The Founding Trauma of Freedom: A Black Man’s Reading of Boston's Revolutionary Dazzle

Boston250 Initiative’s Paul Revere Lantern, Drone display in Boston Harbor, April 2025

There have been some interesting official performances commemorating Boston’s 250th anniversary of the American Revolution’s beginning and the events of 1775. Mayor Wu and the Boston 250 Initiative pulled out the tech and media stacks that largely went unnoticed in David Walker City (Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan). What’s going on?

It mostly concerns an old dilemma: how to rearticulate America’s founding violence through a narrative of redemption. Backdropped against the African Meeting House/Museum funding cuts on Joy St. in Beacon Hill (and at other sites of ‘Black Archive’ across the United States), it is important to see what now is to be told. What is shallow and performative? What is deep?

For example, Boston merchants were deep ‘triangle traders’. But they are honored, still...before invisibilized others. Boston Industrialists, lords of the loom, were deep partners with cotton planters, the lords of the lash. But they are lifted, in that Revolutionary genealogy, still…before invisibilized others. Officials from the FBI and the City of Boston strategized how to tear down, off-road, and diminish or co-opt Dr. King’s march and meetings in April of 1965. But saying that “Boston marched with Dr. King," does the perform...tells the redemption. The Mayor and the Celebrants can feel good at the quick incorporation of Black resistance into Boston’s self-narrative, while severing these moments from the systematic anti-Blackness that necessitated such resistance. This allows Boston to position itself as both revolutionary in origin and a progressive inheritor of justice movements.

Go slowly through the ‘official political’ (Boston 250 and city government) script. It's a difficult one to write: the Mayor is a child of Asian immigrants, holding a very visible American political office. There is a ‘cuff’ there too. But it is harder to read, that is, as a black man in David Walker City. The mayor’s use of certain pronouns and emphasis on "everyday revolutionaries" fighting for "our own" conceals how the revolutionary social contract was fundamentally anti-Black, with both Northern merchants and Southern planters united (confederated) to build an entity where massive Black transhipment and death remained a structural necessity.

The drone display's visual spectacle was a dazzling technological performance, but a distraction. Are black people outside or inside of the American Revolution project’s idea of “the people”? More than hypocrisy or historical inaccuracy, this pleasure, spectacle, and commemoration actively reproduces the fundamental antagonism by rendering it invisible, allowing for the continuous re-enjoyment of the founding trauma without responsibility or reckoning.

Willie Bennett sat out the apology, Mayor. His family vented – where was their restitution after a false (Carol Stuart murder) accusation tore through a community? There are life lessons in that moment of Black family outcry (the wound made visible, the vulnerability voiced), but it could have perhaps been ingathered rather than performative…staged. The city's absolution remains incomplete, a colonial ritual without African repair.

Willie sat out.

By Willie, I mean us, the people.

#hhbbos, #hhbne, #somethingisoff, #youspelledAfricanCausalityincorrectly, www.reidren.com/tours, www.facebook.com/groups/hhbne

From Whale Ships to Railways to AI: Black Men's Employment and Labor Redlining

Black Memorabilia Banks - Black Labor mock post-slavery as Annuities ~ Cast Iron Bank - Americana Porter Bell Hop

Historically, the trajectory of employment available to Black men in America reveals intentional constraints designed to preserve white economic mobility and class privilege. In the maritime era of early to mid-1800s New England, Black men found relative independence aboard whaling vessels sailing from towns like New Bedford, Nantucket, and Salem. Despite harsh conditions, these maritime occupations provided skill, dignity, and even moments of autonomy not available ashore.

By the turn of the 20th century, however, occupational opportunities had narrowed sharply. Roles such as Pullman porters, hotel bellhops, and railway "red caps" became primary employment avenues for Black men. Each carried its distinct, racialized significance. Pullman porters were respected within their constrained roles, their positions allowing some measure of stability and prestige within tightly defined racial boundaries. Bellhops, meanwhile, served visibly yet subserviently, their uniforms and stations a constant reminder of societal expectations. Similarly, "red caps," named for their distinctive headgear, were critical yet constrained figures in railway travel, visible yet strictly limited to baggage handling.

Even as manufacturing surged in America post-World War II, opportunities largely bypassed Black communities, with racial labor exclusion barring them from well-paying factory jobs. Figures like Malcolm X, who navigated limited roles as car parker, soda jerk and bellhop in Boston, personify this period's occupational constraints.

By the 1970s and 1980s, systematic disinvestment, coupled with intentional flooding of drugs and arms into Black communities, replaced viable economic opportunities with pathways to incarceration—a transition from labor redlining to outright criminalization and confinement. Today, automation and AI threaten the few remaining entry-level jobs that once absorbed Black men with limited educational opportunities.

Looking forward, this raises an urgent question: Where can Black men with minimal formal education turn for meaningful and sustainable employment in an increasingly automated economy? Addressing this is imperative—not simply as a historical reflection, but as a call for structural transformation to dismantle long-established labor exclusions and intentionally open pathways toward equitable economic futurity.

Was the True Root of Medicine African? The Case for “Mdw Swnw” as the Original Healer’s Word

The history of medicine is often told through a Greek and Roman lens—we hear about Hippocrates, Galen, and Latin words like medicina shaping the modern medical profession. But what if the real linguistic and conceptual root of medicine was African all along?

In Ancient Egypt (Kemet), doctors were called swnw (sunu)—a title that was more than just "physician." These healers were highly trained in both practical medicine and spiritual wisdom, often working out of temples dedicated to healing deities like Imhotep. Egyptian medicine wasn’t just about diagnosing and treating disease; it was about restoring balance—both in the body and the cosmic order.

Mdw Swnw: The “Divine Healer”

If the sacred words of Kemet, known as Mdw Ntr (Medu Neter, “Divine Speech”), were the script of the gods, what would Mdw Swnw mean? A "Divine Healer."

This phrase captures what Egyptian medicine truly was: a sacred science, a practice where spoken incantations, prayers, and measured interventions worked together as one. Healing was not separate from the spiritual world—it was a divinely guided art.

Yet, in Western etymology, we are taught that medicine comes from the **Latin medicina, rooted in the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word med-, meaning “to measure” or “to advise.” But does that really capture what medicine was at its origins?

The connection between Ancient Egyptian swnw and the later Coptic saein suggests an unbroken linguistic thread—a tradition of healing that survived for millennia in Egypt, even as Greek and Latin medical terminologies took over. The Coptic form saein was still in use long after Kemet fell under foreign rule, indicating that Egyptian medical terms persisted even as the language evolved.

Why the Latin "Medicine" Doesn't Tell the Whole Story

The word medicine as we use it today reflects an administrative, structured view—one that aligns with Roman bureaucracy rather than the deep, holistic, sacred origins of healing.

  1. Mdw Swnw ("Divine Healer") suggests medicine was rooted in divine order, not just physical remedies.

  2. Latin medicina (from PIE med-) focuses on measurement and judgment, aligning with a bureaucratic system of healing.

  3. Egyptian medicine blended science and spirituality—doctors were also priests, and temples were also healing centers.

Greek and Roman civilizations absorbed Egyptian medical knowledge, but they erased the original terminology. By the time Latin medicus and medicina took hold, the direct linguistic connection to Egypt had been lost. What remained were the practices, not the words.

Reclaiming the African Root of Medicine

If the origins of medicine lie in Africa, then perhaps we need to rethink which words truly hold the original meaning of healing. If medicine is about restoring balance, invoking sacred knowledge, and aligning with divine forces—doesn’t Mdw Swnw describe it better than medicina ever could?

Egyptian medicine was never just about fixing illness. It was about reestablishing order—both in the body and in the universe. And that is something deeper than measurement. That is something divine.

This Black History Month, take a self-guided tour through time at these 4 spots in Boston

January 31, 2025 Hanna Ali

A sign marks the Black Heritage Trail in Boston. (Paul Marotta/Getty Images)

Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from WBUR's Saturday morning newsletter, The Weekender. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here. 

In honor of Black History Month, we’re taking a journey to the past — literally.

But first, let’s start with quick history refresher. Slavery officially ended in the commonwealth in 1783, but some Black Americans in Massachusetts lived in a state of “unfreedom” into the beginning of the 1800s, according to Joel Mackall, a researcher, educator and tour guide with Hidden History of Black Boston.

Despite continued segregation and restricted freedoms, Black Americans remained among the great thinkers, movers and shakers in our state. (Names like Frederick Douglass, W.E.B DuBois and William Monroe Trotter quickly come to mind.)

But the list doesn’t stop there. Black Americans who were pioneers in the military, journalism and women’s sports called Boston home during the 19th century. Pieces of their stories — and monuments to their memories — are hidden in plain sight for you to discover.

Wondering where to look first? I spoke to Mackall and Peter Drummey, chief historian at the Massachusetts Historical Society, to give us some suggestions.

Smith Court | 56 Joy St., Boston

Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood was a hub for Black life in the 19th century. More than half of Boston’s Black population lived between Beacon, Charles, Cambridge and Joy streets, said Mackall. “That little section was Black Boston in the 1800s, for all intents and purposes,” he added.

Black abolitionists like Maria Stewart and David Walker first gained traction speaking to the masses here. But it was at Smith Court where one of the city’s most prominent change-makers and educators, William Cooper Nell, resided.

From 1850 to 1857, Nell lived at 3 Smith Court (which was also on the Underground Railroad). He was one of the first published Black historians, and cofounded the School Abolishing Party that succeeded in getting the state legislature to desegregate public schools in 1855.

William E. Carter Playground | 709 Columbus Ave., Boston

You’ve probably passed by this playground, but do you know the story behind its namesake?

Sgt. William E. Carter was a Black member of the 6th Massachusetts volunteer militia, and served in the Spanish American War and World War I. Carter spent 40 years in the service before his death in 1918.

“He’s a remarkable person because he’s living in a world where his life is circumscribed, but he essentially spends his entire adult life in the [military],” said Drummey. “He goes from being a Black member in a white regiment to serving in an entirely segregated unit in the first World War.”

In 1920, the City of Boston honored Carter’s dedication to the service by renaming the Columbus Avenue playground. Its location is indicative of a shift in Boston’s Black community “center” toward Roxbury and the South End, according to Drummey.

Kittie Knox Bike Path | Kendall Square, Cambridge

A short bike path between Binney Street and Broadway in Cambridge’s Kendall Square is named after a barrier-breaking cyclist from Massachusetts: Kittie Knox.

Knox grew up in Beacon Hill and rode with the Riverside Cycling Club, a social cycling group for local Black Americans. She completed multiple 100-mile rides in her biking career and placed 12th out of 50 cyclists in a major national race, according to the Cambridge Black History Project.

In 1893, Knox joined the League of American Wheelmen, the largest cycling organization in the country at the time. A year later, LAW decided to exclude Black riders from its league. Knox protested the LAW’s restrictions by showing up with her membership card to a racing event in 1895, but LAW still barred her from riding.

“It’s more than just wanting to ride and race your bicycle,” said Drummey. “It’s these burdens that are placed upon your full participation by not necessarily legal restrictions.”

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“The Old Howard”| 1 Center Plaza, Boston

Government Center was once home the Howard Athenaeum, a famous opera house-turned-burlesque theater that was scorched in June of 1961. But before its demise, “The Old Howard” was also the site of abolitionist and speaker Sarah Parker Remond’s first act of public resistance.

Remond and her brother, Charles Lenox Remond, were both well-known activists in Massachusetts. In 1853, Sarah purchased a ticket to the opera at the Howard Athenaeum, but was forcibly removed when she refused to comply with segregated seating. She sued and won her case in one of the earliest efforts against Massachusetts’ public segregation.

“The Old Howard,” ironically, later became the venue for a Black military ball celebrating Carter’s 6th Massachusetts militia. Drummey says this change paints a picture of the ever-evolving city.

P.S. — WBUR’s Arielle Gray took a tour with Mackall through the North End, where she discovered even more hidden history about Black Boston. She shares what she learned along the way in this episode of The Common.

Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled Sarah Parker Remond's last name. We regret the error.

Black History is Now: Boston, Suburbs, and the MBTA Communities Act Is Small-Small

We have posted a lot about Boston and housing in our FB group over the years. In a look back on Boston’s battles over racial spacing/placing, it's worth remembering that the resistance to Black belonging (where belonging and inclusion is a sharpening topic in these Orangeific times) didn’t only happen in places like South Boston, Roslindale, Hyde Park, and Charlestown. It also happened—and continues to happen—in the suburbs.

There’s a growing academic archive around this Black history. Books like Lily Geismer's Don’t Blame Us show how towns like Arlington, Milton, Wellesley, and Lexington shaped policies that kept Black families out, even as the city struggled with open conflict over race. Suburban zoning became a quiet but powerful force in defining who had access to stable housing, good schools, and public resources—a fundamental issue directed by perceived/real Afro-phobia, (and who would have been the broader class and racial beneficiaries?).

Today, those same towns are resisting a meager, almost toothless law—the MBTA Communities Act—which only asks for zoning (not building) multi-family housing near transit. There are no requirements for affordability and nothing to address the long history of Black/Brown housing exclusion and displacement.

Ironically, it’s now a Black Attorney General tasked with holding these towns accountable, even as the underlying issue—Black vulnerability in the housing market—remains largely untouched.

But this is not just about suburban zoning today—it’s part of a long genealogy of Black removal in Boston. From the destruction of New Guinea, the Black neighborhood of the North End, in the early 1800s—a de-sanctuary-ing for Black families in the newborn Commonwealth in favor of other immigrants— to the Bantustan of **"Negro Hill" on the north slope of Beacon Hill that would later be demolished and gentrified; from public housing "containment" in Roxbury, Mission Hill, and Columbia Point, to the collusion of banks, insurers, and real estate agents that locked Black families into specific neighborhoods under rising costs—a pattern repeats. From the sale of a black home in 1690 (YES SIXTEEN*) to the 1930s and to the 1990s, Black Bostonians were shuffled, displaced, and priced out, first by redlining and later by speculative investment and urban renewal. It repeats hard.

Today, Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan face new waves of displacement through rising costs, producing neighborhoods that are less Black, more (better? over?) policed, and yet sold as "safer"—but not safer for us, nor shaped by us.

What looks like a technical zoning debate is only the latest chapter in a longer story of race, space, P.lace, and inclusion/belonging in Greater Boston—a story in which Black communities have been systematically dislocated, while the benefits of stability and investment remain elsewhere.

And so, when the Mayor of Boston makes Congressional speeches about Boston as an immigrant sanctuary against the Republican-led Trump administration in early 2025, there is deep irony in all the Boston exceptionalism lifted up -the simultaneous language/grammar of "the 250 years.." and "Boston has always...'. Something is off. ..this city’s history of "making room" for others has so often come at the expense of Black people’s vulnerability and punishability as a class, seeking housing stability for over 400 years, from enslavement to the restrictions it still faces today. Perpetual.

Resources:

  • Join our charter van and walking tours to discuss:

  • FB group topic search "Suburb"

  • FB group topic search "Segregation"

  • People Before Highways: Boston Activists, Urban Planners, and a New Movement for City Making — Karilyn Crockett

  • Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party — Lily Geismer

  • *Zipporah Dunn Atkins Potter

  • The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America — Richard Rothstein

  • Golden Gulag — Ruth Wilson Gilmore

  • Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership — Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

  • Mapping Inequality (HOLC maps, digital resource) Map center at BPL

  • Boston Indicators Housing Reports

#BlackHistory #BostonHistory #HousingJustice #MBTACommunities #Zoning #antiblacknessarchive