A Legacy Remembered: The African American Community of West Medford

By Ann Noling and Kristen Johnson

West Medford, Massachusetts has been home to a thriving African American community, where families have lived for generations since the end of the Civil War. The stories of its residents have been fading as elders die and families move away. Most of the history of this neighborhood resides within the memories of these few remaining elders. The discovery of over one hundred funeral programs, saved and collected by residents since the mid-twentieth century, tell the stories of residents who have passed on but made countless contributions to the community. These funeral programs, along with supplemental interviews, illustrate how past residents developed community resources and used ingenuity to help create a strong neighborhood of their own. Within these pages are stories of personal perseverance and tenacity, humor and resiliency. Through portraits of individuals, West Medfords African-American neighborhood of the past is documented, through the sharing of the lives of men and women, and how they interfaced to create a solid community, despite societal and economic obstacles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468563689

Ann Noling

This book has been created by a small group of community residents, two Tufts University students from the Tisch Citizenship and Public Service Scholars Program, and Tufts University advisors to memorialize the African American community of West Medford.

Book preview

CONTENTS

Disclaimer

Prologue

The Tisch Citizenship and Public Service Scholars Program

Historical Background

The Printed Program at the African-American Funeral Ceremony

Section I

Section II

Section III

Afterword

Afterword

In Appreciation

Conclusion

Notes

This book is dedicated to:

The Earliest African American Residents of West Medford

This book is reverently dedicated to the earliest African American residents of West Medford, born before the twentieth century, whose legacies live on through this book and in the spirit of the West Medford community today.

Recognizing their sacrifices, hardships and commitment to the people of their community, we pay homage to those early residents. They embody the strength, vibrancy, perseverance and unity that are the quintessence of the African American community of West Medford.

And, to all our West Medford residents—

You are our people, our history and the keepers of a dream for a strong, hopeful and enduring West Medford community.

Disclaimer

Dear Readers,

This book has been lovingly created by a small group of community residents, two Tufts students from the Tisch Citizenship and Public Service Scholars Program, and Tufts University advisors to memorialize the West Medford Community.

The purpose of the book has been to create a publication about African-American residents of West Medford, who lived there between 1874 to the present. Using funeral programs as the primary resource, with some personal interviews and secondary stories, we were able to patch together the story of West Medford’s African-American neighborhood and how people interfaced to create a solid community, despite societal and economic obstacles.

Information included in this book was collected from people throughout the United States, who we contacted via e-mail, local newspaper articles and word-of-mouth. The planning committee from within the West Medford community asked for help to capture information about all West Medford’s family members, friends, and acquaintances who resided in West Medford for twenty years or longer, between 1874 and the present. For those people who couldn’t provide dates or where their contributions were unclear, we included the listing of names within this book in a separate section. The selection of residents profiled in the first section was based on information in the funeral programs that was available to the two Tufts students, who were then able to create the more detailed profiles needed for this section.

We know that, despite our best efforts, we may have missed some people and to those of you who didn’t hear about this project until now, whose loved ones have been omitted from this book because of a lack of information or access to your information, we apologize for the oversight.

We regret not having reached some of you. If we reported people incorrectly either by misspelling of names, incorrectly reporting dates or, worse, predeceasing you or someone you know we deeply regret these errors.

We hope that you can consider this book another glimpse into our proud community within West Medford.

Best regards,

The West Medford committee: Robert Furey, Wallace Kountze, Dorothy Elizabeth Tucker, John Reid and Maureen Sonnie

Prologue

The original idea for writing this book was to continue telling the story of West Medford’s African American community, where our families have lived for generations since the end of the Civil War.

The concern about losing this history is real. We refer to ours as a lost history, a story that is fading as quickly as our elders die and our families move away. Most of the history of this neighborhood resides within the memories of these few remaining elders. Nineteenth and early twentieth century official records of African American births and deaths are not complete. Through this publication, we are undertaking the task of showing glimpses of the rich history of our community, including stories of personal perseverance and tenacity, humor and resiliency. We want to tell the story about how our ancestors used community resources and ingenuity to help create a strong neighborhood of their own.

Our families live in the neighborhood between Boston Avenue and Mystic River Road, some of whom are the direct descendants of the original African American settlers. They built our community despite times of unspoken discrimination, involuntary segregation, and economic hardship. Within a few city blocks, our ancestors wove a tapestry of support among neighbors: they established small businesses that nourished their own families and enhanced the community; created networks that protected and advanced next generations in ways they never experienced for themselves; and over time solidified their reputations as a substantial and effective advocacy group for this independent African American neighborhood.

These strong bonds were created with very limited resources and an abundance of hard work. Despite obstacles, our family members created a unique community where residents took care of each other by sharing their limited resources. They helped each other with childrearing and babysitting, foster care and elder care. A variety store and barbershop were important local places where people of color could congregate, purchase goods and services and feel comfortable with shop keepers from their own shared experience. Parents and community leaders banded together to try to maximize educational opportunities and ensure a level educational playing field for our children in the former separate, but equal environment of learning that did not provide other options until the 1970’s.

Career choices were also severely limited. In early days, African-

American women were domestics, and many men worked in less-desired jobs gained through municipal employment, either within the City of Medford or Boston. People who owned their own businesses had to work hard to manage financially. A proud, common theme amongst our men in the community was their military service: many of the men mentioned in this book served in segregated or select regiments in the Air Force or Army and, despite obstacles, served bravely and were awarded commendations and medals for their service, and obtained scarce promotions.

The Shiloh Baptist Church was built within the African American neighborhood and was not only a place of worship but also served as a community and social service; through its memberships it provided people with resources to cope with loss and a place to seek solutions and to reinforce the importance of family and community.

Additionally, the West Medford Community Center became a nucleus of the community and a resource for its people. Its original purpose—to provide a place for social events for children and the neighborhood—also grew to create other important links, such as the Mothers’ (now Elders’) Group, and it served as a place where couples met and African Americans could claim ownership around their own dreams and decisions.

Despite economic and social obstacles and finite resources, the community remained vibrant in the face of hardship, drawing strength from their religion, spirituality, music, and a fervent belief that better times were around the corner. It was the strong foundation of these elders in the 1800’s that inspired those of us who followed to carry forth with a clear sense of similar values passed down for over nine generations.

Books and other projects have now begun to document the history of the African American community of West Medford. Past research about the neighborhood has profiled a relatively few number of residents. One of the challenges of this project, and one of our major goals, has been to create a more cohesive portrait of the hundreds of now-deceased West Medford residents who have contributed to its history. The idea has been to record the story of the West Medford African American community in a multi-dimensional way. The genesis of the project was funeral programs saved from hundreds of services for West Medford’s deceased family members.

For readers unfamiliar with funeral programs, the practice of creating a written narrative about the life and contributions of the deceased family member for distribution to funeral service attendees originated in African American communities in the south. Often these narratives included a picture and listed the immediate family members’ names and relationships to the deceased. It was, and is, the habit of funeral attendees to save these programs. We asked descendants and current or former African American residents to provide us with these original records, taken from drawers, cupboards and closets. We thought it was possible to use these documents to cobble together some of the rich life stories of West Medford. It is one part of this publication, a piece of the bigger story.

We needed help moving a project of this size forward. We were fortunate to have found partners through Tufts University. Staff of Tufts University—Barbara Rubel, Director of Community Relations for the University, and Mindy Nierenberg, Senior Programs Manager at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, along with two Tufts students, Tisch Citizenship and Public Service Scholars Kristen Johnson and Ann Noling—have worked diligently with our team to formulate a work plan and to complete this project. The final product will not only be a record of this community’s history but will be a culmination of a partnership between the African-American residents of West Medford and the Tufts University community.

How is this different from previous books and exhibits? All the wonderful, past projects certainly enhance this publication and the stories herein. What makes this book important is that it encompasses three different perspectives on the community—intimate interviews, short stories, listing of names—each filling a gap of information, providing a more comprehensive portrait of the hundreds of West Medford residents whose story can serve as a model for communities today. At the very least, it gives the reader a retrospective and nostalgic view of a determined group of people who worked hard to be included in the American dream.

To this end, this publication includes a list of past residents of the community in addition to several more in-depth profiles of residents whose stories are especially interesting or emblematic, and which collectively tell the story of this community. With our help, our two Tisch Scholars identified individuals who were then interviewed about their own families and who also talked about other major contributors to the community. The Tisch Scholars directed the transcription of these interviews for inclusion in this book. Separately, an e-mail invitation was sent to a large neighborhood alumnae group enlisting their help in obtaining birth and death records for their family members for inclusion in the book, barring the availability of better information about their families.

Our community group, consisting of Wallace Kountze, Dorothy Elizabeth Tucker, Robert Furey, John Reid, and Maureen Sonnie, worked throughout the year to help shape the parameters of the book and to obtain content from current and former community residents to include within these pages. We want to thank everyone who sent us information about family, friends and residents.