The original African Meeting House built in 1806
The Meeting House after it was remodeled in 1855
The African Meeting House on Smith Court off of Joy Street housed a Baptist church and a school. It is the oldest surviving black church building in the United States.
For a while, back when, I was the entire curatorial staff for the Museum of African American History on Beacon Hill in Boston during the period when the late Henry Hampton (Eyes On The Prize) was Chair of the Museum board. I was reponsible for the African Meeting House (1806) on Joy Street, the Abiel Smith School (1835) next door, and the rescue of the African Meeting House on Nantucket which has since been restored.
-I offered guided tours in English, French, and with interns, Spanish and German.
-Brought Brian Lanker photo exhibition, I DREAM A WORLD, and the New England premiere of film GLORY to Boston.
-Acquired signed first edition of book by Phillis Wheatley for the Museum among other additions to the collections.
-Presented readings by Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Leon Forrest, etc.
-Co-curated exhibitions on early New England African American history and culture with the Boston Athenaeum – – including the publication Courage & Conscience.
-Initiated and organized concerts and recording of music by William Grant Still and other major black classical composers performed at the African Meeting House.
See the book MARIA W. STEWART: AMERICA’S FIRST BLACK WOMAN POLITICAL WRITER (available on Amazon) for the life and work of a woman who lectured in this building in the 1830s.
“ . . . enthusiastic, well-written . . . read it if you want to be inspired by a truly heroic woman.” —New Directions for Women
“ . . . the fullest account to date of Stewart’s life and an excellent basis for understanding Stewart’s work.” —History
“This is informative and inspiring source material for today’s scholars, lay readers, and ‘professionals’ . . . ” —Journal of American History
In gathering and introducing Stewart’s works, Richardson provides an opportunity for readers to study the thoughts and words of this influential early black female activist, a forerunner to Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth and the first black American to lecture in defense of women’s rights, placing her in the context of the swirling abolitionist movement.
Citations (learn more)
- The Artistry of Anger: Black and White Women’s Literature in America, 1820-1860 (Gender and American Culture) by Linda M. Grasso
- The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present by Patricia Bizzell
- Women and Men Political Theorists: Enlightened Conversations by Kristin Waters
- page 206, page 213, and Back Matter
- Nine Black Women: An Anthology of Nineteenth-Century Writers from the United States, Canada, Bermuda and the Caribbean by Moira Ferguson
- The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925 by Mia Bay
- Spiritual Interrogations by Katherine Clay Bassard
- Frontline Feminisms: Women, War, and Resistance (Gender, Culture and Global Politics) by Marguerite Waller
- Joyous Greetings: The First International Women’s Movement, 1830-1860 by Bonnie S. Anderson
- Some Wild Visions: Autobiographies by Female Itinerant Evangelists in Nineteenth-Century America by Elizabeth Elkin Grammer
- The Black Panther Party [Reconsidered] by Judson L. Jeffries
- page 50, and Back Matter
- God Don’t Like Ugly: African American Women Handing on Spiritual Values by Teresa L. Fry Brown
- The Black Abolitionist Papers: Vol. III: The United States, 1830-1846 by C. Peter (ed.) Ripley
- Front Matter, and page 116
- Pamphlets of Protest: An Anthology of Early African-American Protest Literature, 1790-1860 by Richard Newman
- A Shining Thread of Hope by Darlene Clark Hine
- Classic African American Women’s Narratives (Schomburg Library of Black Women Writers) by William L. Andrews
- Antebellum Black Activists: Race, Gender, and Self by R. J. Young
- page 158, and Back Matter
- Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millennia of Christianity by Beverly Mayne Kienzle
- African-American Christianity: Essays in History by Paul E. Johnson
- Frontline Feminisms : Women, War, and Resistance (Gender, Culture, and Global Politics, Volume 5) by Marguerite Waller
- Classic African American Women’s Narratives (Schomburg Library of Black Women Writers) by William L. Andrews
- Front Matter, and page 3
. . . and I have related essays in these books:
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African-American historian William Cooper Nell lived and wrote in this house facing the African Meeting House in Smith Court. As a child he attended the school in the church basement. He later was a leader of the boycott and movement to integrate the Abiel Smith School next to the Meeting House.
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William Cooper Nell was the author of
THE COLORED PATRIOTS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote the intro to Nell’s book, was not only a brilliant and prolific writer, she was also a striking and charismatic woman
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An 1851 Boston, Massachusetts, poster warning both fugitive slaves and free blacks of kidnapping risk following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
VARIETY . SPICE . LIFE 
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As a new resident of Boston, I have not have the chance to visit, but I will now make it a priority. Thank you for all the resources you left on this post and I hope to intern for this museum soon.
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