RESEARCH QUESTIONS
AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
This section provides suggestions
for leading questions that can be considered with
the primary sources used in this project as well as
to extend student research beyond the materials in
this project. The suggested questions should not be
considered the definitive path for potential research.
Teachers are encouraged to develop their own questions
and answers with their students that enhance thinking
and learning. Only a few of the questions below are
completely "answered" through information available
at this site.
One of the goals of this project
is to help identify some repositories of primary sources
that relate to the 19th century desegregation of the
Boston and Nantucket school systems and related topics,
but those identified are not the only places to find
such primary materials. Local historical societies,
libraries, and town offices are some of the places
that students can visit to conduct additional research
of their own.
Also included in this section
are brief biographies on selected individuals that
connect in some way to events in the timelines. Even
if an individual did not specifically fight for or
against desegregating a school system, but rather
was active in the colonization movement, or the abolition
of slavery, the contributions of this person can be
researched. Learning more about a particular person's
contributions to history while keeping the larger
vision of the "whole picture" in view, can enhance
a student's understanding of past events.
SOME QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER*
Letter
from Eunice Ross to legislature urging support for
desegregation; says she was "found amply qualified
for admission into the High School at Nantucket, and
was refused admittance ...on account of her colour."
With any primary or secondary
source: Who wrote/created this primary material?
What might have been her/his motivation/reason to
write/create this primary material? How can you justify
your answer to these questions? How might this source
be biased?
On the National Negro Conventions:
Why did these conventions begin? What were the
goals? How did these change over time? Who went to
these conventions? (Try newspaper accounts (especially
abolitionist papers) from the time, including the
Liberator and the North Star.)
On Phillis Wheatley: What
might have been Phillis Wheatley's attitude towards
Africa? How might her attitude towards Africa influence
her opinion of America? How might America influence
her attitude towards Africa? (Consider using her poems
as a resource.)
On Women and Abolition:
Were there anti-slavery societies in your community
or county? How were women involved? During the 1830s
the first anti-slavery societies were usually run
by men but women might be auxiliary members. Then
separate female anti-slavery societies began to grow,
Massachusetts leading the nation. (Out of 300 MA societies
by 1840, 55 were female, with Essex county leading
the number.) Women took an increasingly active role,
often tying women's rights to abolition. Find out
about Susan Paul, a black school teacher at the African
School of Boston who was active locally but also became
an officer in the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.
(See the introduction to the Memoir of James Jackson
by Susan Paul, edited by Lois Brown, which describes
Paul's important role as a black representative).
See the documents and education suggestions about
Female Anti-Slavery Societies on the Old Sturbridge
Village website (http.www.osv.org) under Education-Teacher
Resources- Lesson plans.
On Work and Education:
How did people learn a job in the early 1800s? What
was the custom and practice concerning literacy and
education in specific skills? What skills were valued
in the African American community? What sorts of jobs
were available to African-Americans? What were the
main economic activities in Nantucket, Boston, your
community? (Try 1790 and 1830 census data in your
community, if available, or state info. at Commonwealth
Archives.)
On "Colored Patriots of the
American Revolution": Why would William Nell write
this book in the 1850s? How does Nell's account of
an event in the American Revolution compare/contrast
with a contemporary's account or a textbook from today?
On Segregation/ Desegregation:
How effective has integration been as a means of achieving
equality for all students? Are some schools still
segregated? Where did blacks live in Boston/Nantucket?
Why or why not? Are all facilities equal? Why or why
not? Why would people oppose Eunice Ross' admission
to the High School, despite her demonstrated abilities
as a student? (Look for books written about the 1970s
busing in Boston; contemporary data on school systems
- the Boston Public School system has racial demographics
available on line.)
On Robert Morris and the legal
system: How did an African-American become a lawyer?
What was Morris' role in the case of Roberts v.
City of Boston as compared to Charles Sumner?
What methods did people use to change the laws? Why
did many blacks use the courts for legal recourse?
Did all blacks in the US have the right to vote, petition
the Legislature, or sue? Why or why not? Why would
some communities break the law?
On separate schools: Compare
the arguments of African-Americans arguing for integrate
and African-Americans arguing against integration
(opinion within Boston's black community was not united
on the issue of desegregation)? Why would some anti-integrationist
consider that desegregated schools would result in
worse academic conditions for African-American students?
(Consider the 1849 reports of the Boston School Committee
and articles from the Frederick Douglass' Papers.)
On the Know-Nothing Party:
Was it in the interests of the Know-Nothings to promote
tension between the Irish and African-Americans? Why
might there be tensions between the two groups? Could
the Catholic calls for separate public schools (because
of strong Protestant bias with in the schools) have
influenced the politics of the anti-Catholic Know-Nothings,
which controlled the city of Boston in 1854 and the
Legislature in 1855?
On the closing of the Smith
School and the African School: Why do the African-American
schools close with the desegregation order? Is the
assumption that white schools are better? (The school
committee minutes offer no specific explanations for
the closings) How might you find information that
is not answered by certain documents?
On African-Americans and sailing:
Why were many African-Americans involved with
whaling? (Relates to work opportunities.) Why were
there large free black communities in coastal towns
like Nantucket, Boston, and Salem? What was the main
economic activity on Nantucket? Why?
On Quakers and Religion:
Were all Quakers abolitionists? Why were Quakers generally
seen as more tolerant of blacks? How did religion
influence peoples' opinions about abolition and desegregation?
Did ministers have an influence in desegregation/abolition?
Why or why not? Why did different religious denominations
have different opinions about slavery/segregation?
Did some churches physically segregate blacks? What
roles have black churches played in various civil
rights movements?
On Crispus Attucks: Was
Attucks the leader of a mob or an American patriot?
(This generated much discussion in the late 1860s
when a memorial of the 100th anniversary of the Boston
Massacre was proposed, and more recently, with the
naming of a bridge in Massachusetts.) How do various
artists depict his death? Why would these look different?
( William Champney's print, Paul Revere's image, and
the image from Nell's Colored Patriots are
different.)
On reform movements: Were
some of the people involved with desegregation involved
with other reform movements (temperance, anti-slavery,
women's rights)? More specific: What was Anna Gardner's
role in the story of the African School? What other
reform movements occur during the desegregation movement
(in addition to those not mentioned in the previous
parentheses.) How might these movements have affected
the desegregation cause? (Try reading accounts from
various meetings of these 'societies' or the literature
they produced; look for individuals involved with
various movements - perhaps a repository holds her/his
personal papers.)
*Thanks to "Featured
Teachers" Elaine Weintraub and Barbara White for their
contributions to some of these questions. Their lesson
ideas can be found in the Sample Lessons section.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Crispus Attucks (1723 - 1770)
was born enslaved in Framingham, Massachusetts.
He escaped and found refuge at sea as a sailor/whaler.
He spent nearly two decades working on whalers and
cargo ships out of the Caribbean, and like many blacks,
took many odd jobs in Boston to support himself. He
was the first person killed in the "Boston Massacre,"
a confrontation between colonial citizens of Boston
and the British "Redcoats" guarding the State House.
Lydia
Maria Child (1802 - 1880)
was born in Medford, Massachusetts and was well-known
for her ideas about education and homemaking. She
started the Juvenile Miscellany, a monthly
magazine for children in 1826. After she married David
Child (a member of the Boston school committee in
the early 1830s), they both became active abolitionists.
One of the first anti-slavery books published in the
US was her Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans
Called Africans, in 1833. Her home w as a stop
on the Underground Railroad, and she served as the
editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard.
She also edited Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the
Life of a Slave Girl.
Paul Cuffee (1759 - 1817) was
born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Recognizing that
both blacks and Indians received unequal public education,
he bought a farm in 1797 to house a school for free
children of color. He was as Quaker, and one of the
first to advocate emigration as a solution to the
problems of racial injustice in America. In 1811,
he traveled to Sierra Leone, in West Africa, and set
up the Friendly Society of Sierra Leone to encourage
colonization; furthermore, he personally spent his
wealth to transport blacks back to Africa. He died
before he could lead another expedition for settlement
to West Africa.
Frederick
Douglass (c.1818 - 1895) was
born enslaved in Tuckahoe, Maryland and christened
as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. At the age
of eight, he was sent to work in Baltimore for one
of his master's relatives, whose wife began to teach
him to read. When her husband became enraged that
she had taught him to read, her lessons stopped, but
it only encouraged Frederick to pursue literacy even
more. In 1838, he escaped to New Bedford, Massachusetts
and began to work as a caulker, in addition to other
unskilled jobs. In 1841, he traveled to Nantucket
for a meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society,
and after speaking, was offered a job by the society
to lecture. After his autobiography, Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass, was published
in 1845, he sailed to England to prevent his capture
as well as to lecture. Friends helped to raise funds
to buy his freedom, and when he returned to the US,
he started the anti-slavery paper, the North Star,
in Rochester, NY (William C Nell was the publisher).
While in Rochester, he attacked the segregated school
system, and his home served as a stop on the Underground
Railroad. After the Civil War, he would serve as Consul
to Haiti.
William Lloyd Garrison (1805
- 1879) was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts
and apprenticed to a printer at age 13. He edited
the first temperance paper, the National Philanthropist
and in 1831, began to publish The Liberator
in Boston. The success of The Liberator was
due, in part, to the fact that he had support from
both whites and blacks throughout the city, state,
and US. He also generated a great deal of ire from
both Southerners and Northerners, especially since
he believed slavery should end immediately, rather
than by gradual emancipation at best, and challenged
many in the colonization movements. He supported equal
rights for women within the American Anti-Slavery
Society, and this split the abolitionist movement.
In 1835, a mob in Boston tried to kill him, but he
continued to support abolition. Following the Civil
War, he ceased publishing the Liberator, on
the grounds that slavery was abolished.
Prince Hall (c.1735 - 1807)
was possibly born in the British West Indies,
but details of his parents and place of birth are
contradictory, and therefore difficult to authenticate.
In 1775, he and fourteen other free colored men of
Boston were initiated into the Freemason Lodge No.
441, attached to the 38th Regiment of Foot (British
Army). When the British fled Boston in 1776, this
lodge granted Hall the authority to meet as the African
Lodge #1, and in 1784, the Grand Lodge of England
granted them a warrant (charter). As Grand Master,
a title of some prestige, Prince Hall was a prominent
member of Boston's free colored community; he was
an advocate for improving educational opportunities
for students of color, as well as opposing slavery
in the US.
Robert Morris (1823-1882)
became the second black attorney in the United States
and the first in Massachusetts. He came to practice
law after being a servant of Ellis Gray Loring, a
well-known Boston attorney who saw his promise and
helped him with legal studies. Morris was born in
Salem, the grandson of a slave from Africa brought
to Ipswich. A strong abolitionist, Morris represented
several fugitive slaves. In one case he helped the
slave escape and was indicted for this role but later
acquitted. His most famous role was assistant to Charles
Sumner in the Roberts school desegregation case. He
remained active in law practice and Boston politics
throughout his life.
William
Cooper Nell (1816 - 1874)
was
born in Boston and educated at the African School
in the basement of the African Meeting House. He received
the prestigious Franklin Medal, awarded to outstanding
scholars in the Boston public schools, but was only
able to attend the ceremony as a waiter's assistant
on account of his color. He was an advocate for desegregated
schools, and sent many petitions to the State legislature
and the Boston school committee. In 1847, he helped
found the anti-slavery paper, the North Star,
with editor Frederick Douglass. In 1855, his work,
The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution,
was published, detailing accounts of African-Americans
contributions in the War.
Theodore Parker (1810 - 1860)
was born in Lexington, Massachusetts and graduated
from the Harvard Divinity School in 1836. As a Unitarian
minister in Roxbury, Massachusetts, he was less conservative
than most Unitarians at the time; in fact, he served
as a leader of the New England transcendentalist movement.
He was a strong supporter of prison reform as well
as an activist for abolition. (His signature appears
on several petitions from the mid -1800s relating
to the school desegregation issue).
Wendell
Phillips (1811 - 1884)
was born in Boston and graduated from Harvard
University. A lawyer, he became a well-known orator
who gained his fame as an abolitionist speaker. His
speech in 1837, challenging those persons that upheld
the murder of newspaper editor and abolitionist, Elijah
P. Lovejoy, is a testament against mob rule. He wrote
articles for The Liberator, but parted ways
with Garrison after the Civil War; Phillips was opposed
to dissolving the American Anti-Slavery Society, and
advocated for the enactment of the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments to the US Constitution.
Charles Lenox Remond (1810
- 1873) was born in Salem, Massachusetts. He joined
the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1838 and became
its first African-American lecturer. The Remond family
fought the Salem public school committee to end its
policy of segregated schools, and by 1843, Salem had
integrated its school system.
Lemuel Shaw (1781 - 1861) was
born in Boston and served as Chief Justice on the
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court from 1830 to
1860. A prolific jurist, he decided the case of Commonwealth
v. Hunt (1842), whereby he argued that Massachusetts
unions were free from the application of criminal
conspiracy law. Another major decision was in the
case of Roberts v. Boston (1850), which ruled
in favor of the city. His opinion was modified by
the US Supreme Court to justify the segregationist
legal concept of "separate but equal."
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811
- 1896) was born in Litchfield, Connecticut and
wrote one of the most important books in American
history, Uncle Tom's Cabin. Although the book
was serialized in an abolitionist paper, the National
Era, it was not until Uncle Tom's Cabin
was published in 1852 that it attracted such powerful
attention. Within 5 years, the book had sold over
half a million copies in the US and translated into
more than 20 languages. The book did much to galvanize
public opinion in the North to oppose Southern slavery.
Her fame as an abolitionist was great,; her husband,
Rev. Calvin Ellis Stowe, was strongly opposed to slavery
as well; and she even wrote the introduction for William
Cooper Nell's Colored Patriots of the American
Revolution.
Charles
Sumner (1811 - 1874)
was born in Boston and graduated from Harvard
University. In 1833, he was admitted to the bar, and
became active in the anti-slavery cause, as well as
calling for prison and education reform. In 1849,
he and Robert Morris represented Sarah Roberts against
the city of Boston in a case against segregation.
Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw ruled against Roberts, but
Sumner had gained enough notoriety to run a successful
campaign, and was elected to the US Senate. He quickly
became a leading opponent of slavery. After one speech,
he was so severely beaten by a South Caroline Congressman,
Preston Brooks, that he was unable to attend the Senate
for the next three years. As a post-mortem tribute
to him, his Senate peers passed an unprecedented Civil
Rights Act of 1875 (which outlawed racial discrimination
in public places).
David Walker (1785 - 1830)
was born free in Wilmington, North Carolina (his
mother was free). He settled in Boston, opened a second-hand
clothing store, and became involved with the abolitionist
movement. His pamphlet, Appeal to the Colored Citizens
of World, ignited huge controversies in both the
North and the South. Southerners passed laws forbidding
distribution of the book, and eventually a reward
was placed for his head - dead or alive. He was found
dead near his shop on June 28, 1830. While most abolitionists
did not agree with his call for violence to end slavery,
his work urged slaves to fight for their freedom,
and was cited as inspiration by Nathaniel Turner.
Phillis Wheatley (c.1753 -
1784) was born free in West Africa, but was enslaved
and brought to the US as part of the slave trade.
She was sold for domestic labor to John and Susannah
Wheatley of Boston in 1760, who encouraged her to
learn English and Latin. By 1767, she had published
her first poem, and in 1773, her Poems on Subject,
Religious and Moral, was received with much acclaim
in London. She continued to write poetry, but because
of the turmoil of the American Revolution, it was
difficult to find a publisher. The Wheatley's manumitted
her, and she married a free black man in 1778. She
lived in relative poverty and died during childbirth
in 1784.
