Shockingly few people in Boston have heard of the Museum of Afro-American History, the African Meeting House, the Abiel Smith School and the other landmarks and historical cornerstones on the Black Heritage Trail. Even fewer have been there. Although Bostonians loyally continue to visit Beacon Hill, paying tribute to the founding fathers in America’s first community, rarely does it cross the public’s mind that the abolitionist movement was born within the same square mile where white officials passed laws of hatred, segregation, and oppression. Now is the best time to revisit historical Beacon Hill, and see it as it was seen through the eyes of its black inhabitants.
Situated at 46 Joy St., a ten-minute walk from the Charles M.G.H. T stop, the Museum of Afro-American History is a small, clean building with few exhibits but an overwhelming atmosphere of warmth. In its own words, it serves as a “forum to foster appreciation for the common humanity of all in our diverse American society through debate, discussion, cultural statement and spiritual growth.” The history surrounding the Museum’s construction, and more importantly the events that took place within its walls make it a historical monument to the enlightened individuals who made Boston the melting pot of international communities it is now.
Inspired by the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation and the approaching March on Washington, activist Sue Bailey Thurman convened a series of programs by civil rights activists and scholars in 1963 to commemorate and celebrate the achievements of the community of free blacks who lived in Boston’s North Slope and Beacon Hill. Three years later, J. Marcus Mitchell founded and served as the first curator of the Museum of Afro-American History in the African Meeting House. Soon afterward, the Museum purchased the Meeting House, the Abiel Smith School on Beacon Hill and the African School and Church on Nantucket.
The exhibition at the Museum of Afro-American History cannot be fully appreciated without considering the history behind the Abiel Smith School and the African Meeting House. The Abiel Smith School was the first US schoolhouse built expressly to house a public school for black children. When a wealthy white businessman allotted $2,000 to the city of Boston for the education of black children, the Smith School replaced the African School at the Meeting House to educate a greater number of students. Despite the hardships of segregation, a practically unfit study environment, poor equipment and lack of teaching personnel, the Smith School produced such important figures as William Cooper Nell, the leader of Nell’s Equal School Association, an organization whose aim was to provide equal education independent of skin color.
The African Meeting House, the oldest standing black church in the United States, was founded by the black community to provide an alternative to the segregated atmosphere of white churches. Thomas Paul, a black minister from New Hampshire, designed the church primarily as a house of worship. The African Meeting House soon became the social and political center of African-American community life and provided fertile ground for the abolitionist movement. It even served as a schoolhouse for Black children during the construction of the Smith School. The atmosphere of community struggle provided incentive for debate and discussion of issues affecting African-American life.
Some of the first voices calling for an end to slavery, racism and sexism rang within the walls of the African Meeting House. Maria Stewart, a black abolitionist and the first woman of any race to speak on political issues in public, began her public speaking career at the Meeting House. Other speakers included Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, David Walker and Frederick Douglass. In January 1832, William Lloyd Garrison founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society in the Meeting House; it was one of the most influential abolitionist groups in the country. The exhibition at the Museum of Afro-American History explains how the Abiel Smith School, African Meeting House and other historical sites on the Black Heritage Trail marked significant steps in the Abolition Movement’s early struggle for equality and freedom.
The exhibition does not simply offer a wide array of artifacts, but also tells the stories of those whose everyday lives were marked by struggle. Chloe Lee, a black assistant teacher, was one of few teachers at the Abiel Smith School, which was largely overlooked by the racist school system. Ambrose Wellington, the school’s white schoolmaster, blamed Lee for everything from low test scores to poor attendance, and even threatened her with dismissal. However, 122 black parents signed a petition in her support, saying that a school so understaffed could not blame a single teacher for all the shortcomings of the educational system.
One of the Museum’s most memorable exhibits is the imposing stone William Lloyd Garrison used from 1845 to 1865 to compose type for the famed abolitionist paper, The Liberator. The imposing stone looks like a large, tall table with a very smooth surface, designed to align letters for the newspaper press. Garrison called it a “stone of stumbling” and “a rock of offense” for the opponents of emancipation.
The most segregated city in the nation, Boston did not abandon its racist values until very recently. Even now, in a time when desegregation through busing has a prehistoric ring to it, the African-American community suffers from the limitations of ghetto life, which no amount of affirmative action can outweigh. The Museum of Afro-American History offers a key to understanding Boston’s black heritage, and provides a sobering reminder that the struggle to purge society of racism is not close to being over.
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