Margaret Hart
Margaret Hart was a trailblazer. She was the first student of color to graduate from the State Teachers College of North Adams. She went on to graduate with an M. Ed. in Special Education from Columbia Teachers College. In Pittsfield Hart became the first African American teacher in the Pittsfield public schools and the first teacher of color in Berkshire County. Hart was a mentor to youth, joined the NAACP, and she served as the director of the Catholic Youth Center in Pittsfield.
Lucy Collins
Collins (1801-1893) witnessed almost the entirety of the 19th century from the small home and the 40-acre farm on Meeting House Lane that she inherited from her parents, Primus and Elizabeth Collins.
She was described late in the century as the “only native colored person” in town. Lucy, who was free from birth, farmed and provided a home for her aged step-aunt, Sabina Gray Lawton. When money was tight, white neighbors arranged a special exhibition of her enslaved grandfather’s Revolutionary era coat and her father’s (enslaved for his first four years) homespun baby items to raise funds for her in 1860.
She, her parents, and her aunt, all free people at the time of their deaths, are buried in “Slave Row” in the Old Burying Ground on the Commons with handsome white marble gravetones. These gravestones are our only physical reminder that Little Compton, Rhode Island, once had a distinct Negro Burying Ground on its town commons. In 1755 10% of Little Compton’s population was African American and Native American. In 2010 it was less than 1%.
Ruth E. Carter
Award-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter is an expert storyteller who harnesses the power of visual communication to share narratives of culture, race, and politics. Creating costumes for generation-defining films, she brings vibrancy, nuance, color, and texture to each of her culture-shifting characters.
Ruth E. Carter is only the second costume designer ever to receive a star on the Walk of Fame.
Fortune: A Man
Fortune, his wife Dinah and their 3 children were slaves of Preserved Porter, a Connecticut bone doctor. In 1798, Fortune slipped from a rock on the west bank of the Naugatuck river, broke his neck and drowned. At the time, dissecting cadavers was illegal; but not applying to slaves, Dr. Porter cut him into pieces at the riverbank. At his office, he boiled the bones so that all flesh fell off, etched labels into them and used them as a medical training tool. Dr. Porter died 6 years later, listing the bones as worth $15 ($330 today).
Prior to his death, Dr. Porter used the bones to teach anatomy to his son; who used them to teach anatomy to his grandson; who used them to teach his daughter…135 years of generational doctors and wealth. In 1933, his name long forgotten, the family donated the bones to the Mattatuck Museum where they were displayed next to slave tools as “Larry the Slave”; a popular exhibit shown on their postcard; not taken down until 1970 when the Museum realized this was demeaning. They stored them in the basement.
In 1999, made aware of these bones in the basement, the NAACP and museum staff enlisted anthropologists and archeologists to examine them, ultimately determining this was Fortune. Based on bone density, he was a strong man who lived and worked with a broken back, hand and died of a broken neck.
On Sept. 13th, 2013, after being a slave, medical specimen, museum exhibit and archeological artifact spanning 275 years, Fortune was finally freed…laid to rest next to White society of his time…something that wouldn’t have been allowed when he died.
This is not an isolated story. Medical usage of Black and Indigenous people in ways prohibited of Whites was not uncommon. Since I still can’t find my GG Grandfather (Ned Mills), Erica and I decided to make a donation to the Assoc for the Study of African American Life & History, as well as to make a regular pilgrimage here to leave flowers for Fortune.
Black History is American History and Black Lives Matter. If not to you, I got this. My actions will show they always have and still do…no statute of limitations. Now rest, Fortune.
Sergeant Horatio J. Homer
. Homer was the first African-American Boston Police Officer that was appointed in 1878. Sgt. Homer started his career in at Station 4 (Back Bay/ South End) and spent many years guarding the Office of the Police Commissioner. Sgt. Homer assisted with the recruitment of six more African-American police officers, which resulted in them being appointed to the Boston Police Department. After forty years of dedicated service, Sgt. Homer retired at the age of 70. Thank you Sgt. Homer for your service.
Raymond Jordan
Raymond Jordan was elected to the Massachusetts State Legislature in 1975, representing the residents of the 12th Hampden District, a position he held until 1995 when he resigned to accept an appointment from former President Bill Clinton to become the New England Special Project Officer for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
From 1996–2002, Jordan served as the senior community builder/state coordinator for the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development at the Connecticut state office. Prior to his most recent position, he served as the department’s special project officer for New England in Boston, Massachusetts.
Jordan served as the vice-chair of the Massachusetts Democratic State Committee and had been a member of the Democratic National Committee since 1996. Jordan is the first and only African-American member of the DNC from Massachusetts.
Jordan also has the great honor and distinction of being the only person in our nation’s history to be an African American chair of a state’s Electoral College delegation named by an African American Governor – Deval Patrick – to nominate an African American President – Barack Obama
Credit this info to:
ASALH: Association for the Study of African American Life and History @Witness Stones Project Connecticut Explored Where We Live Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition National Trust for Historic Preservation
