Designed by architect Robert Upjohn and built in 1835, the Abiel Smith School was the first school in Boston built for the black community and is the oldest African American school building in the U.S. The city took 50 years to build a neighborhood school for the black community. It was paid for by $4,000 willed by Abiel Smith, a white philanthropist. Deemed inferior to existing white neighborhood schools, the community continued fighting with the city until 1855 when the Massachusetts Legislature finally outlawed “segregated schools” and African American children began attending other public schools. The Smith School became the Museum of African American History in 1963.
Sue Bailey Thurman (1903-1996) founded the Museum of African American History in 1963, acquiring the neighboring African Meeting House in 1972 and creating the beginnings of the Black Heritage Trail. As a writer and historian, Thurman travelled internationally to speak about racism and African American music. She also worked on the 1963 March on Washington which was held on the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. She founded Aframerican Women’s Journal, a periodical published by the National Council of Negro Women.
A former director of the Museum of African American History, Ruth Batson (1921-2003) was chairperson of the education committee of Boston NAACP that led the fight in the early 1960s against segregation in the Boston Public Schools. She also founded and was later director of the METCO voluntary desegregation program.
