1638
Eight years after the original settlement of Boston, a ship named Desire arrived in Boston with the first African slaves.
1641
Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth were the first colonies to authorize slavery through legislation as part of the 1641 Body of Liberties.
1770
March 4, 1770, Crispus Attucks (photo, left), a black, was the first American killed by the British soldiers in the Boston Massacre.
1777-1804
Gradual abolition laws are passed in the northern states: Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey.
1780
A Declaration of Rights was added to the state constitution abolishing slavery in Massachusetts. In the 1781 court case Commonwealth v. Jennison, slavery in the state was declared unconstitutional.
1787
Prince Hall petitions the Boston School Committee for a public school for black students due to the severity of the prejudice and discrimination in the schools. His request is denied.
Prince Hall founded the First Black Masonic Lodge in Boston.
1796
A group of Boston Blacks founded the African Society for Mutual Aid and Charity. The Society provided social-welfare services, financial relief, and job placement to its members and their families.
1800
Prince Hall petitions the School Committee again for a public school for black children. By this time only five black students attend the predominantly white public schools.
1806
The African Meeting House is dedicated on December 6.
1815
Abiel Smith, a wealthy white businessman, dies and leaves funds to educate black students in Boston. In his honor, the African School is renamed the Abiel Smith School.
1826
A group of Black Bostonians founded the Massachusetts General Colored Association to fight for an end to slavery, they became Boston's primary abolition organization.
1831
William Lloyd Garrison prints first issues of his anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator. Black entrepreneur and abolitionist Robert Forten becomes chief financial supporter of the publication.
1832
On January 6, William Lloyd Garrison founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society founded at the African Meeting House.
William Lloyd Garrison's Thoughts on African Colonization is published.
1834
The Smith School was constructed using funds left by Abiel Smith to the city of Boston for the education of black children.
1845
Frederick Douglass (photo, left) prints Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an account of his slave experience and escape to freedom.
1847
Douglass begins publishing anti-slavery newspaper, the North Star.
1848
Benjamin Roberts tries to enroll his daughter, Sarah, in each of the five public schools that stood between their home and the Smith school in Boston. Sarah was denied entrance to all of them, so Roberts sued the city under an 1845 statute providing recovery of damages for any child unlawfully denied public school instruction.
1849
Charles Sumner and black attorney, Robert Morris, unsuccessfully challenge segregation in the Boston schools in the Sarah Roberts Case.
1855
The Smith School is closed and black children are permitted to go to the public schools closest to their homes.
1863
Massachusetts Governor John Andrew convinced President Lincoln to admit black soldiers into the Union army. The Massachusetts 54th Regiment was formed as a result, with Robert Gould Shaw as Colonel.
On July 18, the Massachusetts 54th Regiment led the attack on Fort Wagner, South Carolina.
1865
John S. Rock, a noted Boston lawyer, became the first African-American to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and the first Black person to speak before the U.S. House of Representatives.
1870
John J. Smith, whose barber shop was an abolitionist rendezvous prior to the Civil War, was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1868 and 1869, and then re-elected in 1872. He was also the first Black to serve on the Boston Common Council in 1878.
1873
Lewis Hayden, a leading 19th century Black abolitionist who harbored over two-thirds of Boston's fugitive slaves in his Beacon Hill house prior to the Civil Was, was elected to the Massachusetts General Court.
1895
W.E.B. Du Bois (photo, right), born in Massachusetts, was the first African-American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard.
First National Convention of Black Women held in Boston.
1900
The National Negro Business League was founded in Boston by Booker T. Washington "to bring the colored people who are engaged in business together for consultation, and to secure information and inspiration from each other." More than 400 business people from 34 states attended the convention.
1912
W.E.B. Du Bois established the Boston Branch of the NAACP, the first official and now the oldest branch. The purpose was "to uplift the colored men and women of this country by securing to them full enjoyment of their rights as citizens, justice in all courts, and equality of opportunity everywhere."
1919
The Urban League of Boston was established. Dedicated to the economic and social development of Boston's African-American people and neighborhoods.
1964
The Museum of Afro-American History was established by Dean Howard and Sue Bailey Thurman "to advance knowledge, through historic examination" about the African-American presence in Boston and New England.
1965
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a graduate of Boston University led a march from Roxbury to a rally on Boston Common to protest the evils of school segregation in Boston. Dr. King spoke at the State House and in June the legislature passed the Racial Imbalance Act requiring school desegregation.
Source: Boston African American National Historic Site.
