roxbury tenant lead first rent strikes
1965 - Mothers’ Sit-In & Roxbury residents dump garbage at City Hall
1965 - Rev. Vernon E. "Little Arrow" Carter leads a 114-day Freedom Vigil outside the Boston School Committee headquarters to protest racial inequalities in Boston's schools
1965 - Roxbury Community School founded: first of four alternative Black independent schools
1965 - MLK marches with 22,000 Bostonians to the Boston Common
1966 - Mothers for Adequate Welfare march to Boston Common and State House
1966 - Creation of the Lower Roxbury Community Corporation (now Madison Park Development Corp.) one of the first CDCs (Community Development Corporations) in the country
1967 - Mother’s for Adequate Welfare sit-ins at Grove Hall and violent response by Boston Police
1968 - Mel King leads tent city occupation to protest Boston’s urban renewal policy. Tent City housing complex was created as a result of the protests
1974 - Combahee River Collective formed in support of Black lesbians
Image Above: The registration counter at NAACP convention held at the Sheraton Boston Hotel in 1967. This image is part of the Brearley Collection at the Boston Public Library.
Timeline courtesy of The City of Boston
Primary Sources and Research Projects
The Boston’s 1960s Civil Rights Movement: A Look Back collection was created in the spirit of the African symbol Sankofa that in the Akan language of Ghana is loosely translated as “Go Back to Fetch It,” meaning to learn from one’s past. It consists of more than 14 hours of GBH radio and television programming created during the 1963-1967 period of the civil rights movement in Boston. The collection provides an opportunity for students and scholars to get a closer look at some of the historic events in Boston’s civil rights history as they actually unfolded, from the perspective of the activists, participants and other stakeholders.
An interactive exhibit showing different parts of the Boston area that Malcolm X, then Malcolm Little, had connections to. The exhibit includes historical photographs and detailed historical descriptions.
- Combahee River Collective Statement
A description of the groundbreaking Black Feminist Lesbian group as well as a link to their seminal Combahee River Collective Statement.
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The Ways Boston Helped Shape the Life of Martin Luther King, Jr.
An article from Boston University's Alumni Magazine about MLK's connection to Boston. King earned his doctorate degree at BU and later return for multiple civil rights demonstrations, including leading a march of over 20,000 people from the South End to Boston Common
Image Right: A woodcut print with black ink on tan paper of Malcolm X seen from the shoulders up and looking into the distance.
Nonfiction Books
Chain of Change by Call Number: F73.9.N4 K56 1981ISBN: 9780896081055Publication Date: 1981One-time mayoral candidate, founder of the Rainbow Coalition, and longtime political activist, Mel King surveys Black life in Boston, including the forces of racism and liberation, and shows how the Black community has worked to establish its identity, language, and organizations. It includes interviews with several prominent local activists, including Elma Lewis, A. Robert Phillips, Sarah-Ann Shaw, Ruth Batson, Melnea Cass, and Leo Fletcher.
A People's History of the New Boston by Call Number: F73.52 .V73 2014ISBN: 9781625340764Publication Date: 2014-06-17Although Boston today is a vibrant and thriving city, it was anything but that in the years following World War II. By 1950 it had lost a quarter of its tax base over the previous twenty-five years, and during the 1950s it would lose residents faster than any other major city in the country. Credit for the city's turnaround since that time is often given to a select group of people, all of them men, all of them white, and most of them well off. In fact, a large group of community activists, many of them women, people of color, and not very well off, were also responsible for creating the Boston so many enjoy today. This book provides a grassroots perspective on the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s, when residents of the city's neighborhoods engaged in an era of activism and protest unprecedented in Boston since the American Revolution. Using interviews with many of those activists, contemporary news accounts, and historical sources, Jim Vrabel describes the demonstrations, sit-ins, picket lines, boycotts, and contentious negotiations through which residents exerted their influence on the city that was being rebuilt around them. He includes case histories of the fights against urban renewal, highway construction, and airport expansion; for civil rights, school desegregation, and welfare reform; and over Vietnam and busing. He also profiles a diverse group of activists from all over the city, including Ruth Batson, Anna DeFronzo, Moe Gillen, Mel King, Henry Lee, and Paula Oyola. Vrabel tallies the wins and losses of these neighborhood Davids as they took on the Goliaths of the time, including Boston's mayors. He shows how much of the legacy of that activism remains in Boston today.
Documentaries and Videos
The film documents that remarkable concert and the politics around it. Boston Mayor Kevin White and his colleagues almost by accident realized that by televising the James Brown concert they could keep people indoors that night prevent widespread rioting. The film is almost testimony to the power of music in general and the power of James Brown's music in particular. The film is a tribute to the Godfather of Soul and the role he would come to play in working for civil rights. This film is also available as a DVD at the BPL.
A 2021 lecture held by Boston University on the untold stories of civil rights leaders in Boston featuring Assistant Professor of History & African American Studies Paula Austin, filmmaker Roberto Mighty, and Lecturer in Art & Graphic Design Jessie Rubenstein. Beyond names such as Martin Luther King Jr., the panelists discussed the mark left by other less-known leaders who helped shape the city of Boston and its role in the struggle for Black freedom.