Rhode Tour

Captain Reeves Ramsey Taylor: From Hope High School to Annapolis

2022-01-11T20:24:49+00:00

When the US Naval Academy in Annapolis was created by an Act of Congress in 1845, its admissions policies were codified into law. Members of Congress have the privilege of personally nominating the majority of candidates in each class. This is the story of one such candidate, Captain Reeves Ramsey Taylor (1929- ), nominated at 18 years old and the only Black student to graduate with his class in 1953. Captain Taylor was born in 1929 and lived most of his early life at 60 Carrington Avenue in Providence. As a young man, he took an interest in the environment. Taylor once wrote a letter to the editors of the Providence Journal about the smoke coming from factories and its effect on people and the city. He was a member of the Sea Scouts and spent two summers as a seaman on fishing vessels. This enticed Taylor to the idea of a career on the sea. He set his sights on Annapolis, the US Naval Academy in Maryland. While a student at Hope High School, Taylor involved himself in a variety of clubs. He was a member of the band, orchestra, track team, and Omnibus club, which concerned itself with race relations. As part of the band and orchestra, Taylor played the saxophone and clarinet. While Taylor was very musically inclined, he was also into photography and had his own dark room at home. He did some work for Hope High School’s “Blue and White” yearbook as well as for the Hope Log newspaper. Taylor graduated from high school in 1947 on the honor roll and in his last year won the Anthony Medal for English composition. After high school, Taylor attended Brown University, where he joined the Naval Reserves Officers Training Corps (NROTC), one of eight programs like it in the country initiated under the direction of Brown University alumnus, Senator Theodore Francis Green. The Navy was one of Rhode Island's largest employers at the time. In 1947, after Taylor earned the highest mark on the US Service Academies joint civil service exam, Senator Green nominated him for the US Naval Academy—Taylor was said to have a 13 point lead in his score. The year before Taylor had scored second. After graduating from the Academy in 1953 and over a distinguished military career, Taylor flew 65 Vietnam missions from the carrier USS Constellation. He led a Minority Recruiting Program for the Navy. In 1968, he was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal. Four years later, Taylor went on to receive the Air Medal-Strike/Flight as well as the Meritorious Service Medal. Taylor received the same Meritorious medal two years later. Taylor retired from the Navy as a Captain in February of 1975.

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A Public Hearing for Charity Bailey

2022-01-11T00:40:21+00:00

It was Monday, April 23, 1928. The Providence Public School Committee was holding its regular meeting at Central Fire Station on the eastern edge of Burnside Park. The room was packed. Charity Bailey (1904-1978), an accomplished pianist and recent graduate of Rhode Island College of Education, was there to give a public statement against Superintendent Isaac Winslow, who, according to multiple accounts, told Bailey that he would not appoint a Black teacher to work in the school system. Bailey, at 23 years old, had already shown herself as a gifted musician and educator. In the years leading up to the hearing, she performed with her sister Amy at the Pond Street Church and delivered a memorable performance of the spiritual “Wish I Could Die in Egypt Land” for National Music Week at Brown University’s Sayles Hall. A writer for the Providence Journal captured the scene: “Both in the rendition of the weird, dirgelike piano accompaniment and in her singing of the haunting, plaintive melody, Miss Bailey approached an artistic triumph. Prolonged applause compelled her to give an encore number, the only one of the evening.” At the same time, Bailey applied for teaching jobs. Despite strong letters of recommendation from her professors, supervisors told her that there were no vacancies. And so, Bailey advertised as a governess. A year later Bailey was fed up. She and a member of the school committee met with Winslow, who explained that Bailey had fulfilled all of the requirements but was “not in a group of candidates eligible to become teachers.” Bailey and her mother then contacted attorney Joseph G. LeCount, legal counsel and cofounder of the Providence Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), one of the oldest NAACP branches in the country. On April 23rd, a crowd of teachers, students, and community members filled the school committee’s meeting room in the fire station to capacity. LeCount set-up an improvised witness stand. He questioned Bailey first, then Winslow. The following day the Providence Journal printed a partial account of Winslow’s testimony. A few blocks over at the Evening Tribune, the paper’s news editor, John Carter Minkins, an African American, published a big story with extensive testimony from Bailey and Winslow, as well as reactions from the crowd. “I think it’s a lot of bunk,” said one committee member after listening to Winslow defend himself. Later, local activists leveraged Bailey’s case to mobilize Black voters toward the Democratic Party. They ousted at least one member of the school committee who had backed Winslow and elected Democrats into high offices in exchange for support on civil rights. Like so many promising educators at that time, Bailey left the oppressive culture of Providence for New York City, where she worked for the Federal Works Progress Administration, studied piano at Juilliard, and taught music at The Little Red School House. Between 1954 and 1956, Bailey hosted the television show, Sing a Song, a pioneering, interacial children’s program. She recorded albums and published a bestselling book, Playtime with Music, in which she shared her progressive philosophies. Bailey challenged the traditional teachings of music appreciation. As she argued in Playtime, musical rhythm and word pattern should be felt and enjoyed by children without preliminary instruction because, “Children, like all of us, do best and learn most from that which they love to do.”

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Occomy Women

2022-01-10T20:18:02+00:00

For the better part of the 20th century, the Occomy family called 85 John Street their home. Walter Calvert Occomy and Nellie White Occomy, noted humanitarians and members of the city’s Black churches, purchased the house in 1914 and it was a hub of academic and civic pursuits. Looking back at the lives of the Occomys’ three daughters gives us some sense of a family whose activities shaped the past in ways that resonate in the present. Ruth Occomy (1891-1945) came first. Born in 1891, she graduated from Hope High School and assisted at the Providence Shelter for Colored Children, where she decided to enter nursing. The Lincoln School for Nurses in the Bronx—at the time one of the few training schools that admitted Black students—initially rejected her application, citing her small stature. Known for her strong personality, Ruth persisted in gaining an acceptance, completed her degree in 1921, and followed up with a year of courses at Columbia University Teachers’ College. While Ruth studied nursing, her younger sisters, Katherine (1893-1980) and Nell (1897-1953), attended Hope High School. In 1910, Katherine and her husband Lawrence welcomed a son. After a few years, Katherine moved to New York City where she worked as a maid and presumably pursued her career as a dancer. In 1919, the youngest Occomy sister, Nell, graduated with a teaching degree from the State Normal School (now Rhode Island College). Because of discriminatory hiring practices in Providence public schools she moved to Harlem to seek work. Nell flourished in New York City. She taught junior high and, like Ruth, enrolled in a post-graduate program at the Teachers’ College. In the 1930s, she honed her talents as an arts and culture writer, weighing in on debates of national importance like birth control, writing profiles of Black playwrights, and working as editor-in-chief of The Krinon, magazine of Phi Delta Kappa, a Black sorority founded in 1921 in New Jersey. Ruth’s profession took her further from home. After a 1927 send-off that included lectures and a chorus of 200 men at Olney Street Baptist Church, Ruth sailed to London to study tropical diseases with Dr. Pauline E. Dinkins. The two then departed for Monrovia, Liberia, where Ruth worked as a missionary nurse for several years. Even when seriously ill with malaria, Ruth was not ready to abandon her post, explaining in a letter to her parents that the hospital had noticeably improved the health of a community living in the “most humble of circumstances.” Regardless of where their careers took them, the Occomy women felt the pull of home. Nell returned to 85 John Street with her husband Leslie E. Becker for the birth of their first child. She enjoyed friendships with Providence artists, including Nancy Elizabeth Prophet. Ruth returned to the Occomy home in the 1930s to stay. She practiced nursing until suffering from an illness that ended her life in 1945. Katherine came home in the 1930s and lived at 85 John Street for the next five decades. She worked as a palm reader and raised her son, while living at home with mom, dad, brothers, grandchildren, and a handful of family friends. Katherine’s activities garnered less publicity than her sisters’, but even so we know something significant about her. She fulfilled her mother’s desires for an enduring family legacy through 85 John Street: “I give and devise to my daughter Ruth E. Occomy for and during her natural life the real estate situated at #85 John Street, then to the survivors of my children and their heirs [to] forever share and share alike” - Nellie White Occomy, 1941

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Camp Bailey on Dutch Island

2018-06-05T14:05:47+00:00

The appearance of 300 muskets in our streets in the hands of as many sturdy and stalwart Black men, was a novel sight…
-Providence Journal, 1863

On August 28, 1863, the 1st battalion of the 14th R.I. Heavy Artillery (Colored) under Colonel Nelson Viall paraded through Providence on their way to an island in Narragansett Bay. Jamestowners felt the effects of the Civil War, even though battlefields were far away. Confederate cruisers were causing havoc on commerce in the unprotected West Passage of Narragansett Bay. Dutch Island, which commands the western entrance to the bay, was where the 1st Battalion headed to from their training in Providence. They were to assist in the construction of a camp and anti-Conferderate fortifications.

On November 19th, with the fortifications nearly complete, Governor James Y. Smith, the RI legislature, and other distinguished guests presented the standard to Colonel Viall at the newly-formed Camp Bailey.

"It affords me much pleasure to present to your regiment, our Fourteenth Corps d'Afrique, this flag, and I feel confident that it will be entrusted to as brave men as ever enter the service in our defense of our country and its liberties."

Although there was much fanfare at the dedication of Camp Bailey, it's not surprising that Black soldiers faced many forms of discrimination during their service in the Union Army. Most apparent was that Black units were commanded by White officers and had little opportunity for promotion. The issue of pay was also divisive. Initially, enlisted Black men thought that they would receive equal pay, but later found they would receive less per month than White soldiers.

Documents show that financial incentives, known as "bounty," used to increase enlistment, were rampant with fraud. Racist attitudes, coupled with illiteracy among many Black recruits, led to exploitative documents being "willingly" signed by Black soldiers. Most cases of deceit involved the deduction of expenses for worthless items and bounty never being paid. This corrupt behavior by recruiting officers wasn't rectified until testimonies of soldiers, including those of Privates Calvin Bailey, George Gordon, and John Dorsey from Camp Bailey, were given in a hearing to the House of Representatives in 1864.

In the winter of 1863-1864, units from Camp Bailey began to leave for Texas and Louisiana. The Providence Journal specifically named three of the Black soldiers: Charles Freeman, Peter Freeman, and Jeremiah Noka. Only Peter Freeman survived.

Although the 14th R.I. Heavy Artillery was mustered out on October 2, 1865, Dutch Island, almost deserted, remained an official outpost until 1897. At the time, an ambitious round of coastal defense construction had already begun at Ft. Greble.

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The Hair Doctress Gives: Christiana Bannister's Legacies: Pioneering Businesswoman and Philanthropist

2018-04-25T21:01:20+00:00

"I would have made out very poorly had it not been for her." - Edward Bannister

Christiana Bannister founded the Home for Aged Colored Women in 1890. Initially, the home was established to care for retired black female domestic workers. Later the name was changed to Banister House to honor its founder. In 1974 a new multi-level building was constructed to house the Bannister Nursing Care Center. The Center continues to serve elderly residents, providing them with physical and recreational therapy.
Christiana Babcock was born to African American and Narragansett Indian parents. After an early marriage to Desiline Carteaux, in 1857 Christiana married Edward Mitchell Bannister, a struggling black, Canadian painter, who had earlier worked for Christiana at her Boston hair salon. In 1859, thanks to Christiana’s success, Edward left the salon and dedicated his life to painting. Edward later said of his wife, "I would have made out very poorly had it not been for her."
Christiana achieved renown as an entrepreneur and hairdresser, advertising in the abolitionist newspaper Liberator. She called herself a “Hair Doctress” and marketed her hair elixirs. In her newspaper advertisements, Bannister claimed that her “Hair Restorative and Oils […] will not only prevent the hair from falling off but cause new hair to grow.”
In the 1880s, now in Providence, Bannister worked to establish the Home for Aged Colored Women, created to aid retired black women who had been domestic workers. Christiana reached out to Elizabeth Goddard Shepard, who, together with her husband T.P. Shepard, happily supported Bannister's cause. The Shepards' gave Christiana’s organization a plot of land located in Fox Point, Providence, which opened as the Home for Aged Colored Women in April 1890.
Unfortunately, Christiana suffered through the later years of her life. On January 9, 1901, her beloved Edward passed away suddenly during a prayer meeting at the Elmwood Avenue Baptist Church. Soon after, Christiana found herself living in poverty and had to move into the Home that she had founded. Christiana continued to decline, becoming extremely violent, and was removed from the Home after only eight days. Later transferred to the State Hospital for the Insane, the Howard Asylum, she spent her final days in an asylum bed, suffering from extreme dementia. Christiana Babcock Carteaux Bannister died on December 29, 1902, and was buried next to her husband in the North Burial Ground.
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Formerly Beth David-Anshei Kovno Congregation/Currently Gospel Tabernacle Outreach Ministries

2017-12-08T20:10:31+00:00

This brick structure, with pedimented portico supported by four columns, was built in 1954 as the home of Congregation Beth David, a Conservative Jewish congregation founded in 1892 that previously worshipped on nearby Chalkstone Boulevard. The building was designed by Thomas Russillo, an architect of some repute responsible for many Rhode Island institutional buildings and private homes, and is sited in a residential neighborhood whose large, substantially built three-decker houses are typical of the Smith Hill area. Jewish immigrants began arriving in Providence in the late 1860s, first from Germany and then from eastern Europe, particularly Poland, Lithuania and Russia. Providence was prosperous in that period and jobs were plentiful. They settled in Smith Hill, one of Providence’s most affordable areas, living peacefully among the Irish immigrants already there. Members of both groups became shopkeepers, tailors, bakers, machinists, and soon lawyers and doctors, as well as workers in the textile, jewelry and rubber industries, drivers of Providence’s then-flourishing economy. In 1970 the Beth David congregation merged with Anshei Kovno Congregation (founded at the turn of the century by immigrants from Kovno, Lithuania). The merged congregation, called Beth David-Anshei Kovno congregation, left Providence in 1980 to join with the Beth Am congregation in Warwick. This building was then first rented and ultimately purchased by a new church, the Gospel Tabernacle Outreach Ministries (GTOM), whose home it remains today. GTOM’s missions and ministries respond to the area’s current population, largely African American and Hispanic. GTOM sponsors a Hispanic Heritage Month and works to promote education in the community with a scholarship fund and recognition awards for successful students. The organization also offers instruction in life skills such as literacy, financial responsibility, employment, and entrepreneurship. They also host a Men’s Ministry, and they run a food pantry and a food kitchen open to all. In many ways, the spirit of the original Congregation Beth David as a place of worship for new immigrants lives on in GTOM.

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Paul Cuffe Memorial

2017-11-06T14:55:58+00:00

On a cold blustery day in the winter of 1795, Captain Paul Cuffe docked his schooner Ranger in Vienna, Maryland, where he hoped to buy a load of corn.

When Cuffe–a man of color, born to a Wampanoag woman and a freed slave–and his crew–all Black or Native men–disembarked, they were met with “astonishment and alarm” by the townsfolk. Locals ran to the docks and urged the Customs officials not to give his ship a landing permit. All his papers proved to be in order, so the permit was issued. It took three weeks for Cuffe to successfully complete his business. By the time of his departure, the people of Vienna looked at him differently. His “candor, modesty, and firmness” had swayed them. He and his crew sailed home, triumphant. From a small plot of land on the banks of the Westport River that spanned less than a half-acre in total, Cuffe operated a steady and successful shipping business of common goods between Westport, New Bedford, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard. The boats on his wharf grew larger and more numerous over time. The 18-ton Box Iron gave way to the larger Sun Fish, which grew into the 40 ton Mary, and finally, Cuffe’s favorite ships, the 268-ton Alpha and the 109-ton Traveller, docked alongside the Cuffe homestead. This shipping endeavor turned Paul Cuffe into the richest Black man of his time in America. At each new port, Cuffe and his crew faced the racist reactions of white Americans. At home in Westport, Paul and John Cuffe fought against racism on the local and state level. As freed black men, they were unable to vote, but were still taxed as any other man. The brothers refused to pay their taxes, claiming taxation without representation, and were thrown in jail. They appealed to the Massachusetts courts, and a law was passed requiring taxation of freed black men, but giving them the same rights as their white counterparts. In addition to his family homestead, Cuffe owned or leased extensive landholdings in Westport where he operated businesses like a gristmill and a West Indies goods store. He helped family members acquire property by purchasing land and passing it on under favorable terms. He also provided land to support local widows and as collateral to assist others in starting business ventures. Many of Cuffe’s land transactions helped other people to meet their financial obligations, a practical and generous approach that reflected his public-spirited activities. Cuffe’s philanthropy was extensive. A member of the Westport Society of Friends, he was appointed by the congregation to a committee to decide whether a new Meeting House should be constructed. Cuffe was a leader of that committee and provided half of the costs of the new building, the same one you stand before now. Behind the meeting house is a small group of graves, each belonging to a member of the congregation. Paul Cuffe and his wife lie behind the next house, past a wall, under a tree in a group of inconspicuous Quaker graves. Distinct, prominent, and seemingly separate. This is Paul Cuffe.
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Frederick Douglass

2017-08-10T19:55:19+00:00

Abolitionists in Rhode Island!

“The public mind was awake” in Rhode Island, wrote Frederick Douglass (1817?-1895), “and one class of its people at least was ready to work with us to the extent of seeking to defeat the proposed constitution,” which would disenfranchise Black men. When news broke that the People’s Party had voted to exclude Black men from the vote, much to the chagrin of Thomas Wilson Dorr, abolitionists like Douglass and Abby Kelley flocked to Rhode Island to protest.
The road to Rhode Island proved challenging for Douglass, as travel posed a particular set of dangers for African Americans. He remembers being dragged out of his seat several times for “the crime of being colored.” And, he was forced to sleep on the deck of the ship, while his fellow white abolitionists were welcomed in the cabin below.
The abolitionists quickly discovered their task would be a difficult one. Douglass writes that “the contest was intensely bitter and exciting. We were as usual denounced as intermeddlers . . . and were told to mind our own business, and the like, a mode of defense common to men when called to account for mean and discreditable conduct.” But Douglass and his compatriots were not so easily dismissed. “We cared nothing for the Dorr party on the one hand, or the ‘law and order party’ on the other. What we wanted, and what we labored to obtain, was a constitution free from the narrow, selfish, and senseless limitation of the word white.”
The new constitution adopted in 1843, which included suffrage for Black men, was a victory for abolitionists like Douglass. Reflecting on their impact, Douglass wrote in 1881 that “our labors in Rhode Island during this Dorr excitement did more to abolitionize the State than any previous or subsequent work.”
This site in Woonsocket hosted the Anti-Slavery Convention in the fall of 1841.
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Ebenezer Baptist Church

2017-05-05T15:54:28+00:00

A Church of Many Names

The congregation of Ebenezer Baptist Church was born from the first independent African-American church in Providence. In 1819, black congregants withdrew from the First Baptist Church and built the African Union Meeting and Schoolhouse. In 1884, an independent congregation born from this community was organized under the name Ebenezer, worshipping on A Street and later at 135 Dodge Street in the city’s West End. The beautiful and unusual Richardsonian Romanesque church the congregation now occupies at 475 Cranston Street was originally built for the Cranston Street Baptist Church, a white congregation formed by missionary Moses H. Bixby in 1869. New York architect Arthur Bates Jennings designed the church, which was dedicated in 1893. By 1969, the white congregation had dwindled and the church buildings were sold to neighboring Ebenezer, which had grown to be one of the largest and most active African-American congregations in the city. Reverend Carl H. Balark Jr. has led the church since 1992 and continues the tradition of strength and action. He was the first African-American to lead the Rhode Island Council of Churches. Notable speakers at the church include Jesse Jackson and Sallye Davis, who spoke in 1971 to raise funds for the legal defense of her daughter, activist Angela Davis. Mrs. Davis said at Ebenezer’s pulpit, “If Angela gets out [of jail] tomorrow, I would carry on the fight. We can’t be content until all of us are free.”
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All Saints Memorial Church

2017-05-05T15:35:08+00:00

A Gothic Revival Church

Providence was once a city of churches. All Saints' Memorial Church is one of the last of the religious communities that grew on “Christian Hill” in the 19th century. Within a stone’s throw were the Stewart Street Baptist Church, the High Street Congregational Church, the Union Congregational Church, as well as the Second Free Will Baptist Church and Mt. Zion AME Church, two anchors of the African-American community that grew here. All Saints’ Episcopal congregation was originally formed as St. Andrew’s in 1846 but relocated here in 1868 with a new name to honor Bishop John P.K. Henshaw, the first independent Bishop of Rhode Island. Edward Tuckerman Potter's Gothic Revival design was left without a tower due to financial difficulties. The exquisite interior features elaborate woodwork and remarkable stained glass windows, including the Sanctuary Window (c. 1875) over the altar by the Henry E. Sharpe Company of New York. Today's congregation embraces the diversity of the neighborhood, including many from Providence’s strong Liberian community.
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Sts. Vartanantz Armenian Apostolic Church

2017-04-20T19:51:47+00:00

Adapted to Serve

Completed in 1892 to serve the wealthy Episcopalians of Broadway, and home for ten years to the African-American Church of the Savior, this Alpheus C. Morse-designed Romanesque Revival church has been Sts. Vartanantz Armenian Apostolic Church since 1940. Armenians found refuge in the United States after being driven from their homeland by the Ottoman Turkish brutal pogroms in the 1890s and Armenian Genocide of 1915. The immigrant arrivals called their new home in Providence the “Citadel” (mitchnapert) for the community’s strength and activism. The congregation donated their labor to build new altars, a new baptismal font, new pews, and to replace floors. The rich, timber-trussed hammerbeam ceiling over the nave resembles a protective ark. The commitment to faith and service remains as strong today as when they first arrived, representative of their history as the first nation to accept Christianity as its national religion in 301AD. This community gives aid and support to those in need at home, as well as to Armenians across the globe facing conflict and persecution.
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Primus Collins: Freed Slave and Governor

2016-06-06T17:20:16+00:00

Primus Collins was a man with great responsibilities within his community. He mediated disputes, ensured that laws were obeyed, and handed out punishments when necessary. He was similar to any other governor, with one exception—Primus Collins had once been a slave.
Collins was born in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1777, to enslaved parents Sorphox and Phillis. At the age of four, Primus’s master gave him to Colonel William Richmond of Little Compton with a term of twenty-five years of servitude. During the Revolutionary War, Richmond gained fame by raising a regiment to fight for America’s independence.
According to the 1800 Federal census, Collins belonged to a small group of twenty-two enslaved African-Americans in Little Compton. Colonel Richmond owned other enslaved persons, including Saul and Saul’s wife (name unknown). Richmond gave one of the couple’s children to local clergyman Mase Shepard.
By the end of the American Revolution, most slaves in Little Compton had been freed or their contracts turned into apprenticeships. Some had joined the black regiments in the Revolutionary War with the promise of freedom in exchange for serving. Primus remained enslaved.
Around 1800, Colonel Richmond freed Collins, releasing him from his term of service about five years early. There are no records to indicate why Richmond’s attitude toward slavery changed, but he also gave Collins a farm plot adjacent to his own land that became known as Primus’ Flat Iron because of its triangular shape.
This land gave Collins the legal right to vote in state and local elections as a free, property-owning man. However, the first time Collins tried to vote, the moderator at the polling station would not allow him to cast a ballot. His former master, Colonel William Richmond, who had encouraged Collins to vote in the first place, interceded on his behalf, raising his cane and shouting, “That man shall vote!” and Collins was able to cast his ballot.
The legal status of freed slaves was unclear in early nineteenth century America. The voting laws in some states allowed people like Primus Collins access to local politics. Perhaps in response, Little Compton’s Isaac Wilbour, Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, supposedly inserted the word “white” into the state voting statute. The voting rights issue would not be resolved until the passage of the 15th amendment in 1870.
In spite of this, Collins continued to vote in Little Compton throughout his long life. He married, purchased additional land, and upon his death in 1858 left this inheritance to his daughters, including Lucy, shown in the photograph. Collins was nominated to serve on the Rhode Island General Assembly, but racial sentiments prevailed and he was not appointed.
Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, black communities in New England chose their governors on an appointed “‘Lection Day,” an event that combined North American and West African celebratory traditions.
‘Lection Day usually began with a procession to the polling place, and a “grand jollification” when the ballots were counted and the winner of the election was declared. The celebration included singing, dancing, and another procession to the home of the new governor, who treated supporters to food and rum.
It was a fitting celebration for a new governor, and for the life of a remarkable man who achieved success far beyond the boundaries that confined him. His grave is located in the Old Burial Grounds next to his wife and daughters.
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Temple Landing

2016-05-11T19:15:30+00:00

Rainbow-colored homes spring up from the street grid in New Bedford’s West End like children’s play blocks. However, underneath the colorful patina of the Temple Landing Apartments lays a dramatic history of protest, neglect, and reuse.
To understand the full history of these bright new houses you must travel back half a century to the summers of the late 1960s and early 1970s. During the Civil Rights era, Black residents of New Bedford increasingly voiced their discontent over high unemployment and discriminatory hiring practices, poor public schools, and inadequate, unsafe housing.
In a series of actions called “the rebellion” by protestors and “the riots” by many others, the summer of 1970 erupted in arson, looting, sniper fire, and street confrontations in an increasingly hostile relationship between New Bedford’s Black residents and the police department. At one point, the National Guard was placed on alert in nearby Fall River.
These conflicts started in a variety of ways. Protests arose over the arrests of young African American men without obvious justification, and again when three white teenagers from surrounding towns drove into the neighborhood and shot indiscriminately into a crowd, killing one bystander and wounding several others. A white resident driving through the area told police he had been shot in the ankle as he passed the protest headquarters. The following day, New Bedford and state police raided the building, targeting the Black Panther-affiliated organizers. Twenty-one people were arrested, including unaffiliated activists, community supporters, and bystanders, and were charged with conspiracy to commit murder, anarchy, and riots.
Following this unrest, a group of community members established the United Front Development Corporation, which supported the construction of more and higher quality housing in the neighborhood on the site of the New Bedford Cordage Company, established in 1842 by ship owners and captains who needed rope for whaling vessels. The company grew and eventually filled a four-acre parcel bounded by Court, Emerson, Ash, and Kempton Streets, before closing in 1964. In 1973, a massive fire destroyed a two-block section of the vacant rope factory, and the remainder was demolished, along with older, blighted housing to make way for the United Front Homes.
The project was progressive and experimental for its time. Closed off from the general street grid, the 200-unit affordable housing development was accompanied by green space, a community center, and a daycare facility.
However, these 200 units did not meet the demands of the housing shortage. Meanwhile, the closed-off nature of the compound prevented police from driving through the development. Crime flourished, much of it committed by the United Front street gang, further damaging the development’s reputation. In 2008, a quarter of all shootings in New Bedford took place in United Front.
The tide began to turn after 2009, when several gang members were arrested. In 2010, the Boston-based group Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH) extensively renovated the complex, partnering with United Front Development Corporation to improve 138 units, demolish 62 others, and build 35 new units. The net loss of 27 units was caused by reopening the complex to the street grid, connecting United Front with the rest of the city, and making crime prevention easier.
The new developers, eager to shed the connotations that United Front carried, renamed the development “Temple Landing” after Lewis Temple, the African-American inventor of the toggle harpoon that revolutionized whaling. Crime in the neighborhood has decreased since the opening of the new units, but only time will tell if this project serves the community better than its predecessor.
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Newport Distilling Company: A Pirate's Legacy

2016-05-11T05:37:35+00:00

Thomas Tew gained such renown for his exploits from 1692 until 1695 that he was nicknamed the Rhode Island Pirate. Tew, a privateer from Newport who turned to piracy, led two major voyages, and accrued more treasure than he could spend before he met a violent death. Due to his colorful role in the city’s history, the Newport Distilling Company named their first product after him--Thomas Tew Rum. Tew’s namesake is not the first rum to be made in these parts. Before the nineteenth century, Newport was the “rum capital of the world.” Today’s rum distillers use a process similar to that employed in the eighteenth century, mixing blackstrap molasses with local water and fermenting it in tanks using yeast from the adjacent brewery. This process yields a liquid called a “wash” that is then distilled twice. The resulting spirit is aged for several years in oak barrels before water is added to lower the proof. Finally, the rum is individually bottled, corked, and sealed with wax. Rum played a central role in “the triangle trade,” a term used to describe the selling of rum, sugar, goods, and enslaved Africans among the nations of Europe, Western Africa, the Caribbean, and the Eastern United States. Rum-making and the triangle trade historically provided much of Newport’s wealth, and depended on the labor and selling of enslaved Africans and African Americans whose contributions are too often ignored. In addition, African Americans contributed a great deal to the culinary heritage of the Ocean State, such as the oysters and other foods offered by restaurateur George T. Downing at the Sea Girt Hotel in Newport, another stop on this tour and on the Rhode Island Black Heritage Tour. Today, visitors to the Newport Distilling Company can go on free tours of the facility, also home to Newport Storm Brewery, and reflect on the shifting social and political climates of the past three centuries that have led to the revival of this once-ubiquitous spirit.
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The Home of Sissieretta Jones

2016-03-21T19:35:15+00:00

If anyone deserves a blockbuster biopic on this tour, it is Sissieretta Jones. Jones, a soprano, studied voice at the Providence Academy of Music, the New England Conservatory and the Boston Conservatory and in 1892 became the first African-American to perform at Carnegie Hall. That year, she also performed at the White House for President Benjamin Harrison, and later for three other presidents after him. By 1895 Jones was the highest paid African-American performer of her day.
Married at age 14, she divorced her husband in 1899 due in part to his gambling and mismanagement of her musical career, and formed a traveling dance-comedy-musical group called the Black Patti Troubadours as many opera houses barred African-Americans from singing (it wasn’t until 1955 that Marian Anderson broke this barrier at the Metropolitan Opera in New York).
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"Watchman, what of the night?": Watchman Industrial School

2014-06-18T15:18:15+00:00

By the early 1900s, race relations in the United Sates had grown increasingly tumultuous. Despite the abolishment of slavery, post-Civil War America was laden with barriers for people of color. Prominent Black leaders disagreed about how best to move forward. On the one hand, W.E.B. DuBois urged his supporters to challenge racial segregation and Black disenfranchisement directly. However, Booker T. Washington, a famous former slave, advocated for a less confrontational approach. Only education, argued Washington, could lead Blacks toward economic prosperity and ultimately give them an opportunity to attain true American freedom and equality.
Heeding the words of Booker T. Washington, a young Providence minister and his wife decided to open their own institution of learning for Black Rhode Islanders. Reverend William S. Holland, the son of a Virginia slave, had come to Providence in 1902, to take the pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church. He quickly realized that the racial realities of the twentieth century – namely, the lack of educational and economic opportunity – threatened his congregation and the Black community at large. In 1908, the couple founded the Watchman Industrial School on Codding Street in Providence, naming the school after the Reverend’s favorite biblical passage:
“…Watchman, what of the night?
The Watchman said, ‘The morning cometh, and also the night…”
Isaiah 21:11-12 Young men at the institute were offered academic instruction as well as courses in carpentry, masonry, and machine repair. Such tremendous learning opportunities were intended to increase young Black men’s chances of gainful employment. Interestingly, Reverend Holland recruited many of his students from Providence’s juvenile court. He defended youth who committed acts motivated by poverty – such as food theft – by asking judges to place them in his care at the Watchman Industrial School rather than sending them to the Sockanosset School for Boys.
The Watchman Industrial School became a beacon of hope for Rhode Island’s Black community. The variety of vocational and academic courses offered, in addition to the child care services that the school provided for working-class parents, made the Institute extremely popular – so popular, in fact, that by the early 1920s, it had outgrown its Codding Street location. Miraculously, by 1923, Reverend Holland had scraped together enough funds to purchase a spacious estate in North Scituate, Rhode Island.
The four acres that came with the new property allowed for the addition of courses in agriculture, blacksmithing, shoe repair, cooking, and sewing. Additionally, Reverend Holland established a summer camp that utilized a nearby lake. Unfortunately, the Watchman Institute’s move to rural Rhode Island brought an entirely new set of problems.
Within a decade of moving to North Scituate, the Watchman Industrial School was plagued by a rash of unexplained fires – vicious attacks attributed to Rhode Island members of the KKK. The hate group terrorized the Institute and its young Black residents relentlessly, hoping to force them out, or burn them out. While the Watchman Industrial School was never physically destroyed, the repeated arson succeeded in financially draining Reverend Holland’s dream. After the Hurricane of ’38 further damaged the deteriorating buildings, the year-round school closed. Reverend Holland continued to operate the Institute’s summer camp until his death in 1958. His wife continued the program until a lack of funds finally ended it in 1974.
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God’s Little Acre: Newport's Common Burying Ground

2014-06-11T23:34:12+00:00

“In Memory of Duchess Quamino, A free black of distinguished excellence: Intelligent, Industrious, Affectionate, Honest, and of Exemplary Piety, Who deceased June 4, 1804, aged 65.”
Quamino’s weather-worn marker, along with nearly 300 others, comprise a section of Newport’s Common Burial Ground known as “God’s Little Acre,” one of the oldest and largest colonial African burial grounds in the United States. Dating from the late 1600s, “God’s Little Acre” offers insight into the lives of enslaved and free Africans such as Quamino through the commemorative words and images etched into stone.
Although described as a “free black” on her marker, Quamino was enslaved in the home of William Channing until she bought her freedom. Quamino also lived in her master’s house, which was customary in urban seaports where slaves worked in trades and crafts rather than on plantations. Many of the slaves brought to Newport were young children who worked alongside their masters to learn skills like rum making, rope braiding, stone carving, candle making, and chocolate grinding. Quamino used her culinary skills to run a catering business out of her master’s house. Her entrepreneurial success allowed her to purchase her freedom and earned her the title “Pastry Queen of Rhode Island.”
Quamino’s inscription praises her “Exemplary Piety” and includes a hymnal verse: “Blessed thy slumbers in this house of clay, And bright thy rising to eternal day.” With these words, William Ellery Channing, the founder of the Unitarian Church and the author of the epitaph, recognized Quamino’s involvement in the religious community of Newport. Quamino’s husband John was also a devout Christian. After gaining his freedom, he studied alongside a minister at Princeton in preparation for missionary work in Africa, but their plans dissolved when John was killed aboard a privateer ship during the American Revolution.
Like many slaves in colonial Newport, the Quaminos experienced the wave of Christian revival known as the Great Awakening during which Protestant America sought to convert the African population. In Newport, some slaves were provided religious education, converted to their master’s religion, and worshipped with the family in the home and at church. The burial ground reflects the breadth of religious diversity present in the city through carvings of angels, Biblical verses, and acknowledgements of those who lived with virtue and piousness.
The markers also tell about the origins of the deceased through the traditions of names. The prevalence of Anglicized or phonetically spelled versions of names from the African Gold Coast revealed the homeland of many Newport slaves to be Ghana. Upholding the naming tradition of the Akan people, the Africans often had names that identified the day of the week and order in which they were born. The name “Quamino” is given to boys born on a Saturday. In Duchess’ case, “Quamino” was her married name after her husband.
Walking through “God’s Little Acre,” the leaning, faded colonial stones are joined by the new markers of their descendants, a tribute to the resilience and preservation of African heritage in Rhode Island.
In November 2025, Duchess Quamino played a prominent role in “Life After Life,” a live performance developed through research and performed by 50 community members in Newport Common Burying Ground in November 2025. Actress Rebekah Acquah embodied Duchess, a transformative experience that gave her profound insight into Duchess’s character: “[This play] allowed me to honor not just [who the characters] were in the books, but also who the person was. It gave me the ability to give life to the dead.” As Rebekah noted, Duchess sparked opportunities for generations to come through her entrepreneurship, determination, and drive: “[Duchess] purchased her freedom and her children’s freedom and then bought a home next to the people who enslaved her. That’s a boss…If it wasn’t for someone like Duchess Quamino and so many others, I wouldn’t have been free to express [myself], to be sitting in this room right now.” You can see Rebekah portray Duchess in the Image Gallery below, and can learn more about “Life After Life” here: centeraquidneck.com/life-after-life-about
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