History of Racism in Boston: A Resource List
By the RCCI Team, with contributions from Pastor Calvin Fergins
Recent realities, like COVID-19, the heightened publicity of racial violence, and economic downturn, have highlighted racial disparities in our communities. While these pandemics are deepening the chasms of differences in power and opportunity, they did not create them. On the contrary, our current crises highlight inequalities that have been present since before the founding of our nation.
Boston has a long and complicated racial history. On the one hand, it tells stories of resilience, transformation, and victory. On the other, it reveals deplorable atrocities, subtle power moves, contemporary hate crimes, and well-intended actions that have a racist impact, giving us a veneer of progress while maintaining the status quo.
As we find ourselves in a time of crisis and opportunity, we have the responsibility to work toward a new Boston, more just and equitable than before. To ensure a better future, we must look to our past. We must understand our history and learn from the mistakes, victories, and examples of those who have come before. RCCI invites you to explore the resources on this list to better understand our collective past so, together, we can move into a more just and equitable future.
PS: Click here to see a downloadable bibliography of resources that goes well beyond these highlighted titles.
Resource Write Ups
New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America
While many people focus on the history of slavery in the south, New England Bound examines how the North was complicit in and benefited from the North Atlantic slave trade. Through meticulous research and compelling stories, this book fleshes out the narrative and makes clear that New England was invested in and shaped by racist systems from our nation's start.
A People's History of the New Boston
The 1960s and 1970s represented a critical season of rebuilding for Boston following the impact of WWII. While wealthy, White men are often given credit for this transformation, this book tells the story of unsung influencers who, through grass-roots demonstrations, sit-ins, picket lines, boycotts, and contentious negotiations shaped Boston into the city we know today.
The New Bostonians: How Immigrants Have Transformed the Metro Area Since the 1960s
Between 1970 and 2010, the percentage of foreign-born, Boston residents more than doubled due to immigration from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The New Bostonians explores these immigrant communities' invaluable contributions and their crucial role in nurturing Boston's prosperity - the fruits of which have not been equally shared.
Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston
Shut Out is the compelling story of Boston's racial divide viewed through one of the city's most renowned institutions: the Boston Red Sox. This story is told from the perspective of Boston native and noted sportswriter Howard Bryant.
The Fence: A Police Cover-up Along Boston's Racial Divide
In 1995, Boston police officer, Michael Cox, was killed by his fellow offers when they mistook him to be a Black gang member. The Fence tells the true story of the attack and its aftermath in ways that reveal the injustice and lies behind the "blue wall of silence."
Sarah's Long Walk: The Free Blacks of Boston and How Their Struggle for Equality Changed America
In 1847, a five-year-old African American girl named Sarah Roberts was forced to walk past five white schools to attend the poor and densely crowded all-black Abiel Smith School on Boston's Beacon Hill. Incensed that his daughter had been turned away at each white school, her father, Benjamin, sued the city of Boston on her behalf. The historic case that followed set the stage for over a century of struggle, culminating in 1954 with the unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery
Complicity reveals the cruel truth about the lucrative Triangle Trade of molasses, rum, and slaves that linked the North to the West Indies and Africa. It also discloses the reality of Northern empires built on tainted profits—run, in some cases, by abolitionists—and exposes the thousand-acre plantations that existed in towns such as Salem, Connecticut. Culled from long-ignored documents and reports—and bolstered by rarely seen photos, publications, maps, and period drawings—Complicity is a fascinating and sobering work that actually does what so many books pretend to do: shed light on America’s past.
The Lasting Legacy of the Busing Crisis
The Boston Busing Crisis of the mid 1970s garnered national attention as the city experienced mass protests and violence after the Boston Public School system attempted to implement school integration through busing. In this piece for The Atlantic, Matthew Delmont places the Busing Crisis within the greater historical context of Black parents’ efforts to end “de facto” segregation in the Boston Public School system – providing a closer look at the educational fallout between Northern Whites and Blacks after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Holding Ground: The Rebirth of Dudley Street
Explore how, in 1985, the Dudley Street Neighborhood of Roxbury worked together to overcome barriers of systemic racism and rebuild the fabric of their neighborhood. This community movement gained national attention, set legal precedent, and models how residents, community activists, and city officials can organize for change.
Forever Struggle: Activism, Identity, and Survival in Boston's Chinatown, 1880-2018
Chinatown has a long history in Boston. In writing about Boston Chinatown's long history, Michael Liu, a lifelong activist and scholar of the community, charts its journey and efforts for survival. Liu depicts its people, organizations, internal battles, and varied and complex strategies against land-taking by outside institutions and public authorities. Chinatown is a powerful example of neighborhood agency, the power of organizing, and the prospects of such neighborhoods in rapidly growing and changing cities.
Black Bostonians: Family Life and Community Struggle in the Antebellum North
Updated and expanded in this revised edition to reflect twenty years of new research, when published in 1979 Black Bostonians was the first comprehensive social history of an antebellum northern black community. The Hortons challenged the then widely held view that African Americans in the antebellum urban north were all trapped in "a culture of poverty." Exploring life in black Boston from the eighteenth century to the eve of the Civil War, they combined quantitative and traditional historical methods to reveal the rich fabric of a thriving society, where people from all walks of life organized for mutual aid, survival, and social action, and which was a center of the antislavery movement.
Netflix Series Trial 4
Charged as a teen in the 1993 killing of a Boston cop, Sean K. Ellis fights to prove his innocence while exposing police corruption and systemic racism. Released in 2020, this eight-part true crime docuseries highlights Ellis’ fight to get a fourth and final trial after being wrongfully convicted spanning over two decades.
Local Historical Sites
Explore local historical sites that honor the journeys of different groups.
A plaque and developing memorial highlighting the Native American internment camp that was held on Deer Island, one of the Boston Harbor Islands. Tours of Deer Island briefly acknowledge this injustice.
Middle Passage Port Marker on Long Wharf. The Boston Middle Passage Marker looks two ways: Out to Boston Harbor, where enslaved Africans and enslaved Indigenous people arrived and departed, and also inward, down State Street, where these enslaved people and their descendants lived, worked, and fought for freedom.
The Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford.
The Black Heritage Trail, African Meeting House, and African American History Museum in Boston.
A variety of cultural sites in Chinatown highlighted in videos from the Boston Chinatown Heritage Project, created by teens in partnership with the Chinese Historical Society of New England and others.
Author’s Note: Resource descriptions are based on language from their respective promotional websites and have been paraphrased for the purposes of RCCI.
