page_title: History of African Americans in Boston
section_title: Other
hierarchical_section_title: History of African Americans in Boston / History / Other
caption_attribution_description: English: Panelists on Basic Black, WGBH, 2012, discussing the presidential election
context_page_description: Until 1950, African Americans were a small but historically important minority in Boston, where the population was majority white. Since then, Boston's demographics have changed due to factors such as immigration, white flight, and gentrification. According to census information for 2010–2014, an estimated 180,657 people in Boston are Black/African American, either alone or in combination with another race. Despite being in the minority, and despite having faced housing, educational, and other discrimination, African Americans in Boston have made significant contributions in the arts, politics, and business since colonial times.
context_section_description: In 1968, WGBH-TV began airing Say Brother (later renamed Basic Black), Boston's longest running public affairs program produced by, for and about African Americans. In 1972, Sheridan Broadcasting purchased the WILD (AM) radio station, making it the only urban, contemporary music radio station in the country owned and operated by a black-owned company.
  Rabbi Gerald Zelermyer of Mattapan was attacked on June 27, 1969, by two black youths who came to his door, handed him a note telling him to "lead the Jewish racists out of Mattapan" and threw acid in his face. He was severely burned but not permanently disfigured. Two Mattapan synagogues were burned down by arsonists in 1970. By 1980, nearly all of the Jews who had lived on Blue Hill Avenue had relocated.
  The Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts gave its first annual performance of the Black Nativity at the school in 1970. It has been performed at various venues since then, including the Boston Opera House. Its new home is the Paramount Theatre.
  From 1974 to 1980, the Combahee River Collective, a political organizing group largely composed of Black lesbian socialists, met in Boston and nearby suburbs.  The Collective is perhaps best remembered for developing the Combahee River Collective Statement, a foundational text for identity politics and an important Black feminist text.
  In 1978, the Boston branch of the NAACP successfully sued the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development for allowing the Boston Housing Authority to discriminate based on race. Housing discrimination in Boston remained an issue; in 1989 the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston reported that residents of Boston's black neighborhoods were less likely to receive home mortgages than residents of white neighborhoods, "even after taking into account economic and nonracial characteristics that could be responsible for differences between these neighborhoods".
  As a gesture of protest over inadequate city services, a group of activists obtained enough signatures to put a non-binding referendum on the November 1986 ballot, proposing that the predominantly black neighborhoods of Boston secede and create a new city called Mandela. Voters in those neighborhoods rejected the proposal by a 3-to-1 margin.
  In 1989, Charles Stuart murdered his pregnant wife to collect life insurance and told Boston police she had been killed by a black gunman. The case exacerbated racial tensions in Boston for a time.
  Nelson Mandela and his wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela visited Boston on June 23, 1990.
  George Walker's Lilacs, for Voice and Orchestra was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1996 with Seiji Ozawa conducting. The piece earned Walker a Pulitzer Prize for Music, making him the first African-American composer to be awarded the prize.
caption: Panelists on Basic Black in 2012, discussing the presidential election (Kenneth Cooper, Cindy Rodriguez, Callie Crossley, Philip Martin, and Kim McLarin)
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